 Aloha and welcome to the Hawaii Smooth Jazz Connection. I am your host, Gwendolyn Harris. My guest today is no stranger to Hawaii. This bassist, composer, and band leader has been in the music industry for over 40 years. He has been a part of many musical groups all over the country, including bands out of Hawaii, Hollywood, California, New York City, and Richmond, Virginia, playing a wide variety of musical styles. He has shared the stage with groups such as Twisted Sister, Man of War, and Trickster, just to name a few. He has opened for several national recording artists to include Marion Meadows, Bob Baldwin, Chuck Brown, and Roberta Flack. This musician has released a new album titled They Call Me Big New York, which has had two singles to climb the charts. I am happy to have him here today. And let's welcome Mr. Christian Dimisonis to the show. Aloha, Christian. Aloha, how are you today? I am fine. I am great. Now, what I read was just a snippet, just a snippet of what you do, just a snippet of what you have done. Tell us how you got your start in the music industry. The professional side of the music biz for me, I guess my very first contract at gig was right in your favorite place, Oahu. That was my very first professional contract at gig where I got paid $350 a week. I didn't have a day job. I lived on Wailua Beach Road. I went surfing. I played three nights a week, four sets. And that was my first professional gig. That was 1981. Wow. Well, how did you like Hawaii when you were here? Culture shock. It was a big, big shock. I mean, being a Brooklyn boy, leaving New York in 79, going to Hollywood in 79 and 80, and then going straight from Hollywood to Hawaii was a really culture shock. But I have to say that I do have really fond memories. It's been so long. I mean, it's coming up on a 40-year anniversary for me. Wow. Well, tell us about your latest album that is out. They called me Big New York was released on February 20th, right before the COVID-19 epidemic really hit, I guess hit the United States. And I was very fortunate because my first single from that album, which is called Big Tall Wish, that was released in January. And immediately it just started climbing the charts. I mean, it stayed on a lot of the charts for a long, long time, about four months. And my highest chart on that was number six on the groove jazz chart. And then I didn't even realize this, but also Big Tall Wish and Throb were added to the music choice, television, a streaming platform. Which is, it's a pretty big deal. And I remember you sending me a screenshot of Throb. Now I didn't know, I heard that Throb was on music choice, but I really didn't know. I thought it was like a rumor, but I definitely knew Big Tall Wish made it. So when you sent me Throb, I was very, very happy. Yeah, I was, when I saw that, I was like, oh, I have got to take a picture and send this, send this to him. But I do want to get back, I know I just asked you about your album, but what I want to get back to is when you first started in the music industry at the age of 18, because you started very young, you graduated from the base Institute of Technology in Hollywood, California. And what I would love people to know is that you were taught by, or you studied with, with some big names, Pat Mothini. Amazing. Okay, hold up, hold up. Pat Mothini along with Lewis Johnson, and Tim Bogart, and I believe a couple other names, Ray Brown, which is, Ray Brown is legendary. Those were all workshops. Some of them were more intimate than others. For instance, Abraham Laboreal, which is one of my favorite bass players, he actually did a one-on-one with a group of like 10 of us in a small room, and it was mind-blowing. It was a unforgettable experience, but I was very fortunate to be at that location at that time with a lot of LA session players. Now you got to remember, LA session players in 1979, 1980, that was the height of the music biz. These guys were getting calls all the time, their calendars were full, and so the fact that they came in and gave us one-on-one workshops was really, really incredible, really. Right, yes, I saw that, I saw when you look at your bio and I saw those names, I would have loved to have been in on that. Now from California, that's when you came to Hawaii, correct? Was that one of your big, one of your first paying gigs, like you said, was here in Hawaii? And then from Hawaii, you went back to- I went back to New York City. Went back to New York City, and you have that heavy New York City accent, which I hear- No, I don't, come on. No, you're tired, no, no, no, I hear it, I hear it, but there's not a problem with that. I really speak like this, but I change my voice. No, no, no, no, you know- That's prevalent, you can hear it, but it's awesome, it's, you know, that's awesome, but then from New York City, in the early 80s, you went on to, you moved to Richmond, Virginia. And what happened- Go ahead. What happened, since you're going through my timeline- I am. I'm gonna help you a little bit. So I did go back to New York City in the early 80s, and I did play in various bands, but the biggest, and I really thought that this was gonna be my big moment, because my goal at that time, I was