In this special episode of Local Motion, KVNF’s Music Director Andrea Castillo and General Manager Ashley Krest bring listeners inside the 48th Annual Telluride Jazz Festival.
The episode features interviews with standout artists including Parlor Greens and the Brass Queens, as well as conversations with festival-goers and and Caleb Chapman of Sound House.
Castillo and Krest explore the future of jazz, the role of community radio in supporting independent artists, and why Telluride remains a vital hub for musical connection.
In Conversation with Tim Carman, Adam Scone and Jimmy James of Parlor Greens
Castillo: You guys had such a great performance tonight. I'm wondering how the setting influences the energy of your performance?
Carman: Honestly, I feel like we kind of treat every show the same. I think we just approach the music the same way every time.
Scone: It is a beautiful setting though, let's face it.
James: (Referring to the scenery of the festival) Do you want me to do like a Bob Ross, where it’s like, “there's plenty of mountains and trees and we're just going to paint this over here.”
You know, the energy comes also from the crowd as well, you know, and I think we just get up there and we're just ourselves.
There's a good Oscar Wilde quote that said, “You can only be yourself because everyone else is taken.” And, and I'll also quote one more person, the late great James Jamerson, who played bass on every great Motown record. He told his son, “If you don't feel it, don't play it.” So.
Castillo: Yeah, you can tell you're really feeling the music that you're playing. And especially with tracks like West Memphis and Sugar Maple, they stand out with their infectious grooves. So could you tell me about that creative process, how you guys created this debut album?
Carman: So West Memphis, that was the first thing we ever did in the studio. So that song, we just released the extended version of it, we improvised it literally the first moment the three of us ever made music. That's what West Memphis became.
I think In Green We Dream is an interesting album because there's a mix of improvised songs and also structured and pre-written music. Scone and myself had kind of come up with some melodies for getting into the studio. So we had some of those ready and Jimmy had some guitar parts ready to go. So it was kind of a 50-50 mix of, as a trio, improvising and making stuff up on the spot and also having some compositions ready to go.
James: You can talk about how it started. Also, I'll add one more to it. And I remember this very well because I remember we came into Loveland, Ohio. Portage Lounge is what Terry(of Colemine Records) calls the studio. And Tim picked us up at the airport. And Adam had just got in before I did. And then I got in.
And I remember Terry was over in one corner. He's sitting there. We were talking, “Da-da-da.” I start hearing you guys playing something. And we're like, oh, what's that? Da-da-da-da. We start playing. And all of a sudden, clicked it off. And you hear that drum roll just like, da-da-da-da. And then, that was it.
And the tune progressed as it came. And it was just done in one take.
Scone: You know, we're kind of like the boy band of organ groups. I mean, we kind of knew each other. And Terry put us together. He was like, I think that these guys look good, and they can dance, and they sing good.
Carman: Yeah, we actually dance really well. (Audible laughter)
James: So basically, we're the Backstreet Boys of organ trios. We should get up there, do an organ trio. Like, Bye, bye, bye. (in the tune of NSYNC’s “Bye Bye Bye” We'll do some dances. (Audible laughter)
And I'll get that going. And yeah, that'll work. Yeah.
Castillo: I would love to know what radio means to you as musicians.
Carman: Yeah, I honestly feel like we wouldn't be able to exist as musicians if it wasn't for radio —Stations across the country and the world playing music made by bands like us who are on an independent label.
And we're not on a major label. We're not actually the Backstreet Boys. No, but having radio stations like yourself play our music basically allows us to do what we do. So we are incredibly appreciative of that. And everybody needs the support, radio.
In Conversation with Caleb Chapman of Sound House
Ashley Krest: What's the Sound House?
Caleb Chapman: Sound House is an after school music performance training program run out of Salt Lake City, Utah. And we've been coming here to the Telluride Festival for about 20 years now with different bands. And all our kids are ages 10 to 18. And it's one of our favorite shows of the year.
Krest: And these kids are from all over the country?
Chapman: They're actually just from all over the Salt Lake City region. They rehearse year round, once a week and so they're all from that greater Salt Lake City area.
Krest: I talked to a few of them. They said they get to travel. You guys go other places too?
Chapman: Yeah. Our bands travel all over the world. This band, The Voodoo Orchestra that's here this year, last summer, they were invited to be part of the celebrations for the 80th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy and Paris and played for thousands and thousands there. So yeah, our bands travel all over Mexico, China, Europe, everywhere.
Krest: And children, these are all kids?
Chapman: They're all, well, kids by age, professionals by ability and behavior.
