An Interview with Nicole McCabe

1:48 Luke F. Walton Oh, What's good, everybody? I'm Scoobert Doobert. Welcome back to Love Music More. I am joined with one of my favorite musicians, Nicole McCabe.

1:54 Nicole McCabe hi. Nice to see you.

1:56 Luke F. Walton Nice to see you. Welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited to actually be able to have a longer conversation because we've worked together, but we haven't really been able to do normal human stuff.

2:05 Luke F. Walton It's a lot of Instagram messages and that's kind of our extent. So it's nice to get to have a conversation today.

2:12 Nicole McCabe Exactly. It's so funny just...

2:14 Luke F. Walton You know, I watch your clips and I'm a fan of Dolphin Hyperspace and it's funny just like almost I feel like I know you but I don't know you, you know, one of those funny conversations.

2:25 Nicole McCabe No, absolutely. Yeah, there's a lot of content, you know. Exactly. So I'd love to introduce the listeners just in kind of what you do, the different genres, the different kind of breadth of your musicality and your band, the tours you've been doing recently. Just catch us up, invite us into your world.

2:44 Nicole McCabe Absolutely. So I am primarily a saxophonist, composer, and educator. I do play the other woodwinds as well, flute, clarinet, but mostly saxophone is what I've spent the most time on, at least. I love to compose mostly in the kind of contemporary jazz realm, and then I have another project called Dolphin Hyperspace, which is more kind of electronic dance music, jazz amalgamation of things.

3:14 Nicole McCabe So those are kind of the two main things I do compose for kind of my jazz project and then compose for Dolphin Hyperspace. And I play a lot freelance tour, tour a lot with Dolphin Hyperspace and with my own projects. And I also teach at Loyola Marymount University, CSU Northridge.

3:37 Nicole McCabe and at Pasadena Conservatory of Music as well as privately so I kind of have my my foot in in a lot of different places I love a lot of different types of music I'm jazz trained but I love like playing with singer-songwriters and doing more avant-garde things and I I love being here in Los Angeles I'm in Los Angeles because you get to do so many different types of things and that's kind of

4:04 Nicole McCabe one of my favorite things about being a musician so that's kind of basically what I do that

4:10 Nicole McCabe Yeah, I've seen you. I think you played with Kimbra at this like avant-garde and improvised. Like that was super cool.

4:18 Nicole McCabe was one of my favorite shows I've ever played to be completely honest with you to play with improvisers like that it was just a very unique kind of improvisation like finding these kind of kind of grooves and sections and everyone was so careful about what they were contributing you know it was like Jeff Parker and Spencer Zahn and a lot of people that I hadn't met and

4:41 Nicole McCabe Everyone just knew how to contribute in such a thoughtful way. It made me feel more thoughtful about, you know, what I was playing during that gig. But that's so cool that you know about that. Yeah, it's hot.

4:54 Nicole McCabe It was red. It was great. But one of the things that I want to start our conversation with is the ability to step into different musical conversations and settings. I think that you're uniquely great at that. Like, I think I saw an Instagram post where somebody was.

5:08 Nicole McCabe hired you to play on their song and they're like one take never heard the song instant musicality how do you bring yourself how do you go to that place how do you uh you know find a way to contribute in a tasteful way is that a skill that you've honed is that your sense of musicality like coming out is it you're listening like walk me through how you're able to kind of get up to that rarefied air

5:31 Nicole McCabe That's a really tough one. Yeah, totally, I know. I mean, I guess I'm not super thinking about it like that. But I think that I grew up on a lot of different types of music and I have an appreciation for a lot of different types of music and I feel like I always want to bring myself authentically into every situation and I think that's, you know, people hire me to have, you know, a piece of me on their music, but I also want to like respect.

5:57 Nicole McCabe what they're doing in the world that they're coming from so like I try to do my my research on certain genres and like what people are kind of expecting and then kind of blending in like my my own musical instincts or what I think would be appropriate and it's kind of my favorite thing to do is when someone calls me and they're like can you just come on a couple of songs and then I go in and I just hear a little bit and they're like just do a pass

6:23 Nicole McCabe and then I do a pass and then they're like okay let's just get one more and then we're done you know and it's it's such a fun feeling to like get to react right on the spot like you're not really thinking about like oh like let me try this here next time or like let me work something out it's like just complete instincts on the first time and I always think it's a really fun challenge to try to fit into what they're doing and complement what they're doing if there's a singer like trying to

6:50 Nicole McCabe you know, play around what they're doing or just kind of trying to catch the vibe of whatever's going on. Yeah, I think it's just a lot of different musical influences for me.

7:01 Nicole McCabe And just trying to be as honest as I can about what's happening around me and also I I like to ask sometimes like what are you looking for or it was that okay too many notes like should I play less more melodic usually people are like no that was great like just do another one but I also want to do a good job on other people's music too you know because I know how much work they're putting in to make this happen and to hire me so

7:29 Nicole McCabe Yeah, it's kind of like a balance between those things. I like that. I mean, and you hit on so many things that I think are really interesting, like listening to the vocalist, thinking about the genre, the groove and what you're fitting into,

7:40 Nicole McCabe legato, if you're going like choppy, if you're just going to play a melodic thing or counter melody kind of thing. I think that's fun because that just kind of shows me all of the vectors, the things that you're thinking about when you're coming into a fresh piece of music.

7:56 Nicole McCabe No, absolutely. And yeah, just kind of knowing the artist

8:01 Luke F. Walton and Hmm.