in my mid-20s, I really wanted to be a touring hard rock bass player. I wanted to be in a band that was doing the arena life, the bus road life, all that. And so I did have a band called Twice Shy, and we did achieve something that was pretty cool. We opened up for a lot of big-name heavy metal bands in the 80s in Brooklyn at La Mores, which La Mores is known in the history books as the heavy metal capital of the world. Even Rolling Stone Magazine did a story on the most influential club spots in the 80s for hard rock and heavy metal. And La Mores came in at number one, so I was part of that history. And, you know, I thought I was gonna get signed to a record contract. As a matter of fact, I was in the Battle of the Bands. I had 200 bands. We came in second, and we lost to a band that went on to become an MTV favorite. They were called Trickster. Now, I don't know, Gwen, if you have a hard rock background or not. I don't. Okay, but I will tell you this, the funny thing for me, it broke my heart that I lost to Trickster, but life is sweet sometimes because what happened, and I know this is mean, but I felt a little bit vindicated because what happened was back in MTV days, there was a TV series called Beavis and Butthead. Do you remember Beavis and Butthead? I remember that. I do remember that. Okay. Beavis and Butthead used to make fun of all those hair bands that they felt were untalented and Trickster was one of them and Boyd and Beavis and Butthead make fun of that band. So, hey, I know that's mean, that's not nice, but hey. That's a little bit of my story back then. So you started out as a, I wanna say as a heavy rocker, heavy metal rock band person, right? Musician. Right, right. And when you moved to Richmond in that area, I'm just guessing, when you moved to Richmond, it was kind of when you kind of moved and switched over to the R&B, jazz, smooth jazz field? Well, I don't mention this, but the band that I did have before I left to Richmond was called Afro Twisto. Oh. And it was a band, it was just, I did so many startup projects. I mean, I tried to count them one day and I think I got around 29 bands that I've been into in my life somewhere around there. But, you know, what was happening back then, right before I went to Richmond, was I was starting to play R&B, soul and funk music. I was just starting to get into that and even play some instrumental jazz. So that was kind of the beginning. And then once I went to Richmond, my first band was, it's really funny because it's really, really funny because I played in a blues funk band called the jalapeno funk abilities, which of course nobody knows of, but we were on the Richmond circuit for a little bit. And then I started playing smooth jazz. So it was Caribbean jazz, Latin jazz, Calypso. I was even doing some soca. So I was playing some, yeah, some Byron Lee. You know anything about Byron Lee? A little bit? A little bit? Yeah, everybody needs a good buddy. But yeah, I was playing a bunch of stuff and I was just really open-minded. And that's what led me to playing and opening up for those bands during the 90s because I was in a band called Big Pat and Legion and they were getting gigs, opening spots for Marion Meadows, Bob Baldwin, Down to the Bone, Chuck Brown, Jazzy Fatnasties. I mean, there was so many different bands. I can't even remember all of them, but we did play some great gigs then, back then. Wow. Well, tell me about the band that you were in groove school because I know, and we talked about this the other day, I know one of your vocalists for that band, Laurie Williams. We went to school together. I know. I know, you told me you were at the school together. Yes, we went to Hampton. We went to Hampton University together. Yeah, that's a very, very small world. And I met Laurie. Actually, I friended Laurie on Myspace and then we became friends on Facebook. And I just, you know, groove school, the thing about groove school was now, so trying to catch you up because now we're in, we started in 1979, went into the 80s and the 90s was Richmond. And then in the 2000s, I came up to the Washington DC area. I actually took a job for a record store chain up here called Ketmill Music and sold CDs for a living. That was my day gig. And what happened was, I really wasn't playing music. It was kind of sad. I was teaching bass. I was involved in playing in churches in the area. So I was playing, but I didn't have a band and I wasn't playing original music at all back then. And what happened was when the whole, you know, the crash, so to speak, of the record store business, when that started falling apart and everybody was closing and going out of business, that's when my new life, I guess, started with groove school. Well, if you haven't heard, I, you know, I had to do research and I like groove school. I wish I had known about it back then, but I like groove school. Some of the tunes from there, you know, I absolutely love it. And I know, and we'll talk about this a little bit later, but one of the songs, I believe it's Latin Jive of a groove school, you remade it, correct? For your new album. Correct, yes. And I love both of them. And we're gonna talk about that. We will definitely talk about, talk about