Photo by David Shehi
Jennifer Hartswick was still a Vermont high school student when Trey Antastasio approached her about adding some trumpet to his solo release One Man’s Trash. Since then she has continued to perform with Anastasio and appears on the recently-released TAB at the TAB disc. However at this point Hartswick is an established bandleader in her own right, with her third album set to hit next year. In the following conversation she tracks her development, discusses some unreleased Trey Anastasio Band studio sessions, talks about her Umphrey’s McGee connection and shares what she has planned for the coming months.
So, you have a new album due to be released in the Spring of 2011. Your past two albums explored very different genres – the first being a funk, soul mix and the second a collection of jazz standards. Can you talk about the direction you took with your third album?
It’s a little more oriented to the first [album]. It’s kind of a soul, R&B record. It’s a “less is more” version of that project. It’s just five people – the quintet, the rhythm section and me – and it’s kind of sultry, sultry and R&B oriented.
What musicians are featured in the current lineup you’re playing with and how did the band come together?
Well basically, I’ve been sort of collecting in my mind over the last ten or fifteen years who I love working with and playing with. So it’s Nick Cassarino on guitar, who I’ve been playing with for the last ten years; Dezron Douglas on bass, we met in college, so we’ve been playing for the last ten years; and then there’s two different drummers, there’s Russ Lawton whose been playing on half of it, and then a drummer from Chicago named Cory Healey who guest appeared on some stuff; Joe Dividian is on organ; and Bruce Squire also came and did a few tracks with us on organ and piano.
So Rob Marscher [who is now in Hartswick’s band] is not featured on the recording?
Rob isn’t on the actual recording. He was on tour at the time we recorded.
How did you and Rob first meet and when did you approach him about joining your band?
I’ve been a huge fan of Rob’s since Addison Groove Project. He’s such an incredible musician and he was doing double-duty playing bass in one hand and incredible keys in the other. So we go really far back. I’d say 10 or 11 years that I’ve enjoyed his playing and him as a person.
We’d been talking and trying to do something for that whole time. [Laughs]. So it was probably right when we recorded the album and we knew we wanted to get something solid together. So I’d say about a year ago we really started talking about having the band be a band. Everyone’s so busy that it’s hard to get everybody together, especially with him as a new dad and a touring musician. I mean, it’s really difficult for everybody but it’s nice that everybody wants to do it.
Is this band lineup permanent, and if so, when did it solidify?
Yeah, the permanent lineup is Nick Castarino, Dezron [Douglas], and Rob [Marscher] and Nikki Glaspie on drums. And it solidified probably four or five months ago when we started booking shows and were actually able to get commitments from everybody. Nikki’s tough because she’s in Beyonce’s band. So, we kind of have to work around her schedule.
When you were recording the new album did you invite any guests into the studio to help you out?
The only guest we really had was Tony Barba who’s a tenor sax player from New York and who actually had just moved to Chicago when we were recording the album. So it was nice to have him be a part of it.
So no guest appearances from any of the other TAB members?
No, just Russ Lawton. He played on half of the album.
Is that because you’re trying to distance your solo work from your work in TAB?
No I don’t try to distance anything from anything. I am who I am and I’ve done what I’ve done and we all love playing together. Any reason for any line-up or lack thereof is because of people’s schedules. So you can either put it off because you can’t get exactly who you want for your whole life [Laughs] or you can just go ahead and see what comes out of it. And, we ended up with a really incredible record that I’m actually really proud of. The band sounds great. But, there’s certainly no intentional distance.
So what was the timeline like with the new album? When did you first begin working on it and what was the songwriting process like?
I kind of go through phases of writing a lot at once, and then I’ll spend a few months not writing. But I spent probably three months writing a solid 15 or 20 tunes and narrowed it down to the ones I really wanted to do. With recording I’m always very fast. I don’t see the need to spend forever in the studio. So when everything was said and done we probably spent two weeks in the studio.
How do you personally approach writing the songs?
It’s different every time. I really have no formula. I will say that the way I write tunes the most is if I’m in the car by myself on a long drive, which happens a lot. So I have my little “handy dandy” recorder and I’ll try and flush something out. For the most part it’s really all different, but I do write a lot in the car.
What was the recording process like?
I always record live. All the tracks are always live. I feel really strongly about that. We were in a really incredible studio in Chicago in a really incredible live room. And, you know, a lot of those guys are from the East Coast, so we flew them in. And a lot of them I hadn’t seen in a long time. So, it was a really good hang and I got to show them the city. And it was the same deal, we spent maybe four days in the studio that first leg.