8:01 Nicole McCabe like what their influences are. I feel like people are always kind of saying names of different artists that kind of describe their own genre. And then I'm like trying to check that out.

8:10 Nicole McCabe And I don't know, I've learned so much about music too, from doing all these different projects with different people and people are recommending me records I've never heard because I'm like, not really in that world, but it's so fun to kind of like.

8:22 Nicole McCabe pop into these worlds and like see what's going on and like learn about like what their big albums are for this genre or like what's you know there's always like these big albums that that everyone they're not popular but it's like everyone in those genre like holds these albums near and dear so I've just learned so much from just doing the job as well and like getting the opportunity I was in Portland Oregon that's kind of where I started my musical journey I grew up in the Bay Area but

8:48 Nicole McCabe but then I was in Portland and that's where I first started to learn how to do session work I was in a band called Night Heron with this guy Cam Spees and yeah he just kind of gave me the opportunity to start working on that and it kind of just the pandemic helped a lot because we were all recording at home so then I was continuing to learn how to like you know well first of all like set up a tracking device and

9:13 Nicole McCabe Yep, yep. mic and like do it But also like, yeah, just getting to learn about so many different musical worlds.

9:19 Nicole McCabe Yeah, the great answers to I mean being able to have your own home studio space I feel like opens you up to this whole world of opportunity Where before it would have been all these logistics like okay I gotta get you in the studio So I gotta be there at this time we got to set up versus like hey Can you like put some fire on this? Email you a wave

9:36 Nicole McCabe Exactly. Like that is the one thing that was. not cool about the pandemic but it was one thing that it kind of forced me to

9:44 Nicole McCabe Yeah. do was to learn how to record myself and that's kind of how dolphin hyperspace started this project with with me and logan kane you can see him he's always here but he was like sending me tracks like you should put something on this and i'm like what do i buy like what kind of microphone like i just have like a you know it's got like a shitty scarlet interface and like that's how i started like

10:09 Nicole McCabe like learning how to record myself and then I got logic and I started learning how to you know produce and like do all these things so I think the pandemic helped me kind of jump start that process I'm sure like once being in Los Angeles I would have had to figure it out as well but it was nice to to learn during that time and everyone was just recording on everyone's stuff like a lot of it was just you know for fun for free we're all just working on each other's projects so it was

10:36 Nicole McCabe it was just like so much time to to kind of figure that out and I went to school during that time I got my master's at USC so the first year was completely online and we had to record ourselves for big band and for composition projects and like all this stuff so Wow. I was like I'm being graded on this too that

10:54 Luke F. Walton Yeah. Big band remote. Oh my gosh. was crazy Did you play in Jake a man big band?

11:02 Nicole McCabe I All did. right. Yeah, I'm on I think his most recent big band album.

11:06 Luke F. Walton because I think I saw you I think I watched the video I was like oh there's no shit Nicole's on here too

11:10 Nicole McCabe That was crazy for me. I was like, what the heck? And that's where I first met Louis Cole as well. That was the first time we ever played together. That was so much fun. I'm such a huge fan of Jacob.

11:21 Luke F. Walton Yeah, incredible music. And that also seems like such a hard big band. What were the rehearsals like? Because it's so tight. All of the horn section is just completely on point. How many times do you practice it? Was it all in the studio and you just kind of went? Oh my

11:34 Luke F. Walton I god.

11:35 Nicole McCabe think we just went. Cool. That's I so cool. practiced the shit out of it though.

11:39 Nicole McCabe Yeah, I yeah, yeah, was yeah. like, this is my big chance. Like I was, I was just practicing it all.

11:45 Nicole McCabe so much before the session and I was playing lead alto which was crazy for me because I do you know there's like a lot of big band work around LA and I'm like never lead alto or sometimes I am but I feel like it's a big shoe to fill to be the lead alto you know you're kind of on top of the whole saxophone section so I was like I have to be extra prepared for this um but yeah we just went in I think we did it in like you

12:08 Nicole McCabe a day or a half day even amazing like we did it at east west and it was just go go go you know

12:15 Nicole McCabe so cool i'm so excited for your show uh dolphin hyperspace and you can have Louis Cole and kit uh coming up in may or something i'll be there i can't wait

12:23 Nicole McCabe okay i can't wait to see you with that's gonna be awesome i i remember i saw y'all at the NAMM show like a while back um that random like night yes

12:34 Nicole McCabe janelleck yeah with Janelle like that was so bizarre but it was great my my wife loved it too yeah

12:40 Nicole McCabe so random so so cool but you know they're actually super cool and we were in boston last year and they invited us to come over and do some recording at their studio and it's kind of like right outside of boston

12:52 Nicole McCabe Boston I can't remember the name of the town but they're gonna do some like surround mixing of the live things those are gonna come out soon so I'd never known about them Logan was like they're such an awesome speaker company so it was so random though it was like in that little like it was not the huge crowded hall it

13:09 Nicole McCabe Yeah. was like kind of the more commercial stuff and it was just it was a funny vibe and that was my first ever time at NAMM and I was very overwhelmed

13:17 Nicole McCabe Yes, totally. totally totally no it's perfect it's just so funny um like a lot of people that listen to the show they're they're thinking about like do i want to have a music career or they're doing it on the side or stuff like that i think it's so fun to show like this is what a music career really looks like you know one day you're teaching in the classroom another day you're the damn show in like some random side hall private event playing for jetta like you know

