 in the studio. I'm your sometimes host Matt Blake and I've got a great treat for you today. We're going to be talking about the new Harmony Jazz Band out of Davis. We have some footage of them live at the Davis Craft and Vintage Fair. Let's watch that. And that was some footage from the Davis Craft and Vintage Fair in Central Park. Tell me, what are you guys all about? Well, you know, we're basically jazz aficionados, people who love jazz and love to play jazz and looking for a way to provide live music to the community. I'm sorry, I just realized I got so excited about talking to you guys I forgot to introduce you. We've got Eric and Mike with me, the founder, Michael Hearn of the new Harmony Jazz Band and plays the trumpet. And Eric, what is your last name? Zilbert. Eric Zilbert who plays the Coronet. Coronet, which is like a smaller version of the trumpet. Yeah, okay. Very nice. And so bringing music to Davis and people. Right. So, you know, it's very expensive to have a show with like an 11 piece jazz band. And so what we try to do is make it possible for various community events to have live jazz. And, you know, in a way it's sort of like if baseball was no longer televised in a popular sport, but a group of like-minded people got together to do an exhibition baseball game. We do exhibitions of jazz and sometimes it feels very much like we're a performance art piece. Very cool. And then do you usually play in a large group? Is it usually an 11 piece ensemble? It all depends on what the need is for the gig. We recently played with a five piece ensemble for a Mardi Gras type party for a community organization. And then, yeah, we will show up with 14 people sometimes for the right gig. We played swing dance music for the swing dance club. And there we came with a full on, you know, Benny Goodman Orchestra practically. So we have probably on the order of 15, 60 members, maybe 25 people have gone through the band over the last five years. And, you know, whatever the traffic will bear, we'll put something together to make it happen. All right. So over the last five years, tell me more about your history. Have you been around for a while? Well, yeah, we've been around at least five years. And I'd say that, you know, we owe the existence of the band really to the Woodland Community Band where Mike and I met and we noodled around playing some jazz once in a while. And really, we were wanting to have a jazz band. And Mike was a music student at the University of the Time, just graduated with his bachelor's degree in music. And he was able to bring in some additional musicians. And we knew some other people at that band. And so we started playing. And then the vintage, the Craft and Vintage Fair has given us a place to perform for the last several years that's really helped, you know, promote our practicing and getting together and keeping members in the band. But there have been a lot of students in the band. There's been some faculty in the band and just people from the community. We have currently a pianist and a vocalist who come all the way from Marysville to participate. And remind me, the Craft and Vintage Fair here in Davis is once a month, it's in Central Park. On Sunday, it's the first Sunday of the month, generally, though they beef it up a little bit in November and December around the holiday. So we have two shows there at that time of year. Okay, great. And so if people wanted to see the band, they could go there. How else could they get in touch with you? We play on every last Friday of the month at John Nutsulus Gallery in something called Friday Jazz Night. And then and it's kind of jazz and jazz education together. And then we also have a Facebook page, New Harmony Jazz Band, where you can see footage of us or listen to cuts and also figure out where we're going next. All right. And so we can talk about where you're going next. But how about some highlights of where you've been? What have you guys done? Oh, you know, every year we play the fourth of July show for Woodland, the city of Woodland. So we play in the gazebo in the park there and all the kids come by on their bicycles and things, you know, as part of the parade. And we provide a couple hours of entertainment on the fourth of July afternoon. That's been great. I mentioned the the swing group where we've played for their, you know, annual event, whatever. And, you know, we've done one of the organizations that's been very supportive of us is the Mutual Housing Cooperative. We played for a couple of their events. We even played for Daryl Steinberg once. And John Gehrman's office also. Right, John Gehrman's office. Yeah, I mean, primarily we do a lot of community work. So we put ourselves out there to provide jazz for anybody. Yeah, we pretty much, you know, do it for, you know, gas money. Everything is, it's totally nonprofit. I can guarantee that as the treasurer. And, you know, we're just trying to cover people's expenses and we'll take whatever, you know, the organization, you know, can afford in terms of support, but definitely not what it would cost, you know, to do private type of work. And also, we try not to step on the toes of professional musicians. You know, we don't take weddings and things like that. You know, it's intended for, you know, community purpose where pretty much anybody could come and hear us. Oh, that's great. That's great. And then, so what is next? Where do you guys see yourselves moving next? We want to play more. We want to play more. Well, yeah, and really work on like just last night, we were working on an acoustic version of the band, six members who are going to play this coming Saturday at the Davis Farmers Market from nine to 12. And so that required, you know, some rethinking of the arrangements and stuff. I'm looking for retiring in a couple years here. And I would like to arrange jazz music for a band. And so these would be my guinea pigs for arrangements that I might produce. And I know Michael has interests in furthering his music career. Oh, yeah. The band can do that as well. Play much. You know, as Eric said, I'm a graduate of Musee Davis with music degrees, so I can arrange and write. And I plan to tremendously, tremendously, yeah. And that's one of the great gifts about living in Davis also is we have somebody, you said, Avis students that contribute in large ways and have played with us. Different members have and there's interaction that we've liked quite often with the community. But we've, you know, we've had musicians as young as 19. And up until recently, we had a drummer who was well in his 80s. He played in the big swing dancer. Played with Count Basie. Yeah. So you know, it's everything's out there, you know, in the community to work with. And we do it for the fun of it. It's just, for me, it's one of the funnest things I do. We love jazz. We love jazz. The interaction between the community and playing in concerts and all that is incredible. It's a beautiful thing to be able to perform and do music and get the response that we get. Yeah. And so do you often find like when you're playing, you know, in Central Park, something like that, are you are you playing off the crowd? Are you improvising a lot or, you know, we really feature a lot of improvisation. I