Nobody knew the songs ahead of time too, which I think that kind of gives everything a fresh taste. We had a rehearsal the day before we went to the studio and I showed them everything and everybody kind of gave their input, “this should go here, that should go there” – it’s a very democratic process. And so we go in not really knowing what’s going to happen and we just take whatever happens. There’s one song called “Ocean Floor” that we just did one take of; there isn’t a second take. It was just one of those special things and it tends to be people’s favorite song on the album. So I guess it worked.
Are you the sole songwriter or is the rest of the band contributing?
It’s my work. And then as far as arranging goes I kind of open up the floor to whoever has ideas and everyone tends to have ideas and I love that because it becomes theirs.
You guys recently played a show at a new jazz club in New Jersey called Chico’s. What was that show like and how did it go?
We had a great time. It was a really fun night. [Laughs]. I think it’s really hard to get people out on a Tuesday night. But the people who went there had a really good time. We always have an incredible time when we play. Everyone in that band has different projects that they’re a part of. Some people have six or eight or ten projects that they’re a part of and this is just one of them. But I always want to make sure that if this is another project for somebody that it’s fun, and it’s worth doing. It’s great music and a great hang.
All of those people are my favorite people in the world and that had to be the first thing when I was putting together the band – we have to all love hanging out with each other. And then we all have to be bad asses too. So I think that’s why it takes so long to form a great band. It’s because there’s a lot of people that you meet and you think “Oh maybe that would work” and then something comes up and it doesn’t. But with this band we just all love hanging out with each other and we all love playing music. It doesn’t take itself too seriously and we have an incredible time up on stage. We laugh and hopefully make some deep music, but it’s never something that takes itself too seriously.
You’ve mentioned in the past about coming from a very musical family. Can you talk about some of your biggest musical influences growing up?
I was raised in a very classical music family, with a lot of classical music and musicians. I would say early-on I kind of just got bitten by the jazz bug. My first recollection of music was of Ella Fitzgerald, so I would say between Ella and Art Tatum and Clifford Brown. It was never trumpet players in particular or singers players in particular. It was just whatever struck me about a certain person. But I have a lot of early jazz influence. I would say Ella, Art Tatum, Clifford Brown and Freddie Hubbard were all huge influences in my middle school and junior high upbringing.
Those are some great influences to have that early on.
Yeah, my friends and I all kind of just discovered it at the same time so it was never this weird, lonely thing. We would all keep showing each other records, like “Did you see this Mingus record?!” I mean, to us, it was new. But you know it had been recorded thirty years prior. So there were a big group of us who grew up together who were always showing each other things. And we still do it. We’re still all friends and we still say “Oh have you checked out this record and this record?” Some of it may be current stuff and some may be records that you found from 1961. But it was always like we had a core group for people who were always excited about discovering new music.
Do you and Trey ever debate over classical music?
[Laughs]. I wouldn’t say debate. I would say get really excited over certain pieces. He was obsessed with this Ravel piece probably six or seven years ago. There were several Ravel pieces that he was obsessed with and he used to play them all the time. So I wouldn’t say debate, just really excited.
Do you have a favorite piece or a favorite composer?
It’s so vast. I mean if I had to narrow it down to a composer, I don’t think that I could, but a huge piece for me was always “Pictures at an Exhibition”. That was a pretty huge epic for me when I was like 10 in my living room with all the lights off, getting freaked out by it.
What kinds of things are you listening to nowadays?
You know what I love right now? Stuff that I would never physically play in a million years. And, my husband loves electronic music and indie rock and those are two things that I have never really taken a liking to until the last few years and I finally started really checking it out and listening to it. We saw LCD Soundsystem the other night and that was absolutely incredible. I definitely got that record a few weeks before it and just have just not stopped listening to it. So it’s a really interesting thing for me to go see a band like that that I know nothing about. And that’s one of my favorite things to do is just go see music without any expectations. We’re really fortunate to be able to do that.
So what’s happening with TAB, are there any plans for shows this fall?
I think the fall is kind of booked up for his other band. But I think there’s somewhere in between tentative and solid plans for a little winter run. I know we all want to, it’s just a matter of getting everybody together. But as far as I know, there’s some plans to go out in the winter for a little bit.
You guys also just released a live album from earlier this year at the Tabernacle in Atlanta. Can you talk about why that show was chosen? What’s special about it?
Yeah, absolutely. You just have those nights. It seems that the Tabernacle is just a special place. Every show we’ve ever done there has been incredibly memorable. I was actually just watching this little video that Umphrey’s put out of them playing that Tabernacle and what an incredible experience it was. I think there’s just something magical about that place and Atlanta in general. I mean the south goes off anyway, but Atlanta goes off , and the Tabernacle goes off.