13:39 Nicole McCabe Absolutely. It just changes constantly. I feel like I've been so lucky in like my career hasn't unfolded in like a lot of ways that have really been beyond my wildest dreams, honestly, like when I was in high school, I never thought that I was going to like be good enough to be a professional musician, you know, but I just kind of kept going like I just kept practicing and I really loved it and I loved meeting people and connecting with people and it's

14:10 Nicole McCabe continued to grow in such an exciting way so I'd say anyone who's like really thinking about doing it it's totally possible you can do it there's like a million different things you can do in this field and I feel like that's something that no one really tells you when you're in high school it's

14:25 Nicole McCabe Yeah. like you can do think work you can do you know live music you can do recording commercial work you can do like all those other things artist management and like

14:36 Nicole McCabe the the music world is so big and like I'm just figuring out as I'm here how many like facets there are to do like we just did the the scoring for Adult Swim I'd never done any sort of scoring before like I want to do more of that now like it's just so fun to see what doors will open because like I don't like last year I wouldn't have known that I would be doing the things I'm doing right now you know like it just kind of keeps unfolding and I think maybe that's me being open to

15:04 Nicole McCabe been to opportunities and in different directions and things like that but it's it's been really really cool

15:11 Nicole McCabe Yeah, I mean, I think that you have a unique talent at being able to switch those contexts and like make it work and bring like you're saying yourself to it but in a tasteful way in a respectful way all of that I think adds up to that kind of a career where you're able to do a lot of different things because you hone that which is Nicole and then you're able to filter and I think that's really cool.

15:31 Nicole McCabe really cool um walk me through what is what was your practice like um i i would have thought that you're like just total prodigy but it it makes me i always love hearing people had to work really hard to get to where they are that i really respect so what what was your practice routine like how did you cultivate yourself

15:46 Nicole McCabe yeah my practice routine started in high school like I feel like I was kind of a late bloomer I was kind of like second half of high school I really kind of was like okay like I'm gonna do this I'm gonna work really hard and I had really low low confidence then and I wonder if like I didn't feel like I was being supported as much as my male peers in the big band or you know like things

16:07 Nicole McCabe Yep. like that like I just never felt like I was fully I didn't know if I could do it or not and then I had this amazing saxophone teacher Marcia Maje and she was like you can do this like don't listen to them like just just try and she just called me a couple days ago she's so sweet like we still talk and stuff you know like like such

16:26 Nicole McCabe Cool. an important part of my journey but that's where I really started to practice and I was doing my major skills you know learning my tunes and I was transcribing a bunch of Cannonball Adderley he is my absolute

16:38 Nicole McCabe So good. favorite photo of him Awesome. on my desk still Love Cannonball, really. So

16:44 Nicole McCabe but yeah good. just a lot of transcribing and then I got to college still doing the same thing but I feel like a really beneficial part of my musical upbringing in Portland was that

16:54 Nicole McCabe Mm. So, you know, I wasn't completely ready to start doing this, but I was doing it. I was like, you know, starting to write and like pick tunes that I like. What do I like out of a bass? bass player pianist like

17:11 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

17:11 Nicole McCabe I was figuring these things out and playing a lot so I think that really helped my growth during that time I'm still practicing the most I've ever practiced was maybe like six hours a day but really I just kept it to like two a day for maybe like 10 years so it was like a long period

17:30 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

17:30 Nicole McCabe of

17:30 Luke F. Walton yeah,

17:30 Nicole McCabe time

17:30 Luke F. Walton yeah.

17:30 Nicole McCabe but I was never like the eight hours a day in the

17:34 Luke F. Walton But

17:34 Nicole McCabe practice

17:34 Luke F. Walton Chez,

17:35 Nicole McCabe room

17:35 Luke F. Walton yeah.

17:35 Nicole McCabe practicing I just couldn't do it And I felt like I just put, I was really laser focused when I was in there. So I was getting a lot of work done in the amount of time. Plus I'm listening to records every day. Plus I'm playing in ensembles. Plus I'm leading my own band. So it's like when you add it up that way, probably was around eight hours of work a day,

17:55 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

17:55 Nicole McCabe you know, musical learning. So. That was kind of my time in Portland and then got here to Los Angeles practicing a lot during the pandemic. And recently I've started to kind of take some space from my usual practice routine.

18:13 Nicole McCabe I think the practice was so good for me, but I had a hard time finding balance with not practicing, you know, like you need to live life and put that into your music to be able to, well, not always, but I think it's helpful to say something, you know, you have to kind of experience things.

18:33 Nicole McCabe live some life so I've been trying to do more of that recently and figure out other things that I like to do but I love practicing it I always feel so good when I'm warmed up and I've done my scales and my fingers feel good before you know playing a gig I want to give you know the music and my fellow musicians that I'm playing with like respect so I want to make sure that I'm feeling good and can you know contribute in a useful way it's

19:00 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

19:00 Nicole McCabe been quite a journey Ha,

19:01 Luke F. Walton Yes.

19:02 Nicole McCabe ha, ha.

19:02 Luke F. Walton It's the warm up process I feel like for non-musicians is so fascinating because it's like, you really feel like I'm bad at music or this is not working and then you hit that level and you're like, okay, no, we're good. Or like how critical it can be. I was just doing some bass. I'm not a great bassist, but like I pretend to be.

19:22 Luke F. Walton And so I was recording bass before this podcast and it was like, you know, the first like 15 minutes and like. i'm like oof rusty not working not working and then after 15 it's like usable take usable take usable take all right okay and then i started to get tired and then fall off again because bass

19:37 Nicole McCabe yeah

19:37 Luke F. Walton is hard for

19:38 Nicole McCabe no

19:38 Luke F. Walton me yeah

19:38 Nicole McCabe absolutely and if I warm up before a gig I feel like I have more stamina during a gig like sometimes I'm like more tired the second set not feeling as good but if I do a good warm-up like I'll feel good later So I try to do that. It's been nice also like taking breaks from practicing because I feel like you absorb a lot during that time. Like you're learning, learning, learning.