Krest: And how long has the organization been around for?
Chapman: I started the Sound House 27 years ago.
Krest: Do you have to write grants to keep it going? Do people pay to come to the camps?Do you have scholarships?
Chapman: Yeah, that's a great question. And Telluride actually plays a big part in the answer to that. We've been coming here for many years. And three years ago, some of the Telluride residents who'd been watching us year after year said they wanted to make a donation, and we didn't have a foundation. And I told them, we don't have a way to accept that.
So scholarships up to that point were just, I would just not charge kids and so there was a limit to how many I could help. Thanks to some amazing residents here of Telluride, they helped us get our foundation up and running.
And this last year, we raised over $500,000 in scholarships. And so we've been able to have a lot more of these opportunities open up for kids that just wouldn't have the ability to participate otherwise.
Krest: And where do they stay when they're here in Telluride?
Chapman: Well, it's a little tricky, but we've been coming here so long that we call the Bear Creek condos home here. And we've been staying there for over a decade and it's beautiful. It gives the kids the chance to take the gondola and experience all the great stuff here in Telluride.
And even though these bands travel all over the world, a lot of times the kids that have gone on lots of these tours, they say that Telluride is their favorite tour of all of them, which is pretty crazy considering some of the places we've been.
Krest: And do you have a student that has taken it to the next level?
Chapman: Well, a little band called Imagine Dragons. The drummer and the guitar player came through this program.
Krest: Do you have like a heartwarming sort of moment or story about a kid who's been helped by this program?
Chapman: Sure, I absolutely do. One of our other bands just two weeks ago played at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Dizzy's Club. And we sold out both sets there. And one of the moms came up to me after the show and she said, this is crazy because she said, “My son, we came here three years ago and brought him when he was just starting to play his instrument.And he just absolutely loved watching the performance at Jazz at Lincoln Center.”
And she said, “You need to go home and write it as a goal in your journal to one day play a concert at Dizzy's Club.” And she said, “I don't think either one of us was thinking that that would happen in three years for a sold out crowd.” You know, when he, at the time, was just starting to play his instrument. That was pretty awesome.
And I got a lot of those stories.
Krest: What did he play?
Chapman: He played saxophone.
In Conversation with Festival Attendees
Krest: What's your name?
Ruffner: Paul. Paul Ruffner.
Krest: Where are you from?
Ruffner: Arizona.
Krest: Do you come to Telluride Jazz every year?
Ruffner: No, no. This is the first year I was here.I'm loving it. I've been a gigging musician since I was 12, 13, and this is the first time I did Telluride. It's the funnest festival. It's not competitive.
Krest: Can you tell me about your saxophone?
Ruffner: Yeah, this is a tenor. (Ruffner plays a tune on his tenor saxophone)
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Krest: So, who are you, Birdman?
Keith: My name is Keith. I'm with Living Folklore.
Krest: So where's Living Folklore from?
Keith: So they're out of Prescott and Nederland. And yeah, we've been coming to these parades for like 30 years or something now.
Krest: What's your favorite thing about being in a parade on stilts?
Keith: You know, just all the smiles. All the people just enjoying themselves.
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Krest: What's your name?
Dave: My name is Dave. Nice to meet you.
Krest: And what are you seeing around you right now?
Dave: Right now, I'm seeing a lot of beautiful people decked out for a fun parade, a lot of talent on the street, a lot of folks dressing up, looking good.
Krest: What's your favorite part of jazz?
Dave: The parade.
Krest: Nice, really?
Dave: The participation, the youth, everything about it. It's awesome.
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Krest: How about you? What's your favorite part of jazz?
Festival Attendee: The experience of being here with such amazing people. That's my favorite.
Krest: Great.
Festival Attendee: Obviously the talent, like the talent that just blows you away on the stage. Like I just can't. It's like a download or re-download in your life. Like it just puts you into perspective. That's what I love most.
Krest: Who was your favorite performer so far?
Festival Attendee: I can't even. You know, Cimafunk had such a blast, and the afternight show there too was unbelievable. And then of course, Karl D last night and Dani Danger! Holy smokes, that woman can sing!
Krest: Yeah! Okay, here come the paraders.
Festival Attendee: Thanks for asking.
Krest: Thank you.
In Conversation with Ally Chapel, Alex Joseph and Nora Nalepka of the Brass Queens
Castillo: Jazz Festival has been like such a reflection of community and I feel like bringing that New Orleans tradition was just really special. How does it feel to be a part of that?
Chapel: We love doing second lines. We do them all over the country.
