On Tuesday, August 26 I was invited by the great community/jazz radio station KUVO to do an interview on my new book The Shape Method. The interview was scheduled for 8:35 am, the end of their morning “drive time” show. The show is a mixture of jazz, news, interviews, and friendly banter from two hosts and an engineer.
KUVO Interview
The interview was suggested and arranged by another KUVO person, the always-supportive Susan Gatschet Reese. I have known one of the hosts, Carlos Lando, for many years and worked with him for on-air and promotional events during that time. The other regular host, Steve Chavez, was on leave that day and filling in for him was Cynthia Hesson, a well-known community media personality.
I had sent them a sampler pdf of the book in preparation for the interview. Carlos had done his homework and prepared some comments and questions from the text and his experience.
The following is a recording of the interview. I’m posting it for several reasons. First, I want you to have a chance to hear met talk about The Shape Method. But I also want you to experience a good interview, conducted by pros who did enough research to pose interesting and relevant questions and then give the guest opportunity to answer.
In addition, I’d like for you to note a couple of things about my responses in the interview. First, I started with an interesting metaphor that related the (rather arcane) topic of jazz solos to something that the hosts and uninitiated of the audience could understand. As the interview proceeded, check out the way I responded when a question was asked that I didn’t want to discuss or was based on a misunderstanding – I did not correct the host, but simply acknowledged the question and proceeded to speak about what I wanted to talk about (I learned this from watching politicians!). And finally, actually right off the bat and finally, I thanked all the hosts, engineer, and audience.
One of the problems plaguing jazz music is a sense of alienation and elitism that separates us from much of our potential audience. We need to reach out to people, be polite, be gracious, be thankful, but not allow ourselves to be cornered by questions and/or comments that support negative stereotypes.
I am happy with this interview, largely because it demonstrates many of these points. I hope that it can serve as a positive model helping you with your communications about jazz and all other artistic pursuits for which you have passion.
Enjoy!
KUVO Interview