20:03 Nicole McCabe Now you have time to like process it a

20:06 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

20:06 Nicole McCabe bit.

20:06 Luke F. Walton yeah.

20:07 Nicole McCabe But I just feel like whenever I take a break, somebody I really respect tells me that I'm getting better. It's always like, I'm like, but I'm not practicing right now. You

20:18 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

20:18 Nicole McCabe know, but

20:18 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

20:18 Nicole McCabe they're like, you know, maybe you just needed that. Like sometimes you just need that aspect of things as well. So. Balance is good.

20:27 Luke F. Walton That's good.

20:28 Nicole McCabe Yep.

20:28 Luke F. Walton And I also agree from your standpoint as a band leader, you're writing and releasing your own records across two projects. You have to fill up that tank so you have something to write or a new thing that you want to try.

20:40 Luke F. Walton And I love what you've been doing with the rhythm section and how you're pulling in like traditional jazz, pushing it forward, pulling a little bit of electronic and then the way that you're interacting with rhythm, I think has been really.

20:53 Nicole McCabe really exciting about your music yeah it's really cool it's really cool but i could also understand how if you just too zeroed in on skills rather than on like absorbing or cultivating or growing it'd be hard to kind of like write the next record yeah

21:08 Nicole McCabe it is yeah exactly you need that inspiration you know i really try to relate my albums to like personal things that are going on and growth and I have this album coming out color theory writing

21:23 Nicole McCabe Can't wait. that you know I'm going through a lot of personal growth things and balance was a big word for me last year figuring out

21:31 Nicole McCabe how to balance like self-care and work and like it's really hard for me to say no to people I want to make everyone happy and I want to be a part of everything but like I I literally can't like I'm running myself into the ground

21:43 Nicole McCabe Yeah. you know so balance was a big part of this record and I had to like reflect upon my life to get to that point so I think it's really important to spend the time to get to know yourself as well you

21:55 Nicole McCabe Yeah. Yeah.

21:56 Luke F. Walton How did you decide who you wanted to play on the record? as supporting musicians.

22:00 Nicole McCabe Mm hmm. So for this last record, it's all musicians that I've met from this program called the Next Jazz Legacy. So they're all New York musicians. I was the only West Coast musician that got to do it last year. And the second we played, it was Kanoa Mendenhall, Yvonne Rogers and Eliza Salem. We had our first like gig for this program and I was like, oh my gosh, like, I want to do my next record with them. Like,

22:24 Nicole McCabe Yeah. it's so cool. They're so cool. oh New York is so cool like it New was cool

22:29 Nicole McCabe York is to fun. get to go I recorded it in New York so I got to like go into their world for a bit and

22:34 Nicole McCabe Yes. like experience that and it's it's a different culture than here but it's really cool as well like I feel like there's always this LA New York rivalry

22:42 Nicole McCabe Yeah, totally. but I'm like you guys are cool we're cool like I don't know I like it all it's it's just different you know that's how we all met and I hope we get to do more I've been playing with Yvonne Rogers the pianist a bit I took her on a tour to Europe this summer and she was incredible so yeah

22:58 Nicole McCabe Awesome. Oh, yeah, I saw the posting about that tour in Europe. That does seem really cool.

23:02 Nicole McCabe So, yeah. cool yeah i loved the piano in uh the single that you released um really really cool great back and forth yeah it's it's great it's so fun and i i also yeah i agree that the la the la jazz scene like you know we've been talking jacob man and Louis Cole and like that whole usc thing and even like thomasaurus who's like not jazz but is in the same like la kind of sound and pushing um like what groove and

23:30 Nicole McCabe Mm music -hmm. and how goofy and fun but serious all these things at the same time

23:35 Nicole McCabe Yeah. I've loved that about LA and then New York feels like it almost has at this point at least to my book like more of the traditional or straight ahead kind of thing still stronger over there maybe I don't really know I'm curious what what how do you feel like the scenes kind of are as of today

23:57 Nicole McCabe I think the humor is a very important Humor. word because Yeah. I feel like we do have that humor in a lot of our music and influences here. It feels like maybe there's more of just like an edge in New York.

24:08 Nicole McCabe Yeah, I I get don't it. know. I just think of them like in the cold with their jackets on and they're just like. walk into the gig to play this music i don't know it just feels a little more intense over

24:17 Nicole McCabe Yeah, yeah, yeah. there it's intense here but it's like in different ways you know it's like the like you have to do all these things but everyone's so chill when you meet them and see them and everything feels so effort it's like almost kind of like not fake but it's it's it's a different game to play over here you know there's a lot of different types of people i've run into all the different types of

24:39 Nicole McCabe uh stereotypes and and all that but I mean I don't want to like speak for New York because I've never lived there I've only like gone for short periods of time but here I feel like there is a lot of blend of a lot of different genres right

24:56 Nicole McCabe Totally, totally. because I don't even yeah like Louis Cole and Jacob man they're very like they're like jazz and then funk and then rock and then like all these different things you know whereas maybe the influences are a bit more in one world in New York

25:13 Nicole McCabe Sure, yeah. I hear what you're saying. I don't know you I feel know so like we've got this weird like kind of post-apocalyptic thing going on on the West Coast, but like in a funny way.