At setbreak I remember going back and my right ear hurt so bad and I couldn’t figure out what it was. But I realized that it was actually from the noise-level of the crowd, because I face that way. And people were just so excited which feeds us and we give back and they give back and it just turns into this whole cyclical thing. But it was just one of those really special nights. And we actually went in the studio right after the tour and recorded a studio album and still decided to release TAB at the TAB over the new studio record.
So TAB has a new studio album in the works?
Well we recorded it right when we got off the tour. I mean, it’s done. [It’s] finished. And [Trey] still chose, instead of releasing that, to release the live album because the energy was so crazy and it was just a great night. I mean you just have those nights, and those nights tend to happen at the Tabernacle.
You can almost hear the energy oozing off the record.
I hope so. I mean, it was so real. It was overwhelming, really. I was so psyched that they put that out because the people who play [at the Tabernacle] know it, but it just never gets talked about. If you have the opportunity, you should go.
Is that something that you’ve felt before – a venue that has its own kind of energy that the band can sort of tap into?
Absolutely. I mean, you look at Red Rocks and how can you not feel that? There’s just certain magical places like that where whether it’s the history, or the energy of the land, or whatever goes on, it’s “tappable” and tangible and undeniable.
You recently received your own personal nod from Rolling Stone in their review of TAB at the TAB. That must have felt great.
Yeah, it was very sweet. I have a very proud Daddy and Mom, she’s just quieter. It was very nice of them to include me.
From what I’ve heard, the TAB direction seems to have changed slightly from the past years. In the past the band was more focused on extended jams, but recently it seems the focus is more along the lines of what you were just talking about, channeling energy into more of a rock-based sound. Was that something that was articulated when you guys got back together, or did it come about more organically?
It happened organically and I think it just comes with maturity. I mean certainly, for me, I go back and look at the first record I made, and the headspace I was in at the time – I was like 22 years old – and everything is sort of too long or too much, and it’s your own immaturity showing. And there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s to be expected. But as you grow you learn to hone things and you learn to consolidate and get deeper.
And I think that’s exactly what happened, we consolidated and we got deeper. And so, it’s not as meandering as it could be. Everyone’s on the same page where you feel it together, you feel like “Ok, we’re going to take it to the next level, or we’re going to end it.” It’s a consciousness now instead of so many people on stage that it becomes a free-for-all or nine solos in a row or something like that. I think with Trey being as focused as he is right now – and healthy, and amazing – that’s just naturally what would happen. So it was not something that we talked about, but it’s something that we felt together.
Would you say you’ve noticed a similar evolution in the band’s sound?
Definitely, yeah.
Are the trumpet lines you play in TAB charted out completely by Trey or do you have some input into the lines that you’re playing?
It depends on what it is. There are a few,“Valentine” and “Liquid time”, those two were actually done by Don Hart who does all the string arrangements for the orchestra stuff that Trey’s been doing. He’s a really brilliant arranger, and the two of them work really hard together. That’s pretty new. We’ve always written our own parts or had a hand in it and so for someone to hand you a chart that’s so beautifully and perfectly done, that they’ve been working on for the past six months while I’ve been doing my thing, to come in and have this pristine chart is entirely new to all of us. Because, usually it’s written in red pen or crayon on the back of a napkin. [Laughs].
So obviously a lot of the stuff we come up with on the fly, but some of the orchestrated things, lately the newer stuff, has been the work of Trey and Don Hart together.
I think it really shines through on “Valentine”, one of the songs you mentioned.
Yeah, and “Goodbye Head,” he did “Goodbye Head” too. All those things that are really composed, they just have that Don Hart stamp on them. They’re really beautiful.
So just to backtrack for a moment, can you talk about some of the songs on the unreleased TAB studio album that you mentioned?
To be honest, I can’t even remember what we recorded. Basically, it was just what we were playing on the last tour. We just wanted to document it and have it be really fresh from the road and get a good solid recording of what we’d been doing the last month. So it’s not very different from TAB at the TAB or what we had been doing on the road. So it’s all those new songs that I mentioned before, “Valentine,” “Liquid Time,” “All That Almost Was” and “Wanda” and all those kinds of things that had never been recorded before. So they exist. I don’t know if they’ll ever be released, but they exist.
So there are no plans for an official release?
No, I think he kind of released the live album instead of that. We have it, but I think he was more excited with the energy from the live album. In the last twelve years that I’ve been working with him, we’ve recorded lots of albums that just sit there.
Lots of people don’t know that Trey reached out to you while you were still in high school and that you contributed horn parts on Story of the Ghost and on Trey’s solo album One Man’s Trash. How did you first become involved with Trey and what was it like recording with Phish?