think most of the band members love jazz because they love the chance to really express themselves, you know, personally in the music. We, you know, always, there's always a tension between how a range should it be and how freeform should it be. And we're trying to put together something that sounds good most of the time. You know, the idea of new harmony, you know, what's a new harmony, how many harmonies are there? Well, believe me, you listen to us, you'll hear some harmonies you may never have heard before, depending on who shows up and what we're playing. But we are, you know, very well received for the most part. But it is extraordinary to me how many people can just walk by and not even stop it and listen or look for a minute to the band, how live music is somehow not a remarkable thing. The little kids get it. Little kids stop and just their jaws drop open and they look at the trumpets and the instruments and they go, what is this? But for many adults, they're kind of jaded, you know, there's trot on by. It's an old thing. And that's very interesting because we do play jazz, a sort like Louis Armstrong. We've been known to play the Armstrong numbers as well as modern pieces of jazz. So we try to, you know, do all aspects of jazz and we're that talented to be able to do that to some extent as a community band. But Eric's right. I mean, the response from the audience is different times, is very unique, very good. You can be able to dance sometimes, you know, but the the avenue of live music in the community is really a beneficial thing that we like doing. Yeah, one of the greatest endorsements is being called back to do something over and over. Yeah, right. So we've been we've done what the 4th of July, four or five years. Yeah, yeah, through the city of Woodland. And then what's the the International Festival in Central Park? We've played that three, four times now. So you know, we finish up the festival and represent American music in playing jazz. And so that's really a fun as well. But, you know, Mike's right, we play the whole book going back, you know, to WC handy in the early part of, you know, the 20th century, all the way through Miles Davis, Miles Davis, Antonio Coralos, Jobim and Latin jazz. You know, we're not too constrained. And like I said, we'll we'll do big band swing numbers and little Foxtrot numbers and everything in between. And are you two primarily the ones coming up with those ideas? Or is it really the whole band coming together? No, you know, we have we literally have had like a separate music director to think about, you know, putting together the shows and whatnot. But we all contribute to some degree, like last night, I would say there were two of us, the clarinet player and myself, who are really trying to work out how these acoustic pieces were going to go, you know, we trim down the the leads on it. So there wouldn't be overwhelming horns, you know, relative to the the bass and the guitar because they're not using any amplification. And that's the cool thing. And the challenging thing about like this show coming up is no amps, guys. So figure out how to do it. And that's what makes it fun. Yeah, I mean, it really sounds like it is sort of of the community and for the community, right, which really makes it makes it harmonious. I said, yeah, a new harmony. And then we have our rehearsals at, you know, the new Harmony housing collective where Mike lives. And so, you know, that too has been a wonderful thing. Because if you're a band like us, finding rehearsal space is, is quite tough. And so again, to have, you know, community organization that supports us, a family party there takes precedent over us. But when it's not being used, we do have access to it. We really appreciate that. That's great. And so how often do you get together and practice? And is it leading up to a gig? Or do you have a regular rehearsal? Sorry to be leading up to a gig. But we tried to meet probably regularly twice a month. Oh, great. Yeah. But there are other aspects of getting together. But, you know, we about that. Yeah. I mean, we don't rehearse daily or even weekly, primarily, but we do on a regular basis, get together, rehearse and every other Sunday sort of thing when we can swing it. Yeah. And members of the band will have a post like Eric was saying, we have a member who's the music director, he put together a set list. So do all those things. I'm the manager, Eric's the treasurer, co-founder also. And we have different like posts in the band. So it's really member-oriented to contribute to put things together. You know, yeah. So it's really good in that way. Yeah, it sounds great. It's very healthy. Yeah, it sounds very healthy. And so how much turnover do you have? I don't know if turnover is the right word. Couple people a year. Yeah, couple people a year. Okay. Not much. Only because of their changes, primarily, maybe they move on or we've got a great bunch of people, you know, we always get along. We work through things. There's very rarely some sort of dissonance that can happen. You know, we just recently added a vocalist. And she's great. She's one of the members that Eric mentioned comes from Marysville, the city, and she's incredible. Yeah. That's really great. So it's a really good contributing factor. Each member does. All right. And so do you play trumpet because trumpet is your favorite? And do you play Coronet because Coronet is your favorite? Or how are those? We have a battle. We have a battle. I play Coronet because I find the Coronet is more flexible in terms of playing jazz that I can bend notes and do things with the horn that I couldn't do with a regular trumpet so much but restricts the range a little bit and things. But yeah, I play it because it's my funnest thing to play. I think I sound good on it too. I play trumpet mainly because I was brought up on it. Louis Armstrong started on Coronet and many, many of your shows never touched a trumpet. They always say on Coronet. So the difference largely sometimes is the sound like Eric says. It's a great sound. Coronet is beautiful. Yeah, very nice. Yeah. I mean, and it sounds like not just the Coronet, not just the trumpet, the whole band together sounds great. Yeah, right. And you know, the mix changes depending who's there who can attend what the purpose of the gig is that kind of thing. And you know, people new people come to rehearsals and we try out with them and see if they can fit with our current organization as it were. And sometimes they they join us and sometimes they don't. But you know, we have to keep it sort of to a manageable size. But like I said, it fluctuates. And that largely events we play for our community free events, like the fair of such free. The the concert we do for John and tools monthly is free to the community. So we really try to emphasize that. But we do do other things. But primarily that's what would be the cost. It's great. It's great that you're out there. And like I said, I think sort of of the community and for the community. And it's great. So get out there and definitely check out the new Harmony Jazz Band here in Davis and Woodlud. And thank you for joining me in the studio. Thanks. Thank you, man for having us. Thank you for being here.