Music is a personal art form that allows you to get to know someone without ever meeting them. With WRTI’s Philly Made initiative, it has been great getting to know more about the musicians behind the music that keeps us company every day. Over the past couple of months, listeners have been getting to know James Fernando through his new album, Philly 3. I had the chance to speak with James about it, and what it means to be “Philly Made” even when you’re not originally from Philadelphia. His trio also played some music from the album in our studio.
Your album is so refreshing. There's so much power and energy in a trio, and we're going to get to that. But first I wanted to talk to you about your connection to this city.
I moved to Philly about four years ago. I was living in [Washington] D.C. prior to that. And then my partner, she's almost done with her psychology program over at Widener University.
Oh, so it was love that brought you to the City of Brotherly Love.
Yes. Not love of the brotherly variety, but yeah. It’s been a fantastic experience to be here.
There's something about Philly — even for people who are not from here, it's really easy to call Philadelphia home. It's hard to leave once you're here, as well.
Yeah. I think one of the superpowers that Philly has is the community. It’s so easy to meet people that you make genuine, deep connections with, and all the neighborhoods, so many of them being so walkable and whatnot, it's so easy to just see the same people over and over and develop relationships that way. It brings you in.
Now let's get to the music. You're here with your working trio — Dan McCain on bass and Kyon Williams on drums. I hear you guys got together just a few years ago.
So like I said, I moved to Philly from D.C., and I built the early stages of my career there. I was asked on about three days’ notice to fill a spot at the Kennedy Center. And I said, “yes, absolutely.” And I hung up the phone. I had no idea what I was going to present. I was thinking through some things and talking it over with my partner, and we thought that it would be a great idea to start this jazz trio project that I've been meaning to get started for quite some time — and what better way to kickstart a project than to do it at a historic and important venue like the Kennedy Center? So I called the only musician in Philly I knew, a bass player named Sam Harris. I had no idea who to call on drums, so Sam was like, “You gotta call Kyon.” I met Kyon onstage that day, and now I try not to play with anyone besides him, if I can help it. Then about a year ago, Dan McCain played his first gig with us. We've been rocking it together basically a few times a week ever since.
I feel like how that came together is just what jazz is all about: answering a call, improvisation, and a feeling of, you know, “I think I should give them a call.” Just going with an instinct. And that seems to be what brought this group together.
Well said. As with many of us, these sorts of decisions that we make on a microscopic scale are also what are guiding our decisions on a macro scale.
You’ve said that you wanted this album to feel like a conversation — fun, surprising, sometimes dark. Always human. And you said you wanted to make music that couldn’t have been written by just anyone with a jazz degree, or by an algorithm. Talk to me about that.
There's no shortage of amazing musicians, truly, especially in this city. What can I bring to the table that's really going to separate me from all of these other people who are playing their tails off? My unique approach to this is always putting on a little twist. We're not just playing tunes and making the changes and having a good time doing that. We're trying to elevate it so that the experience is more storytelling. As an example, one of the tunes that we're going to play for you is called “The Parisian,” and it has this figure, a very sort of typical feel. Then later on, we start cutting off beats here and there — and that's just a weird thing to do, right? It's like, “Ooh, what's going on there?” I love those sorts of surprises, the humor in that. It feels very, very human.
Now, you cite pianists like Erroll Garner and Oscar Peterson — but also contemporary artists like Brad Mehldau. What do you take by way of influence from those artists?
Erroll Garner and Oscar Peterson, I put them both into the same bucket of pianists where everything they did just felt so good. They bring so much joy to music. It's easy to get away from that as a musician because you're focused on the technical side of things. As I've gotten older, and deeper into this, I realize that the thing that brings me and most people into this music to begin with is just that joy that they get from experiencing it. Then you go to modern musicians like Tigran Hamasyan, for example, and you mentioned Brad Mehldau as well. They really innovated some techniques themselves, both of them, the vocabulary that they brought to this instrument that has become part of what it means to learn jazz piano. They also create music beyond that technical perspective, which as a pianist is easy to nerd out about. They also tell stories through the music and create music with all these left turns and surprises that almost always just still feels great and brings joy. That's what it always comes back to for me.
I'm gonna go back just a little bit: What was your introduction to the piano?
YouTube University. It's that simple. As a kid, I was probably 13 or so when I started stumbling across these videos and went down some of the very best rabbit holes I've ever been down. Seeing footage from Oscar Peterson and Erroll Garner's live performances.