Well I met Trey through Dave Grippo, who was a member of the Giant Country Horns. Dave and I had been working together since I was sixteen and he heard me at a jazz festival and he came backstage and asked me to be in his band. When Trey was recording One Man’s Trash he had written this song called “At the Barbeque” and it was this really weird, offbeat, humorous, funny Trey thing. I was really confused when I first got the music, but now it makes perfect sense.
So Trey asked Dave, “Who should we get for a trumpet player” and Dave said me: “You’d love her, she’s right up your alley you’d get along great.” So, I, obviously growing up in Vermont had heard who Phish was but I had never seen them and I didn’t have any of their albums – I was not one of those kids. I mean, lots of my friends were those kids. So I went into the studio and met him and we had a total blast. We just giggled like total idiots all day and recorded and it came out really well – it was a fast little thing. And it kind of just blossomed from there. And so then I went off to school and he went on tour with Phish, that was in ’98. Then about a year later he had already done that tour with Russ and Tony and he wanted to add horns and he called me up and I said “OK.” And I’ve kind of just been on the road ever since.
So what did it feel like to be working with this big rock band Phish when you were so young?
It wasn’t that. It was just a couple of goofy guys from Vermont. I didn’t look at it as being a huge deal. I was like “Oh, cool I get to go play some music today” and I had no idea what would happen. Because I wasn’t a follower of their band I wasn’t in awe or intimidated it was more just a bunch of nice guys from Vermont. So had I been a fan I would have freaked out a lot harder. [Laughs]. But since I wasn’t, I was just like “OK, we’ll have fun.”
You also appeared with them in 2004 for a rendition of Jay-Z’s “Girls, Girls, Girls.”
Oh God, do we have to talk about this? [Laughs]. I was in Vegas doing a show of my own and I went to the show, I took my band to go see the show, no big deal. And I wasn’t even going to go backstage and say hi, I just wanted to catch a couple tunes before our set started. But [Trey] dragged me backstage and he was like “We’re doing it! You have to do it!” And I said “OK, fine. Whatever.” And I got up on stage and he had 12 pages of lyrics taped to the stage. You couldn’t tell where he was or what verse he was on. I was tapping my foot to show him what verse we were on. It was a disaster. It obviously wasn’t meant to be seriously, it was meant to be a joke. It may not have been a funny joke, but I do not take the blame for that.
Are you still playing with Van Ghost? And what has the learning experience be like from playing in that project?
That’s very much a huge part of my life right now. I actually just recorded a record with them working with the most incredible producer that’s in Nashville, who’s responsible for every country record you’ve ever heard in the last 10 years basically. He’s an incredible, incredible guy. And we’re getting ready to release that in the early spring and I’m flying out to go do stuff on Sunday at 7AM. That’s still a very big part of my life and will be for the next several years I’d say.
You’ve also come out numerous times with Umphrey’s McGee, what do you think of those guys?
I think it’s an incredible band. I was a huge fan of their band before I met them; before I started working with them. I just think that there’s a lot of brilliant musicians in that band and I’m constantly in awe of their show and their musicianship. And, the first time I met them Trey was playing at Northerly Island in Chicago, and I called up Bayliss and I was like, “Hey, my name’s Jennifer I’m a huge fan of your band,” I totally fanned out on him. [Laughs]. I was like “I’m Jennifer Hartswick and I like your band and I’m in this band and we’re playing in the city and I’d love for you to be my guest” and so he brought some guys out. He was such a sarcastic bastard that we instantly hit it off and have been family ever since. But even though we’re family I still go to the show as a fan. They’re an incredible band. They’re an incredible show and I think it’s one of the best bands out there.
How did you meet your husband Wade, who was Umphrey’s tour manager? And what advice did you give him when he decided to become a full-time musician?
We actually just celebrated our five year anniversary last week. We met about nine years ago through a mutual friend, actually at a show at Great Woods. So we’ve known each other for a long time.
I supported his decision so wholeheartedly. This is a guy who’s always had a job and has always done the right thing and had three jobs at the same time since he was 14 years old. And I have been the exact opposite. So it was about time that, if he wanted to, he should experience what it was like from the artist perspective. He’s so entertaining as a human there’s no reason for him to be behind the scenes anyway. That’s what I’ve been telling him for almost a decade. So I’m really stoked for him and he’s about to go out on a tour in a couple a weeks and then there’s this great show, it’s actually going to be our first show together, on December 30th at Sullivan Hall, which is going to be great. It’s him and then me, Natalie Cressman and Peter Apfelbaum, so a live horn section with him playing records and it’s going to be incredible. It’s going to be killer. I actually just ran into a Peter the other night and we’re both super psyched about it.