25:23 Nicole McCabe we're just making fun of it you know that's all we can do like the world is burning like let's just get some dancing dolphins up there on stage like add to the craziness you know I think that dolphin hyperspace is definitely like that was a fun project for us like

25:42 Nicole McCabe Yeah, and yeah maybe the we felt like the world needed that you know I love doing my personal music and it feels so personal to me and it feels maybe a little more intense like in that way but then Dolphin is like about having fun and like letting go and me and Logan love all these different types of music and like we love dancing and going out so it's like really nice to

26:07 Nicole McCabe be a part of that environment and maybe introduce people that don't necessarily go to jazz clubs maybe they'll enjoy some aspects of this show and learn something you know like about

26:17 Nicole McCabe Definitely. that that culture that they didn't know Yeah. yeah And it gives you this visual palette that is just so out there. like mid 2000s but also the future and like windows xp meets

26:31 Nicole McCabe exactly i don't know it's so fun it's great i love yeah it we've been having a lot of fun with our 2000s covers recently

26:38 Nicole McCabe yeah that's been a big thing for us but then we also have like the jazz standards in there like we have a tea for two cover

26:44 Nicole McCabe yes you know like yes it's like all these different things it's just about fun yeah

26:49 Nicole McCabe yeah yeah it's good and it's and i love um i don't know i love the love the the individuality of all of these different things where like yeah like like nowhere with the dubstep influence and stuff like just like like why not you know just don't not holding back yeah yeah

27:06 Nicole McCabe well he's so good at production like i don't even know how to do that logan's pretty good logan really knows how to get around on logic so if there's some cool dubstep sounds that you hear that's probably from logan on our on our record record but they're a huge influence for us to know her we love them so much

27:25 Nicole McCabe yeah super super cool great music really curious about kind of touring life and what that looks like obviously like saxophone is an interesting instrument in terms of like body maintenance and like i've played a little bit and i'm very bad at it but just the fundamental of like the reed vibrating in my mouth and like going numb and like

27:45 Nicole McCabe like it's it's so different than guitar that's like tactile and i feel the strings and i know where they are i feel like with saxophone there's more like i have to think about what i want to play before i play it for it to sound good and how do you get into the right state of mind how do you maintain your body and and kind of your overall instrument when you're on the road when you're having to play multiple nights like do you have rituals you have uh things that you do to like keep keep in top shape yeah

28:11 Nicole McCabe Absolutely. I'm definitely before I go on a tour I try to practice as as much as possible like a week before I'm practicing

28:18 Nicole McCabe Yeah. every day so that I build up that stamina because also like you're the inside of your lip kind of calluses like when you're when you're practicing a lot so it's like I want to like build that so that I can go to the shows and like give 100% you know it kind of like it always does take like a few gigs to like feel 100% but I want to be

28:41 Nicole McCabe As prepared as possible and you know for saxophonists that listen a trick that somebody taught me was like a CBD stick. If your lip feels tired if your face feels tired put put the CBD stick like right under your lip and

28:54 Nicole McCabe Okay. that really helps so I use that when I'm not feeling good. the warm-up is such a big thing and also like posture and

29:02 Nicole McCabe Yeah. like I'm always trying not to feel like I'm tense and like you know like if my fingers are tense I'm gonna get like cramps and like sometimes I have issues with my hand so I have to be really

29:15 Nicole McCabe relaxed posture I don't want my back to be getting messed up from holding the saxophone all the time you know Yeah.

29:22 Nicole McCabe so like a lot of stretching on tour you know I'm just making sure my body feels good I take really good care of myself on tour like better than when I'm at home because well first of all I always get sick when I travel and I'm traveling all the time So like, I'm always trying to like have ginger shots and hydrate and eat enough vegetables like so that I feel good. So that's like, I don't even drink when I'm on tour.

29:46 Nicole McCabe Like I just want to feel really good so that I can wake up the next day and like give 100% again, you

29:53 Nicole McCabe Yeah know, so that's a big part of my tour routine as well. I'm really just trying to conserve energy until the show. Like when I'm on the road, I don't really do a lot of very long tours. The longest I've been out is That is three weeks, but I'm out a lot like it's most weekends that I'll go for like, you know, two or three like a weekender and then. In the spring, I'm out for maybe half the month, every month.

30:16 Luke F. Walton All right, to interrupt this very important broadcast, What I'm asking for is for you to rate it five stars, share it with your friends.

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30:56 Nicole McCabe So it's like a lot of short trips for me. And I like it that way. I don't think that I'm a road warrior, unfortunately.

31:03 Nicole McCabe Ha ha. I mean, I have a dog and I like to be home. So I like to do shorter runs, but it still takes a lot out of you. And it's hard to like maintain friendships and relationships when you're traveling so much.

