#221 Jake Chapman- Session Musician, Performer, Songwriter, & More!
This episode is sponsored by Dream Cymbals.
The guest this week is Jake Chapman, and he is a multi-instrumentalist based in Los Angeles. His specialties include vibraphone, marimba, xylophone, glockenspiel, and keyboards. He is a session musician, performer, and songwriter with a lot of experience in a wide variety of musical styles, including jazz, hip hop, R&B, funk, pop, rock, video game music, and classical. He studied at Juilliard, and until COVID was a gigging musician in the NYC and LA music scenes. He has toured in the US, Singapore, and China. Jake enjoys utilizing his craft to help musicians, songwriters, and producers achieve great tracks and live performances.
Happy Birthday!
Happy Birthday to three friends of the show. Alan Evans. Alan is a multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, studio engineer, record producer, whose personal style incorporates elements of rock, blues, soul, R&B, funk, jazz, reggae and the psychedelic.
Alan is also a founding member of the bands Soulive and Ae3 as well as co owner of Vintage League Music.
You can hear about the upcoming rock cruises Damon mentioned by going to Sixthman’s Website.
Native of Houston, Texas, drummer Jordan Rose has performed at festivals and venues throughout the US, Canada, Europe, Mexico, Asia, and the Middle East. From 2012-2014 Jordan toured extensively with multi-Grammy award winner, Joe Louis Walker. He now resides in Brooklyn, New York where his talents as a session drummer have given him the opportunity to collaborate with musicians Charlie Puth, Jeff Coffin, Nona Hendryx, Bakithi Kumalo, Louis Cato, and many others. This year Jordan is touring with Theo Katzman of Vulfpeck, The Blues Brothers, and Caleb Hawley, and is scheduled to perform across the US, Europe, and Russia.
From 2007-2010 Jordan fought a battle with a growth in his right ear which caused him to lose almost all hearing. Due to modern medicine and miraculous healing, his hearing was restored. From this three year period of trial and uncertainty, Jordan gained an even deeper love, appreciation, and excitement for music and a greater understanding of the intense power it has to impact lives. As he shares his talents in drumming, he hopes that he can bring the same life-changing positivity to the world that music has brought to him.
Brian Potts is a versatile performer and dedicated educator with a passion for Brazilian percussion. Under the tutelage of Dr. Ney Rosauro at the University of Miami, he became enamored with the sound and capabilities of modern pandeiro techniques. His degrees culminated with a doctoral essay based on an interview with the great Marcos Suzano, which has become an invaluable reference for pandeiristas the world over. Also, Brian works closely with the Pandeiro Repique Duo, comprised of Bernardo Aguiar and Gabriel Policarpo, with whom he founded the Brazilian percussion supergroup PRD Mais in 2016. In addition to his love of Brazilian music, Brian has sought to help make the pandeiro an international and limitless phenomenon by adapting the instrument to a wide variety of styles, including jazz, funk, soul, Latin, and classical music. In his clinics, Brian strives to relate the versatility of the pandeiro by utilizing modern techniques that allow students to approach the instrument in a creative and interactive fashion. He also teaches at Barry University in addition to online (i.e. Skype, Zoom, etc).
Gig Alerts
First is a link to the Lady Got Chops Calendar of events for March (Women’s History Month).
Also, the Hit Like A Girl competition is open and you can see all the PRIZES you can win, as well as who THE JUDGES are.
Tax Info!
Thanks to the coronavirus (among other things), a lot has changed for the 2021 tax season. We don’t want you to get blindsided, so click on the article to dig into what’s new for this tax season and what’s staying the same. -Article
Shoeboxed is an app you can use to scan and organize receipts and business cards. You can create expense reports, track your mileage and so much more! You can check out their PRICES, or slide on over to WAVE and use their free options.
