Take Five with Saxophonist Noah Peterson

Meet Noah Peterson

While his troubadour days are behind him, Noah continues to have musical adventures. From his many bands and explorations of different genres of music Noah always has his fingers in something. His latest adventure includes his brand new quartet recording of all original music Coming Home To You and the rebirth of The Noah Peterson Soul-Tet (recording coming later this year.) Noah has regular performances in San Antonio, TX with some stellar combos.

Instruments:

Saxophone, Synthesizer.

Teachers and/or influences?

I can't say I've ever had a teacher that really did anything for me... maybe that means I was a bad student. I've always been more apt to learning things on my own I guess. When it comes to music, that independent way of doing things ensures you have your own voice instead of sounding like someone else. I think that's important for me. Moreover, I've always believed that I learned the most from the people I was performing with. They have certainly been the most influential. When I was in Portland, OR I hired the best players in the city. Instead of work, it seemed like I was getting a 4 hour jazz lesson on every gig. And that was with trios and quartets. And I was performing well over 225 gigs a year, for years. I'd have 40-60 different players per year. Sometimes I'd have people that I'd play with a lot, and some one or twice a year. As you get to know these players personally and musically they would share things: ideas, philosophy, techniques, practice tips, ideas on endings, different cord changes, favorite recordings. When you begin to understand the players in your band and what they are into you can see how it shapes their music. Then you can take that same filter and look at yourself. The past two years in San Antonio I've been using Larry Natwick almost exclusively for all my gigs. Larry is a serious player; he spends a lot of time on his craft, his voicings, studying, practicing. And he's been doing it like that longer than I've been alive. When I see video of us when we started and video of us now, I'm amazed at how much I've grown as a player. I recently was talking about this observation with him and he said, "Well you're playing a lot, and you take it seriously, you're bound to get better." And replied, "Yeah, there's that. But I've also been with doing it with you 2, 3, sometimes 4 times a week. I've basically been going to the Larry Natwick School of Jazz for two years. And that school is no joke." We both had a good laugh. I think another great influence for me is jazz radio. I listen to it as much as I can. I don't really get much practice time at all so I try and keep as much jazz in my ears as possible. It's one thing to go through my own library and listen for things I want to emulate. It's something else when some great DJ is putting stuff on you've never heard before. That's the beauty of jazz radio. DJ's control the playlists and even if you don't like what's on, there's always something to learn from.

I knew I wanted to be a musician when...

I don't know if I've ever known anything like that. At this point, it seems like I always was. My dad was a band director, my siblings played instruments, we all took piano lessons as kids. I was the youngest so someone was always making noise on something. But it wasn't ever like "Music is the end all, be all." It was just something that was around with no particular importance or attention put on it. I don't remember it being discussed much except for, did you practice your piano lesson this week? I even quit band in high school. When I enlisted in the Marine Corps, I scored high on the ASVAB and signed up for a particular job. The recruiter asked me if I had any hobbies. I said I played sax, the entire office got really happy—I didn't know that the recruiters get the most points for enlisting musicians. And that's how I ended up the Marine Corps band. After that, music was the way for me. So if you need to blame someone for me being a professional musician, you can literally blame the government.

Your sound and approach to music:

Hmmm... I'm all over the map at times. Right now, jazz-wise I'm into up-tempo swing. I'm not a be-bopper, that's a lot of study, work, practice... it's a discipline and a life commitment. I don't live my life like that. I try and make as much music as I can. I like to write new stuff. I'd like to write a lot more, but there's that whole time thing. I like minor swinging tunes like Sugar. I like players like Dexter Gordon, Hank Mobley, Stanley Turrentine, Cannonball... Guys with chops and soul. I want to be that kind of player. If I really had to say what my approach is, it would be a hodgepodge catch as catch can. Maybe pick up it up on the time around. Mistakes... meh... They don't bother me. There's going to be another gig, there's going to be another pass, let's dig in and do it again.

Your teaching approach:

I don't teach. I've tried it. I'm no good at it.

Your dream band:

My dream band is my Soul-Tet: some horns, guitar, organ, bass, drums, conga doing all that funky soul-jazz. Dream players... I do love me some Bernard Purdie. I would love to play with my old drummer from Portland, OR, Ed Coleman III aka E3, he is delightful. I'm pretty happy with the guys I play with now. I do miss some guys though: John "JB" Butler on guitar, Dave Captein on bass—those two monsters were always a blast.