31:16 Nicole McCabe And so that's something I'm really trying to think about when I'm touring too is like checking in on my friends and making sure everyone's okay because it must be so weird as like to have a have a friend that's just here all the time and I'm just like kind of in and out you know like I want to be reliable and you can trust me with your you know whatever's going on with you so I'm like always trying to keep up relationships but I also understand when other people are touring and they don't respond as much you know it's

31:43 Nicole McCabe Yeah. just so hard out there it's just so so much going on but those are a lot of the things that I'm thinking about when I'm when I'm on the road

31:51 Nicole McCabe yeah really good answer and i always try to paint it's kind of like like the the difference between athletes and musicians when they're like doing road games like so it's like not that different like yeah maybe like the youngest athlete or the uh you know certain types of artists can party all the time but most of them are like i got my vitamins my regimen i am turning in early like preserving every ounce that i had yeah oh

32:16 Nicole McCabe because it is the worst to be sick on tour it is it's you can't rest like you have to just keep going there's nothing you can really do you know so I just try my best to just be as healthy as possible because when I do get sick and I take really good care of myself on tour then I get better quicker you know but

32:36 Nicole McCabe Yeah, yeah. it's all that's why we should do that I agree. I'm curious about composition and when you started composing and what it's like composing. instrumental music kind of like your process are you composing and producing at the same time are you composing more on the page are you collecting like little melodies and ideas kind of what how do you go about it

32:57 Nicole McCabe So for my own project under my name, I'm composing on a music dotating software called Sibelius. I'm not producing at the same time, but for Dolphin Hyperspace, we just do it all in logic. So we are just producing the songs out as we're writing them.

33:14 Nicole McCabe them and we kind of do it together or sometimes I'll start an idea and send it to him or vice versa so it's like a really different process for both of them so for my projects I'm kind of like putting the trust into the musicians I hire to you

33:28 Nicole McCabe Yes. know come up with their own rhythms and ideas and to bring that to the music whereas for dolphin it's like we're writing a lot of the parts like we don't ever hire pianists all that part like all the melody and harmony parts are just set in our tracks and then we hired a drummer usually so

33:45 Nicole McCabe Mm hmm. like Louis Cole or Yeah. justin browner and then they kind of play over the track but a lot of it's

33:52 Nicole McCabe already set in there and then we're kind of soloing and you know both of them have um a lot of spontaneity in them but it's just like slightly different because we just play to a track for dolphin and we just we we have our whole set on the on the logic session we just press play and then it goes you

34:10 Luke F. Walton Cool.

34:10 Nicole McCabe know

34:10 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

34:10 Nicole McCabe for

34:11 Luke F. Walton yeah.

34:11 Nicole McCabe like if i was doing my own band i'm like oh let's let's keep this open like let's open this section like let's do this more that's more flexible maybe in that type of way.

34:20 Luke F. Walton Right.

34:21 Nicole McCabe I got to study with Vince Mendoza at USC and he really helped with my composition process as well as Patrice Rushen. They're both so incredible and I was writing before then but I think they both taught me to be a lot more intentional with what I'm putting on the page so I'm usually starting with a melody and then I'll do the bass note and then I'll figure out the quality.

34:44 Luke F. Walton Oh, cool.

34:45 Nicole McCabe major mind you know all

34:46 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

34:47 Nicole McCabe that kind of stuff sometimes I'll think of ideas like if I'm in the shower which is kind of funny but it's like a you know a stereotypical thing or if I'm on a walk or something and I'll I'll voice memo it and then I'll come back and usually I'll have that first idea and then I'll just keep kind of figuring out where it goes from there and I'm thinking about the structure of the song and maybe what it needs or should this repeat or what should the solo section be

35:11 Nicole McCabe Um, so I'm thinking about a lot of those things, but definitely my process has shifted a lot and I'm

35:19 Nicole McCabe writing differently than I was thinking less about a lot of my new pieces on this record think a lot less about like harmony it's like a lot of bass lines and then we kind of figure out what's going on it's kind of up to the pianist like what

35:32 Luke F. Walton Cool.

35:33 Nicole McCabe to play so that's been kind of fun and Caroline Davis she's a saxophone player in New York and we were taking lessons for this next jazz legacy thing so she helped me a lot with like writing in different ways and really focusing on rhythms and the interaction between rhythms and so my writing style is definitely still evolving and I'm sure it forever will be so

35:55 Nicole McCabe Yes. but those are the things that I kind of think about Yeah, that's really nice. Yeah, I'm curious how that all plays out. I would love to, I feel like that would be such a fun thing to have like captured on video. Just like what does that look like of turning the page into the music be such a fascinating like video or something. Yeah.

36:11 Nicole McCabe So fascinating because everyone interprets things differently. Yeah. You know, like when ETA was still here in Los Angeles, I had like a monthly residency and the first set would be composed and the second set would be improvised. So for some people, the improvised set meant crazy, atonal. For some people it meant... let's pick a key and let's just jam on this you know like

36:38 Nicole McCabe Yeah you just say a word to someone and like it because of their references in context like it means something different to everyone so it's really fun to like pull out music like that where it's like you know I don't have chords written and some people are like writing it in chords on the paper and some people are like okay I'm just gonna do whatever like if you don't care you know it's just like fun to see

37:00 Nicole McCabe everyone else's like reactions to things Yeah, no, totally. And I think I think it's so interesting to to think about the jazz history that comes like you're talking Cannonball Adderley, one of my favorite records of all time is live at the Troubadour of Black Messiah live record.

37:16 Nicole McCabe It's super cool. And that's part of what made me like fall in love with Kamasi Washington and that whole kind of like revival. But I love thinking about the the path of jazz because so many people's snapshot of jazz is kind of like like Coltrane bird like it's like it's like a museum-esque relic yeah

37:34 Nicole McCabe Yeah. I don't know there's a question there I guess I wanted to say it yeah Different for everybody. You know, like some people, we all kind of start around the same place. Like we're learning like the kind of blue album. We're listening to that first and then we're, you know, listening to these records and then it's like.