Your new album was released on Spring Garden Records. When I was a junior, I lived on Spring Garden in my very first apartment — and it's funny, you were born the year that I entered Temple, 1995. So Spring Garden Records describe themselves as the official record label of the Community College of Philadelphia, providing a platform for the release of diverse genres of music created by students, alumni, members of the college community, and other Philadelphia artists. Talk to me about your experience working with Spring Garden Records.
I first linked up with Spring Garden Records because I applied for their artist-in-residence program, which I sadly did not get, but hey, it happens. I talked to the gentleman who runs the label, Paul Geissinger, and he told me, “Hey, I really loved your record. I would love to collaborate with you.” I chatted with Paul and said, “This seems like a great opportunity to collaborate with someone who's clearly brilliant.” I mean, Paul is an amazing guy. His moniker is Starky; he releases his electronic music under that moniker, and it's epic. It's so cool. And he just loves jazz and felt really connected to the music that I was making. And I thought, why not partner with someone who's really passionate about this stuff? Who brings a lot of expertise and a different perspective? So I had already been to the studio and we'd recorded Philly 3, but had not yet been through the mixing and mastering stages. Paul jumped in and mixed the record. And working with Spring Garden Records is fantastic. It's such a beautiful concept and I'm thrilled to be a part of it.
You have a few dates here in Philly that are coming up in May, and I understand it'll serve as the sessions for a new live recording?
That's right. The wheel keeps spinning. This next record will be called Still Alive in Philly. Dan, Kyon and myself, we've been fortunate enough to have had a really busy concert schedule, especially off the release of this last album. And we've developed a really cool live show with some very interesting concepts, especially with rhythmic modulations and really taking this music again in a different direction and trying to put our mark on it. So we're inviting an audience into the studio for three shows. People are welcome to come: the shows are in fact free, except we are asking for donations to raise money for Philly Bike Action! I personally am a cyclist, that's how I get around the city. I find a lot of connection between making music and riding my bike. It makes me feel like a kid, like it is just engaging with the best parts about being alive. And yet in this city it's tragically not all that safe to ride around, and people get injured and people die way too often. Philly Bike Action, they're the best people, doing everything they can to help make cycling safer in this city. One of the ways that they're doing that is by trying to create physically separated bike lanes, with concrete barriers, on the few streets that have them, like Spruce and Pine.
What can people expect from your live performances?
It’s meant to be a party. For me, music has always been a celebration of life. I think that's a term that I keep coming back to because it resonates with me so deeply that we're here and we get this chance to make some vibrations that are going to turn into beats that make people tap their feet, turn into emotions that are gonna move people. That's so powerful and special. And I just want to hold onto that and as tight as possible and share it with as many people as possible as well.
Can we get into our Philly Made questions now? Give me an early, memorable Philly jazz experience, one that stayed with you.
There's a program in Boston called the Berklee Five-Week intensive, and it brings students from all over the world who are in high school. I did that program and met so many people who were just outrageously good, and time after time, they're like, “Yeah, I'm from Philly.” Like, this is just normal for us. I was coming from a big city myself; I was living in Boston and knew plenty of really strong players. But I was at that program the same year as a few names come to mind: Alonzo Demetrius; Jordan Williams, who I think was your Philly Made artist last month; and Arnetta Johnson. They were all there at the same time and it was shocking to me that so many incredibly talented, cool, fun, chill young musicians could be from the same place.
What's something that anyone visiting Philly should do?
For me, the best parts about Philly are the unexpected things. I would tell anyone who's in Philly: go on a little walk, get yourself a nice coffee from somewhere. Go sit down at a restaurant. I've lived in a few different cities and had the chance to travel to many places, and nowhere is as just cool as this place in terms of all these little offerings that we have, right? You don't need to eat Chipotle in Philly. You don't need to get your coffee from Starbucks.
Now, name a record by a Philly Made artist that everyone should check out, whether they're from Philly or associated with the city, whether it's Delaware or Camden.
Clifford Brown's Study in Brown speaks for itself, once you get your ears on it. A historically important album, but when you listen to it, you feel the energy that this group had. Then to think that this gentleman was 24 years old at the time he recorded it. To me that is a really spectacular Philly album.
James Fernando, thank you for spending some time with us. Thank you for the great music. Thank you for calling Philly home and recognizing the greatness.
It's been an honor. Thanks for having me, Nicole.