Road story: Your best or worst experience:

I was playing the Peacock Lounge at the Davenport Hotel in Spokane, WA. Jazz quartet gig. We're doing our thing and while it's an intimate space, you also get to play hard. Spokane is a pretty conservative place, the Peacock Lounge is fancy, and the music is expected to be on point. We've got a table right in front of us of some horrible people. They were loud and rude and the whole lounge was shooting daggers out of their eyes at them. The "ladies" were clearly professionals and the "gentlemen" were hardly that. In walks the actor Cuba Gooding Jr. He takes a seat and before his meal comes out there's a line out the door of fans. He deals with every single one of them with grace and joy and when the line is finally done, he eats his cold meal that he didn't send back to the kitchen. While this is happening, our table of "fun" right in front of the band is getting worse. They are having lots of drinks, the ladies keep disappearing to "powder up their noses," and at one point they decide to dance suggestively all up on the bassist including grabbing onto his instrument and cackling like a fool. They are clueless to how everyone in the room is reacting to them. Good ol' Cuba Gooding Jr. who has been watching this has had enough. He stands up, glaring at them and walks with a lot of attitude towards their table. One of the girls says, "Oh my God, that's Cuba Gooding Jr!!!" and grabs the others and points. They are start staring and smiling at him as they see he's coming right towards them. He's stomps past the table, still glaring at them, walks right up to the band, head turned—still glaring at them, stuffs a $20 in the tip jar and stomps back to his table staring at them the whole time. One of the girls says, "Oh my God, I think he's mad at us." And they look at each other, and they look at the band, and then they look at the room. And EVERYONE in the room is glaring at them. They quiet down, one of the dudes says, "It's time to go." And off they went—no smiles, no laughs, no good times. And everyone, including Cuba, glares at them until they leave the lounge. The room let's out a collective sigh of relief, everyone looks around a little, smiles and nods and goes back to a great night of food, drinks, and jazz. Cuba left before we finished that set so I never did get to say thank you. The man is class act though.

Favorite venue:

This is a tough one... there's been so many. Venues that once were and are no more: Jazz de Opus in Portland, OR. It was the perfect jazz club. Tables right up against the small stage, tight and compact bar, great vibe, great staff, legendary venue, sounded awesome. I had a summer of first Thursday gigs there with my quintet, Miles Ahead. Loved playing there. Venues in Central Texas: The Dodging Duck Brewhaus in Boerne, Texas. I've been doing a weekly Sunday jazz brunch with my trio there since 2023. While it's an outdoor venue, it does have overhead cover, and there are plastic drapes that can be unfurled for bad weather. There are heaters permanently installed for the band and customers that have adjustable settings. There are fans for the hot weather along with two portable A/C units just for the band. It's got a nice little stage, the view of the river and trees is beautiful—even on a rainy day. The staff is great and rarely turns over. They do small batch beer brews so every couple of months the taps all change out. And the beer is good. Also, FREE BEER for the band. Pay is fine and prompt—don't have to wait around for it. I can do pretty much whatever I want musically, there's almost always a good crowd and it never cancels. I think it's been canceled for weather 5-6 times since 2023. Keith, the owner, pops in a couple times a year when the weather keeps him off the golf course to say hi and compliments the band. I love that place.

Your favorite recording in your discography and why?

That's a hard one... I've got a number of entities that I lead, co-lead, or produced. They don't compare with each other and there's things I like about each of them that aren't the same as the others. There are three that jump to mind. The Noah Peterson Quartet Live at Biddy McGraw's ranks as one of those at the top of the list. My first solo recording. It got airplay in 14 countries, spent a decade in low rotation on WWOZ and still gets a spin here and there in the jazz world. It was a live recording with a quartet that I had been working hard in Portland, OR. It wasn't us at our best, but it was us on a pretty good night. The nostalgia around that recording for me is tremendous and it put me on the map in the jazz world outside of the NW. Emmett Wheatfall. When I Was Young is something I remain extremely proud of. I wrote the tunes, put the band together, and produced this from top to bottom. I did as much of a Gil Scott Heron thing as I could with it. It's big, it's bad, it's amazing. The band is fantastic, the session was great, everything about that record worked. Got some killer reviews and got some airplay. It launched Emmett as a poet in the NW and beyond. We did some more work together, including the grant funded album Them Poetry Blues which is pretty awesome, but "When I Was Young really holds a special place in my heart. O.M.N.I.—Harry's Psychedelicatessen. That is a reggae/dub/funk/electronic album that grew into a ten year project with multiple albums, videos, singles, and a sci-fi space/reggae adventure. The creation of that album is epic. A week long adventure in Florida with absolute manic hours of recording in between gigs, almost two years of mixing and file swapping and adding parts as one of us was in Brooklyn and one of us was in San Antonio. It's out of this world tasty good. It you listen to dub at all, our dub tracks are fantastic, the more funk influenced stuff is unique, it's a very interesting recording that I still love to this day. I keep saying we should remix it and re-release it. It still gets sporadic airplay on dub stations (online and terrestrial) in Europe and the U.S.