37:52 Nicole McCabe some people get really obsessed with this moment and they want to learn everything about it so that's that's where their thing comes from some people are like okay but what happened before this and they love you know like sydney bache and johnny hodge's duke ellington stuff and like so they play in that world some people are like okay what happened after that like oh like lee conis and like you know all this sort of like

38:19 Nicole McCabe right after bebop kind of expanding and so they're kind of in this creative bebop world and then you know it's like like

38:26 Nicole McCabe Yeah. for me I have many influences from every time period like I love Johnny Hodges Cannonball Lee Conitz I love Gary Barts I love Melissa Aldana like all of these people and I feel like I just wanted to take everything from all these people and then put my own interpretation onto what they're doing I take an idea that

38:45 Nicole McCabe that I like from one of them and then I change it a little bit making my own or I feel like I've taken in all this information and then for me I'm trying to create something that feels relevant right now but that doesn't mean that like people that are really into these certain time periods aren't doing that I'm not trying to exactly like replicate certain phrases or or things or It's hard to explain. Like

39:10 Nicole McCabe Yeah. I have respect for everyone that does any sort of, you know, improvised music. We're all just doing it so differently and there's no right or wrong way to do it. But I have found myself in this world of kind of pushing the envelope a little bit. But I also have so much respect for the tradition, you know.

39:29 Nicole McCabe Yeah. Yeah. But I think that's where the envelope can be pushed in a way that other people can.

39:35 Nicole McCabe and get behind it i see that the internet discourse is like the same things on like whatever jazz subreddit and um and it's it's like the same six records exist and that's fine and that those are great records but like i want there to be it to be a living breathing tradition and not just like a snapshot of 75 years ago you know totally

39:54 Nicole McCabe yeah and you know all these people that we love were innovators Coltrane was absolutely

39:58 Nicole McCabe an innovator Joe Hendrick like they all started like if you listen to all their discographies of our favorite musicians sunny rollins like

40:06 Nicole McCabe Yeah, even yeah. camel was getting crazy towards them like he was doing really cool stuff so it's like why wouldn't we also want to try to keep that spirit going of searching and finding and experimenting um i just think that's really exciting and fun and it's scary at the same time because you know You just don't know what's going on sometimes, but it's,

40:31 Nicole McCabe totally yeah it's very fun to, to try. yeah and it's also fun because we have different tools now like you're talking about Sibelius like I'm sure that if you plucked a lot of those musicians and put them in the present day and gave them Sibelius and the skills to be able to use Sibelius that's that alone could be a whole conversation they'd probably write some different music you know just like

40:55 Nicole McCabe different slight different medium different way of thinking about music listening to it feedback loops probably be different yeah

41:02 Nicole McCabe it would be so different if yeah because you know herbie hancock for example like he's so into that technology and you know he pushed it a certain way and then yep now people are pushing it even more from him it's just going to keep going you know and I think it's a really fun way to experiment.

41:20 Nicole McCabe Like if we have all these new mediums and new ways to express ourselves, like it's fun to just try them and just see what happens, you know?

41:29 Nicole McCabe Yeah. Yeah, Yeah. and I think it's important for music fans to engage with it and come to shows and buy tickets and support these musicians that are trying that stuff, because that's the only way it's going to happen. And that's the only way it's not just like a thing that... Classical music sometimes feels like it's frozen in time, and I don't want that same thing to happen to jazz. Still could play like, you know...

41:52 Nicole McCabe anniversary of kind of blue concert at the symphony hall like that's cool still but like i want to go to jazz clubs you know like they're fun it's a great vibe yeah

42:01 Nicole McCabe exactly like I love doing those types of like I did a like Duke Ellington thing at the symphony last year I'm doing a Dave Brubeck thing but then it's like for my band I'm gonna do something different you know like I love doing that and then I love doing this and It is really important that like people understand how,

42:23 Nicole McCabe you know, more independent artists like us keep going and like buying merch and buying tickets. Like it's never something I really understood until I was, you know, a professional musician and I realized how people make money and continue to survive, especially with like streaming services, everything is just readily available for us. It's easy for us to not pay for things. But

42:46 Nicole McCabe Yeah. when you realize like. that we need to support people that are doing art for art's sake like I'm not saying me but like you know anyone that you want to see them keep going you have to support them and support their vision for you know I mean sometimes it takes a long time for someone to break out and get to that next place but sometimes they need that support to get to that next level in their career

43:10 Nicole McCabe totally and like just a couple vinyl vinyl sales or whatever people could do could go really really long long way especially with like artists the income and gigs and stuff can be really lumpy so those little merch sales

43:24 Nicole McCabe yeah yeah the merch really helps especially with touring i think that people don't realize sometimes that we're not making a lot of money touring we're barely covering costs with like plane tickets and train tickets and management fees and you know all these things um so sometimes we rely well dolphin does and you know myself as well like just like like if merch goes well we're gonna make some money on this tour you

43:49 Nicole McCabe Yeah, know so it yeah. really it really does help Why do so many saxophonists double on a bunch of different instruments? Is that just... cultural expectation or is it easier

43:59 Nicole McCabe yes to play them once okay just sex cultural expectation yeah expectations in high school they're like you have to learn I did start on clarinet so that was like a nice little advantage honestly because people that do not start on clarinet it's really hard for them to pick it up the flute's really hard for me still though because I picked that up later like it really depends on what you want to do if you're going to be A recording artist for commercial music in Los Angeles,

44:27 Nicole McCabe you need to do the doubles like that's not really my. my world so I kind of keep up the flute and clarinet I had a rehearsal today I was playing alto flute which