You can go back and listen to the interview Damon did with his accountant to get some basics for self employed musicians for doing your taxes. -Episode 112
Educational Spotlight
Drum Summit has friend of the show Mona Tavakoli on this week and you can see the conversation on Drum Summit’s Instagram Page.
This article and link shows 10 of the top YouTube channels to help out producers, engineers and beat makers. These pages are invaluable resources for learning and inspiration, be it sound design, mixing, production, composition, gear reviews, live performances, beat making, track breakdowns and much more. Shout out to a few others we couldn’t fit in like Exquisite Beats, ADSR, Sonic State and Red Means Recording.
Also, Damon recommends MUSIC TECH HELP GUY for his YouTube tutorials on the DAW Logic Pro.
Product Review
Friend of the show, Chris Robley (also the curator of the DIY Musician Blog by CD Baby) has a new program he has been using for remote sessions. Prior to the pandemic, loads of music was already being created via long-distance collaboration; but lockdowns and distancing has accelerated online music-making and increased our need for good collab tools.
With Notetracks, you can streamline your collaborative conversations with producers, beatmakers, mixing engineers, remixers, topline singers, or session players. It helps you get closer to that feeling of being in the same room, and gives you super intuitive ways to share feedback about a track or session.
Iconic Recording
The iconic recording this week was submitted by friend of the show, Marcos Lopez. The recording is “Alma Mia” by Carlos “Patato” Valdes from the album ‘Authority’ released in 1976.
Carlos "Patato" Valdes - quinto, vocals
Julio Collazo - tumadora, shekere, vocals, coro
Virgilio Marti - tumbadora, vocals, coro
Mario Papaito Muniz - conga, vocals
Nelson Gonzalez - conga, tres, vocals
Steve Berrios - cascara
Music News
On March 11, 2021, President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 into law, providing financial relief and other benefits for many Americans, including music creators. To help ASCAP members navigate the new COVID-19 relief measures, we outlined the key provisions for music creators. -Article
On Tuesday (March 16), all four original sponsors of the bill -- Reps. Linda Sánchez (D-CA) and Ron Estes (R-KS) and Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) -- reintroduced the long-simmering legislation, which would allow musicians, technicians and producers to deduct 100% of recording expenses up to $150,000 on their taxes in the year they're incurred. The bill is fundamentally unchanged from its previous incarnations (introduced July 31 in the House, and the companion bill in the Senate on Dec. 3), which failed to pass as part of the last two pandemic relief packages despite intense lobbying from independent music advocates to have it included.
Under the current tax code, music creators are required to amortize production expenses for tax purposes over the economic life of a sound recording, a period that usually ranges between three and four years. If passed, the HITS Act would apply the same tax standard to music as it does film and TV productions, which already enjoy a 100% first-year deduction, helping music professionals recover from the severe economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a Copyright Alliance survey last year, 88% of creators lost income during the decline, more than double the national average for other industries. Roughly half of respondents lost 90% or more of their income. -Article
Damon got the vaccine while his mom (an epidemiologist) accompanied him.
Jake Chapman Interview
The song leading into the interview was an arrangement of “Sonnymoon for Two” by Sonny Rollins, performed by Jake Chapman.
Damon first found out about Jake from the World Vibes Congress 2021. You can watch that below. Jake’s session starts at 2:58:29.
Jake went to Columbia University. He grew up in Los Angeles, CA.
Jake started on piano and then guitar before making his way to percussion and mallet instruments in middle school.
Damon mentions two of the vibraphonists that played with guitar led groups or organ trios like Grant Green. Bobby Hutcherson and Billy Wooten.
Jake has a band with his family called the Von Chaps.
The Von Chaps did a tour through China right before things shut down with the Coronavirus.
Damon makes a joke about Jake’s parents vs. Marty and Elayne at the Dresden in L.A. (featured in the movie Swingers).
Damon and Jake talk a bit about Chinese cuisine, and how the touring schedule affected meals.