We do them for special celebrations. We do them as part of festivals. But it's really fun to do it right before our set because we get the opportunity to connect with the audience way quicker. Normally you jump on stage and it takes a song or two to really kind of connect with everybody and get that energy going. So to be able to do the second line before our set I thought was really cool.
Joseph: And it feels like we're already embedded in the community because we did that and that feels like such a deep tradition of this festival to have that second line kind of like kicking off this day. So it was really an honor. I know we're filling big shoes from last year too with Newbreed.
Nalepka: Yeah, and I feel like it's just, in general, very indicative of who we are.
We like to move. We like to have fun. We like to interact with each other.
We like to interact with people. So, to start off the day with the second line where we get to dance and sing and shout. It's very indicative of who we are along with like just the New Orleans tradition in general and the music we play. So it's just a perfect way to start this awesome day.
Castillo: Has anything changed since we last spoke about your hopes for women in the brass scene?
Joseph: Since we last spoke we had a couple recording sessions. So we're really excited to be working on our next full-length album and we're playing that music out now so everyone will get to hear it.
Chapel: The band will be making its first trip to the west coast coming up this fall.
That's really exciting for us to finally get out there. One of our trumpet players, Stephanie King, is from the Seattle area. Almost all of us have gotten the pleasure of having a hometown show but we're really excited to make it out west and meet a lot of the fans actually that we've garnered since putting out our last album.
Nalepka: So I can't say what we're most excited about coming up, because it's a secret, but we did just do something very cool that I can talk about which is that, we had a show at this venue called Come On Everybody and David Byrne came up and sang “This Must Be the Place” with us which was elite and amazing. And I feel like I can't even wrap my head around it. That it happened. He came to one of our shows like two years ago.
That's the first time he saw us and then he invited us to play a variety show he was putting on for his media company that he runs called Reasons to be Cheerful. It's really great. It's just like a news site that talks about just like good news happening. So he had us play a variety show fundraiser for that for their anniversary and then we got to perform with him again.
So we're very lucky :to like be able to say David Byrne is a fan of ours and we're just able to be in each other's orbit and he's a wonderful person and a wonderful artist and we get to appreciate each other's artistry.
Castillo: You can tell that your experiences are a reflection of yourself. This :like recognition is well deserved, and how does it feel to kind of be in that emerging sort of place where you're like, you know, starting to come into yourselves?
Joseph: Almost unbelievable and kind of like I don't know what I'm doing or how I got here or how to get into the next zone, but I trust all the women around me and we lift each other up and I know that we will make it. We'll succeed.
Chapel: Because of our platform and where we are and being here at this festival which is a huge honor; We talked about the second line and we ended the second line and we were playing with another student group, and that was awesome and fun. And then we went to take a photo and we noticed some of the female musicians and they were standing in the back. And you know, just kind of trying to like, just visually stand out, and so we pulled them up front and we're like, “You're going to be seen and you're going to be recognized.” And I think you need people, other women, looking out for the other women and making sure that they're seen and heard.
Nalepka: Yeah, I think I think it's just unbelievable for us we started in like 2019 when we were just like so many girls. I think there was like 14 of us 15 of us. It was crazy.We were just this gigantic group and we were just playing for fun and then around 2020 we just started taking it like just very seriously and to see all that hard work while other people did not take it seriously. We always took ourselves very seriously and because of that we got better and we grew and then we got the attention of arch artists who are our agents, who have signed us and helped us get these amazing new gigs. And so it just feels like the more we keep at it, the harder we work, the more we grow and the recognition grows with us so it just feels very amazing when we think about where we were in 2019 to now.
Rascal Flatts once said, “Life is a highway and I want to ride it all night long!” (Audible laughter)
Castillo: As independent artists, I'd love to know what radio means to you.
Chapel: So with our first full-length album of original music, we actually were part of a college radio campaign.
When we toured, we had people coming up to us saying like, “I heard you on the radio and I became a fan and now I'm at this show!” And you're just firsthand seeing how this cycle works. And how like, I've been that person hearing someone on the radio, then looking them up and following them and finally getting to see them in person.
So then you're having a conversation with someone that has already built a relationship with you over your music and you're in what different corner of the country. And everyone has all these different backgrounds. You don't know who you're talking to or what their background is or what their beliefs are, but you've already connected over something that you've created and I think that's really cool.
And our message is our music and that's like being played all over the country. And doing interviews like this, we love doing them.We like to tell our story and talk to people. And the more we feel like people can get to know us and the types of people we are, hopefully that encourages other people to be happy, and have good friends and you know, make joy and make good memories together.