The first Jazz album I bought was:

I don't remember which one it was, but it was a cassette with Stan Getz with Astrud Gilberto. Billings, MT in the '70s was not a hotbed of culture. There was country, top 40, and '50s music on the radio. My dad was a junior high school band director and one day I asked him who the best saxophonist in the world was. He threw up his hands, said, "I don't know, maybe Stan Getz." Next time I was at a record store I picked out a Stan Getz cassette and listened to jazz for the very first time. Suffice to say I developed a love for Bossa Nova and Stan Getz. I still love Bossa Nova and I still love Stan Getz. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if he said Charlie Parker or Michael Brecker.

What do you think is the most important thing you are contributing musically?

I make music I like. If others like it, I love it. If they don't, that's fine. I didn't make it for them. I made it for me. I'm an artist. I create things I like with people I like creating with it. If it works and people like it, great. If not, so it goes. I'm not driven by "success" or trying to "make it." I don't have any dreams of stardom or fame or having a hit. I just want to make music that I like and find interesting. I do hope other people like it, but I don't have mainstream tastes and I think that comes through in the music I make. For some projects I have looked at other artist's work for inspirations or concepts; but despite that my music is original, my collaborations are original. It's nice to have your own voice and use it. I think that's important.

Did you know...

I've been spending time studying synthesis. I have a small collection of synthesizers and I read books about it, I watch videos on it. It's my lifetime hobby. I've made a lot of music with them but still feel like I have no idea what I'm doing. I've set myself up in a way that I can study and play and record with them until the end of my days. Maybe some day I'll understand everything there is to know. But that day isn't coming anytime soon. I still have a lot of reading and learning to do.

CDs you are listening to now:

My go to's—listen to these more than anything. Dexter Gordon: Our Man in Paris; Wes Montgomery: The Complete Riverside Recordings; Grant Green: For the Funk of It: The Original Jam Master Volume 2; Hank Mobley; Roll Call; Dr. Lonnie Smith: Live at Club Mozambique.

Desert Island picks:

Bootsy Collins: Psychoticbumpschool (live); Grant Green: For the Funk of It: The Original Jam Master Volume 2; Dexter Gordon: Our Man in Paris; Leonard Bernstein with the New York Philharmonic: Mahler Symphony #2 the Resurrection Symphony; Miles Davis: Milestones.

How would you describe the state of jazz today?

San Antonio isn't a jazz town like New York or Chicago, or Seattle or even Denver. Jazz is a very small part of the very large music scene here. And I'm so wrapped up in my own world it's tough to pick up an eye or an eye and cast it off of what I'm focused on. That being said... I think it's intensely creative. The many different ways it's going aren't all my flavor. Some of it's a bit high-minded for me. It's nice to see artists push the modern envelope even though I'm not always liking the stuff. Some of it is though. I really like the combination of electronica and jazz—that's cool stuff, lofi jazz beats are cool. I like be-bop, I love straight-ahead, I love that New Orleans Professor Longhair stuff, I love New Orleans street bands, and I love anything with the B3. There's a lot going on right now, and there's a huge amount of transition. The old guard of greats and legends is passing, there's a certain unnamed magazine that made itself irrelevant, the changing of media consumption habits makes audience development and the introduction of new material almost impossible. The modern mystery of people no longer having music collections has hurt musicians more than anything else. People don't buy records anymore. On the flip side, jazz radio remains strong. The status of jazz remains extremely high, everyone wants to put jazz on their influence of their music to add an aspect of intelligence and sophistication. The worldwide jazz audience is still there. The top schools and even a lot of mid-tier schools are cranking out fabulous players. The accessibility to learning materials, online lessons, archives of recordings and videos is better than it's ever been. Masters like Ron Carter and institutions like the Berklee School have all kinds of tools for players available online. The inclusion of musics that are on the fringes of jazz is widespread on radio and in publications. It's often celebrated, maybe a bit too much as we get further and further away from hard-swinging, hard-playing, old-school jazz cats. So... in my very limited view, I'd have to say jazz today is vibrant and more far-reaching that it's ever been.

What are some of the essential requirements to keep jazz alive and growing?