that new album when we come back. Cause we have to go on a quick break. Okay. When we come back, we will talk about that. Thank you. Thank you so much. Don't go anywhere. Thank you. Aloha, I'm Keisha King, host of Crossroads in Learning on Bintek, Hawaii. On Crossroads in Learning, our guests and I discuss all aspects of education here in Hawaii and throughout the country. You can join us for stimulating conversations to enrich and liven and educate. We are streamed live on Think Tech bi-weekly at 4 p.m. on Mondays. Thanks so much for watching our show. We look forward to seeing you then. Aloha. Alloha and welcome back to Hawaii's smooth jazz connection where we are speaking with Mr. Christian de Missones who has ties to Hawaii. And I know eventually we're gonna bring him back here, but we were talking about his history and now we are going to move into his album, Big Tall with, they call me Mr. Big Me, you're right. You're a mess girl. I know, I know, I know, I know. They call me, they call me Big New York. There you go. They call me Big New York. And here's the thing, I have it right here on my notes. So we're gonna talk about your album. They call me Big New York. And you have some songs on there that I absolutely love. We just talked about when you were with the group group school and how you did an album. And you had a tune on there called Latin Jive that is now on your new album. Well, you have some other things that I like on that new album. And we've talked about this as well. The two songs that I love on there are, the first one is Spirit, which we didn't talk about that. And then the other one is Hispanica. Thank you so much for mentioning Hispanica. That is my heart and soul. You're not supposed to have personal favorites, especially when they're your children. All of them are your children. But on that album, I would have to say that Hispanica is really my, it's just my favorite song. There's something about that song, especially, you know, a music lover will tell you this. When you get a chill on the back of your spine or the back of your neck, the hairs, you know, raise up on your arms or your neck, you know, because of music, and you've done something right. And I've heard that by many, many people after listening to that song, they're like, that song really, really takes me somewhere. So I appreciate that, Gwen. Thank you. Oh, I love it. I love it. Well, you know, I love the Hispanic flair as well too. And I know that you are going to be getting back. I read somewhere where you wanted to get back into your Latin roots. I am trying. It's a challenge because, you know, my dad, when he was alive, he really was always pushing his legacy. You know, he was really big on lineage. And I just didn't like pay attention. You know, I was one of those punk kids. So I was like, yeah, dad, whatever, whatever, right? But now that I'm older, now that he's gone and I'm finding a lot of my cousins, I must have like a hundred cousins on Facebook from Peru. And so it's like, oh my God. So yeah, I'm definitely one of my goals after, you know, after this album, I'll say I would give it a little time. But once I guess the magic of this album starts faltering a little bit and people start forgetting a little bit about it and whatever, I will start working on my next album, which is going to be a continuation of Hispanica. Now a question that I ask and I ask a lot of artists is music is really big to me. And it's big to me because for my mother was a musician and playing music in the schools, playing in the marching band through high school and in college, but in 2008, you created a nonprofit event called Bass Symphony, celebrating the gift of music through the spirit of youth. I did do that. I did that for two years and I would like to really continue that to be honest with you. It cost a lot of money to put that together and it came out of, you know, my wife and myself's pocket. But we didn't have, we did have some good sponsors. We had Bass Player Magazine and Hartke's, a Hartke electronic sponsoring the event. But what we did then was basically, I just put, I guess about 14 young bass guitar players, even an upright bassist. And I created about nine or 10, a set list of about nine songs and each one played a different song. Some of them soloed. Some of them played regular bass. I mean, I had three-part harmony bass. I mean, it was my first, I guess my first big event, I would say, on my own doing it, you know, somewhat on my own. And I would like to continue that. But thanks for mentioning that. I really, I hope that I can go back to teaching music as much as I'm loving my recorded music life right now, you know? Well, what is your feeling about them taking music and the arts out of the schools due to funding? My whole opinion on anything that they use the excuse of lack of funds makes me sick to my stomach, especially when it comes to education. Of course, music would be right up there on top, but the reality is that working in the school business, I mean, in the school atmosphere myself, I work for Prince William County Schools here in Virginia. I can tell you right now that there's just so many teachers, so many people involved with these children that the rubber