Jake was able to get backlined instruments for the tour in China. Most of them were vibraphones, a couple of marimbas and xylophones and also concert orchestra bells.
The vibraphone that Damon and Jake have trouble pronouncing is made by a French company founded in 1932 by Mr. Albert Bergerault. They have made instruments such as the first four-octave vibraphone made in 1966 for the ORTF orchestra, the first glockenspiel with pedal damper for the "Percussions de Strasbourg", the 1st Marimba Bass for Alain Londeix, or the first xylophone with a flat keyboard for the Radio France orchestra, have become standards adopted throughout the world by the greatest orchestras and soloists. Their workshops can be found in Ligueil, France.
Jake talks about the benefit of a low E on a vibraphone or the vibraphones that go down to a low C.
Jake goes through his inventory of 4 vibraphones, 3 marimbas, 1 xylophone, 5 glockenspiels (two toys), 1 steel pan, some boomwackers, a zellophone and a tongue drum. He mentions the glock by the company Jinbao.
Some items that might be on Jake’s “to-get” list are almglocken, orff instruments, timpani and chimes.
Jake and Damon talk about instrument tuning and things mallet instruments don’t do well like pitch bending and swells. Jake does have a pickup on his vibes so he was able to use guitar pedals to create effects. His Deagan Commander 2 has rails already on the instrument to be able to add pickups easily.
Damon brings up Jake’s connection to (friend of the show) Brad Dutz through his son Jasper Dutz. That leads to the conversation about busking. You are required to have a permit for some public performances. You can learn how to apply for a musician or performer permit. The requirements, fees, and process for obtaining a permit depend on where the performance will take place.
There’s also the Open Culture Permit, which is a new permit type available from the Street Activity Permit Office (SAPO) allowing for ticketed performances. Arts and cultural institutions, as well as entertainment venues, will have the opportunity to secure a permit for single day, socially distanced performances at over 100 street locations throughout all five boroughs.
Applications will be considered on a first-come, first-serve basis. Applications open on March 1st at 12 PM. The program will run through October 31st, 2021.
There is a program called Music Under New York that Jake refers to. There are also auditions held to be added to the MTA Music Roster.
For more info on Busking in NYC, you can click THIS LINK, or click on THIS LINK.
Jake was into musical theater. He was part of the BMI Musical Theater Workshop.
Jake participated in the Columbia-Juilliard Exchange program. Jake mentions that Joe Doubleday was the first vibraphonist to participate in this program. Mark Sherman is the instructor at Juilliard for vibes. Jake was in a combo with Rodney Jones and the late Frank Kimbrough.
Once Jake was in NYC, jazz brought him, but musical theater kept him there (with a stint of computer science in between).
Jake helped start the Jazz House at Columbia.
Jake also co-wrote the Varsity Show while he was finishing up at Columbia.
Jake talks about how musical theater helped other aspects of his musical tutelage.
Jake has been on voisey a bunch through the introduction of his sister.
Jake auditioned for an LG commercial from an ad and he was featured on it with the artist H.E.R. You can see the process below.
Jake talks about some of the NYC and L.A. differences. Especially as a vibraphonist. Specifically referring to transportation.
Jake uses Musser instruments. He also gives a shout-out to his former teachers Nick Mancini and Steve Nelson.
You can check Jake out on Spotify. His new album “The Adventures of Mega Vybes Vol. 3” is out now.
Jake tells how he got the nickname Chappy Milkshake.
You can follow Jake on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Tik Tok and Voisey.
The song leading out of the interview is called “Slick Talkin’” from ‘The Adventures of Mega Vybes, Vol. 2: Sous-Cheffing with Shaun P’ album.
Some of the other vibraphonists Damon and Jake talked about after the interview are Johnny Lytel, Lem Winchester, Dave Pike (and the Dave Pike Set), & Terry Pollard (with Dorthy Ashby). There’s also Johnny Lytle playing Summertime and Jake brought up Adrian Rollini.