There's only one. Players need to move their audiences. If they want them to keep coming back to gigs, they need to move their audiences. If they want them to buy records, books, and merch they need to move their audiences. If they want them to stream their music and watch their video, they need to move their audiences. If they want to get those big festival gigs, they need to move their audiences. If they want to play the best venues and get on the radio and get written up in media, they have to move their audiences.

What is in the near future?

This is what's going on with me right now—I've got a brand new quartet recording that I just released Coming Home To You. I'd like to get more quartet work for that band. I'm currently working an individual artist grant from the City of San Antonio for a 9-piece soul-jazz recording. I'm actively writing and arranging all new material for that project. I'm currently working the core of that band as a four piece putting the show together and rehearsing them. We do a few shows here and there to work the bugs out and get the group ready to record. That project will be done before the end of 2025. I've got my steady jazz trio Sunday Brunch at the Dodging Duck in Boerne, TX every Sunday. That's straight-ahead and swinging hard. It's always a good time. That's Larry Natwick and Juan Acosta. I work my second trio on Wednesday nights at the Unki'ko Japanese House in San Antonio. I'm working on changing that up for a more honky-tonk jazz kinda thing. That'll be a project that I'd like to eventually record, but that's pretty far in the future. Those guys are Ricky Hernandez and Damian Rodriguez. The second trio guys I want to do some lofi-electro jazz stuff with. I'd like to bring in some rappers and mix things up a bit with some singles and collaborations. Everyone is in. We just need to get it on the schedule. That'll happen very soon. My partner Zach Spiezer with O.M.N.I., we're always working on stuff. He's working on a mix for a new single and I've got a track in my inbox he needs me to put some horns down on. And I've got my pile of side stuff with electronica, noise, and ambient. I just release a noise album called Heathkit which is all avant-garde noise using a square wave generator. There'll be another record or two of that kinda thing coming out in 2025 as well.

What's your greatest fear when you perform?

I don't have any. Mostly, it's do I have my sax? Did I forget something? How come Larry isn't here, he's usually here an hour and 15 minutes early...

What song would you like played at your funeral?

"Taps." I was in the Marine Corps. I want a proper military funeral and that means "Taps."

What is your favorite song to whistle or sing in the shower?

For the moments like that where the ol' mind wanders, it's usually about arranging a composition of mine, or I'm soloing in my head over one of my jams, or I'm working on a new tune.

By Day:

Music is my day job. My side hustle is events. I do a number of special event services. I can do anything from run a large event from top to bottom: sound, stage, lights, vendors, marketing, fundraising, talent buying, ticketing, vendor sourcing and coordination, set-up, tear down, running crews, operating machinery, fabrication of decor, procurement for port-a-potties, dumpsters, permits, electrical, police, barricades, street closures etc... I do this for small and large events, fairs, fun runs, concerts, parades. I have a number of clients who hire me for very specific things and some who hire me for a host of things. Sometimes I do a lot, sometimes I do a little bit. And these are always short-term things—one or two day events. I have several clients throughout the year who hire me for their events. I do some pretty interesting things sometimes. One recent new thing for me was installing an artificial ice rink. That was a long day. But I make sure and keep myself available for any music gigs that pop up during these events. I've got some great crew that does all the heavy lifting that have been with me for a while. And they love picking up a few days' work here and there for some extra pocket money.

If I weren't a jazz musician, I would be a:

This concept does not compute.

If I could have dinner with anyone from history, who would it be and why?

Jesus. The most controversial and influential person of all time. I'd like to keep the why on that to myself. If not Jesus, then Smedly Butler, USMC. Two time Medal of Honor Winner and author of War is a Racket. I'd like to hear his stories about what the Marine Corps was like when he was in it.

What do I love about AllAboutJazz.com?

It's a fan platform. It reminds me of what MySpace used to be for. Finding a place where fans of jazz are is impossible, and yet here it is. Jazz fans are on allaboutjazz.com. Michael Ricci is available to the artists. You get a fast response if you're having problems with your profile page or running a campaign. He does some nice free promotional things for artists like the Song of the Day, free profiles, free calendar listings. It's amazing. I love the calendar feature and I love Jazz Near You. I get people throughout the year coming to gigs saying they were looking for jazz and they came out because of the Jazz Near You calendar. The site is up all the time. Even when a feature isn't working for the moment, the site is still up. I love the marketing tools. Wish they were a little cheaper, but life ain't free. AllAboutJazz.com is a leveling tool for independent artists like myself to be able to access a wider jazz audience outside of where I'm performing. I love it.

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