JR: I saw that you sat in with Jason Crosby recently.
SM: I’ve been playing with Jason Crosby quite a bit these days. I think two times in the last month and then me and him have been getting together outside of gigs just hanging out and playing together. Jason is a wonderful musician.
JR: Do you do that a lot, just jam with people, or are you more project based when you play?
SM: It depends. There is jamming that goes on. A drummer friend of mine named David Butler is in a band called Hawk and Dove. We get together just to practice. We play music that is very good practice for us as musicians— but I don’t know if it would be enjoyable to listen to. We’ll take someone’s phone numbers, like say your phone number is 3973, and that would becomes the metric time of the playing. And then you add in the first three numbers. Things like this and practicing playing three over four, practicing playing with a metronome and starting the click on the quarter notes and spreading it out to the half notes and then the whole notes so that the click is just going on the one and then just doing every other one. Practicing like that is like, you know, those guys before they bat in the major league who go up to the on-deck circle where they swing the bat with the donut on it to make the bat heavier? To me, that’s what practicing should be.
JR: You also played with Everyone Orchestra last week. Is that something that you practiced for, or did you just show up and play?
SM: No, we showed up probably a half hour before show time. Quite a few of the people I had played with before. You know, Steve Molitz, who I was in Particle with and Marc Friedman from the Slip, I do a lot of playing with because he’s here in New York city. And Jennifer Hartswick. So it was great to see my old friends who I don’t get to see much and then it was great to play with a few of those guys for the first time, like Peter Apfelbaum and Josh Roseman and Vinnie Amico from moe. It’s a good, spirited thing that Matt Butler has put together, probably one of the more unique gigs that any musician will ever do.
JR: You also did a gig with Vince Martin at Banjo Jims. Tell me about him?
SM: He’s a guy who recorded an album in the 60’s called If The Jasmine Don’t Get You… The Bay Breeze Will. It’s a record that never got its due respect. It was recorded two weeks after Dylan recorded Nashville Skyline with the same musicians. Recently, Vince made a record with Thurston Moore. The two of them made a record because Thurston is a big fan of his. And he’s just a great singer songwriter guy who now lives in New York. A producer friend of mine, Jesse Lauter, who is producing Alana Amram’s record—that I’m also going to be playing on—put me in touch with Vince and Vince asked me to come and back him up on a few songs at Banjo Jim’s that night. It was really pretty special, actually. And that night was filmed for a documentary about Vince that will be released sometime next year.
JR: Do you have time to play with anyone else?
SM: Actually, that’s all on top of a ton of freelance work in the studio. I’ve become like a New York City guitar player in the past year.
JR: Are you able to make a living doing that kind of freelance work?
SM: Yeah, knock on wood.
JR: That’s awesome. Is it all word of mouth? Have you had to advertise in any way?
SM: you know, I’ve made up some business cards [laughs].
JR: Obviously you don’t have a flyer up…
SM: Yeah, I don’t do flyers [laughs]. I mean, this business is mostly word of mouth. You’ve gotta stand out from everybody. In New York City alone there are a million great guitar players. You really have to bring something unique to the table.
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