44:36 Nicole McCabe Cool. is really fun Wow. that I borrowed one but Yeah. it's not something I do very often you know unlike on dolphin hyperspace tracking we use a lot flute clarinet bass clarinet like for the adult swim that adult swim special that dolphin hyperspace just scored did like every single instrument in my closet like just do you

44:58 Nicole McCabe I don't know different know yeah textures like it's so fun to have like I can kind of add things like that I don't feel like I can really solo at my best ability on all the instruments but like for composition and stuff it's really fun and I can play parts so that's that's kind of what I do

45:14 Nicole McCabe yeah that makes a lot of sense I've always been curious because I'm like they seem like very different instruments especially flute it's like completely different thing going on up here i

45:24 Nicole McCabe that's the hardest part is the mouth thing the aperture it's called an aperture on a

45:28 Nicole McCabe flute didn't to embouchure on a saxophone yeah know that i didn't know that huh aperture

45:33 Nicole McCabe because it's dumb it's dumb flautists are dumb yeah really hard like and I during the pandemic I practiced flute like every other day that was my goal and I didn't get that much

45:44 Nicole McCabe better like I got like maybe 10% I was like why am I doing this it's so hard you know but it is cultural expectation and from a young age like we're taught like if you want to do this you have to learn your doubles like for like high school jazz band competitions you know like it's just not a very realistic worldview of what your life could look like as a professional musician but I am happy that I learned them I am happy so

46:12 Nicole McCabe yeah i mean i would probably say the same thing for most string musicians like if you're a guitarist you should probably learn a decent amount of bass you don't need to be like the

46:21 Nicole McCabe mm-hmm okay best bassist but you should know how to play it pretty well and like probably ukulele mandolin but those are all like pretty they're not that different like yeah they're different but they're not that different i feel like a flute is such a different like i don't know okay

46:36 Nicole McCabe it's all the same it's like really close fingering so close fingers it's like you can get it pretty quickly but like all of them are in different keys alto's

46:43 Nicole McCabe Yeah. in e flat clarinets b flat flutes concert like it's you know it's Yeah. just kind of weird to switch and

46:49 Nicole McCabe I still have not really gotten good at like writing. for transposed instruments like that still it breaks my brain i feel embarrassed about that

47:00 Nicole McCabe no you shouldn't I go to sessions all the time and it's wrongly transposed and I don't blame them it's confusing I like you know I teach a lot of tenor saxophone students and I'm on alto so I'm like always trying to think about it's your C and then it's my G you know like I'm trying to like figure out how to explain it and I'm always messing it up so it's okay

47:19 Nicole McCabe okay i i still don't fully and this is this is probably even more embarrassing to say i don't fully understand why why like why did we have to introduce all that complexity is there a physical like physics reason is it do you know yeah

47:34 Nicole McCabe my guess okay i don't really know my guess is the ranges of the instruments because

47:40 Nicole McCabe ranges the you know the the berry is the lowest and then up uh fifth is the tenor so the range is a little higher and then alto is above that i don't really know but i'm assuming it has to do with range things um

47:56 Nicole McCabe Yeah, that makes sense. because there is a c melody sax that's in c and it it sounds kind of weird so

48:02 Nicole McCabe Huh. Okay. interesting. yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah. i've never tried one but i've i've heard them and they sound kind of weird but maybe i don't know could be the player but i think it sounds weird

48:11 Luke F. Walton so i always uh end the show asking the same question we could riff on this for a little while so the show is called love music more segment is called love music why nicole why do you love music

48:24 Nicole McCabe I love music because it's given me the strength to say things that I feel like I couldn't normally say to connect with people that maybe I wouldn't have connected with otherwise and it's just given me such a community of people.

48:44 Nicole McCabe like-minded people and not like-minded people to kind of experience life with and you go through this journey with and I love so much about about it but I think for me connecting with people has been the biggest thing it's been hard for me to like connect with people and communicate things I don't know why socially it's like I never feel like I'm really getting my point across or like it's just hard for me to communicate things so it's like incredible that we have this whole

49:13 Nicole McCabe other language that we can communicate with. And when you're playing with people and you can tell they're listening to you and you're listening to them, you're having this conversation and you feel supported and loved. It's like the most incredible feeling in the world. And you usually can't get that feeling without other people supporting you and helping you.

49:30 Nicole McCabe So I think that's like the best feeling in the whole world. And it's really hard to find another experience that replicates that for me. me so that is why i love music

49:42 Luke F. Walton Really great answer really really great answer Have you played music with people that don't speak English or like been in situation?

49:50 Nicole McCabe Yeah.

49:51 Nicole McCabe yeah definitely Yeah, isn't like that cool jam yeah, sessions people from different countries like it's just so crazy yeah, that you can just you

49:56 Nicole McCabe I know and have a connection and like oh i heard you there i get what you're going for like that's

50:01 Nicole McCabe yeah, it's crazy i love it Yeah. And it's a hard thing to describe unless you've done it. Yeah.

50:10 Nicole McCabe it I know the feeling like I felt you know like you kind of know what that feeling is when you just feel like that was so awesome like we just let go and we were there like those are it's very rare those moments maybe they happen like four or five six times a year but it's like oh man that's why I'm doing this like this is awesome

50:31 Nicole McCabe Couldn't agree more. Yeah.

50:32 Luke F. Walton So where can people get in touch? Where can they listen to your music and follow along?

50:37 Nicole McCabe You can listen to my music anywhere. You can buy my music on Bandcamp. I'm on Instagram and Facebook. If you still use it, I'm all over the place. So please check me out.

50:50 Nicole McCabe Awesome. Well, thank you so much for jumping on the pod. This is super fun.