band is so spread out. It's amazing. And these teachers are spending money on their own pockets to make things happen for their children and everybody that's involved in a learning academic environment, they all care about their children, they all care and they'll do anything to make them happy. So when I hear funding, it's like, don't get me started, don't get me started, please don't get me started. But we're gonna move on to another, I have another question for you. With this pandemic that's going on with the COVID-19, you know, that put the music industry and everything to a complete halt basically. And now musicians and all artists are basically looking at Facebook, Instagram and all that to showcase their music or whatever it is. With the pandemic slowly ending, I should say, what do you have coming up, if anything? What shows do you have anything coming up that we can put on our calendars to be on the lookout for? First of all, you know, the pandemic is not coming to an end, it's not. We're all going back to the phase one to start reopening, but what we're all going to find is because the vaccines are not available, they're in the test phase right now. And I just heard today on NBC News that one of the vaccines is there in phase three. So it's definitely getting closer to what we need to do. But until there is a vaccine for COVID-19, people are gonna take their chance going out. And I know I'm not gonna be one of them. I mean, I'm gonna wait until I feel that it's safe to do so. As far as my calendar is concerned, the only thing is I probably will do a Facebook Live event for my birthday in July, around July 11th or so. And I'm thinking about doing it where I can get musicians, the four or five of us in a room somewhere in the studio and just start playing music. And I don't even think we're gonna do, I don't know what kind of music we're gonna do. We might do all brand new music. I'm not sure, but that's my goal. And I really wanna include as many people that are available in a very safe environment where we're all six feet apart. We all have our mask on because you really can't take a chance. Right. You really can't. I don't know about you. Have you lost anybody personally to COVID-19? I did, I lost a cousin. I did, he was from New York, yes. Right, so I think we spoke about that. So I lost my father-in-law and that was a big, big shock. It just really rocked our world because of what happened afterward. It's one thing to lose somebody for natural causes, right? But when you're losing the COVID, what happens is you can't be there. You can't be in the hospital. You can't see them. It takes a long time for the red tape to be able for them to release, your family's remains and go through that whole process. So I'm taking COVID-19 very, very seriously. Yes. As much as I want to play out and gig again. I think, like I said, I'll do one more Facebook Live. I know there's a lot of great musicians who are doing Facebook Live every week. What's your opinion of that, Gwen? Are you okay with that? Are you getting kind of sick of it? Are you getting tired? Is Facebook starting to give you a... I am just so ready to get back to going to the clubs and listening to live music. It's one, I'm loving the fact that the artists are still performing and stuff for us, but it's nothing like going somewhere and listening to that live music and listening to the artists there. That's what I am looking forward to. But our time is coming to an end, but there's one thing that I do want to make a quote from Dave Quaz about you. Oh, Dave Quaz? Yeah. Dave Quaz said, Christian Dimasonis, remember that name. I think he's going to be around for a long while. That was Dave Quaz that said that about you. I have, Gwen, I'm just, it's been week after week after week of me getting spotlighted. I got spotlighted on Watercolors, on channel 66 on the Dave Quaz Lounge. I got spotlighted. The biggest thing right now is that they put me in Jazz's magazine for the Summer World Fusion edition. So, I mean, and there's a lot more that happened in between that, which is we're running out of time. I'm not, you know, I will talk about it, but I'm hoping when you finish this interview that you put up some photographs of me when I was in Hawaii, because maybe one of your listeners might recognize me from back playing Pearl Harbor and all those military EMC clubs back there. I'm going to post them in my Hawaii Smooth Jazz Lovers group. I am posting that when we get off of here. But I thank you so much for being here with me today. I would love to have had you in the studio, you know, but due to these times right now, we have to do it this way. This looks like the new norm for interviews now. But I thank you, thank you, thank you. And I will put up your link on my page to where people can go to get your album. I appreciate that so much, Corinne. Thank you for all the love. And let's pray that you and I get to meet in person and at the blue note and sell out the entire blue note, two shows. And I'm going to bring some of my incredible players with me and we are going to have a blast. Okay, we'll try and make that happen. Well, I thank everyone for tuning in with me today. Until next time, Aloha and God bless.