By Haoyang Cai
December 4, 2017
Introduction
Chris Blackwell is a trombone player now studying Jazz Performance at NYU Steinhardt. He grew up in a small town called Nashville in Tennessee. In the fifth grade, he joined the school band and started playing trombone, which later becomes the most significant part of his life. After high school, Chris attended the University of North Texas and graduated with a degree in Jazz Studies. After that, he came to New York in pursuit of a master degree in Jazz.
Interview
I’m Chris Blackwell. I am originally from Nashville, Tennessee. I started playing trombone in the fifth grade because our school needed a trombone player. In seventh grade, I started playing Jazz. I later went to a much bigger school in Texas that had art programs, like the music and drama and that’s when I had my first trombone teacher. The lesson was always fun. The teacher was very laidback but also serious about music. He showed me many basic things, introducing me to all different kinds of fundamental trombone techniques. At that point, music started to become a big part of my life. I listened to music all the time and hung out with musicians pretty much exclusively. The kids in the band were my main group.
In high school, I went through all the regular childhood kind of dreams. I wanted to be a professional athlete, and I wanted to do all kinds of stuff. In ninth or tenth grade, my teacher showed my high school Jazz band a recording by Miles Davis called Sanctuary of the album Bitches Brew. And they just blew my mind. It’s really hard for me to explain the feeling. It was just something I got when I listened to it. The creativity of the album just captured me. At that moment, music just moved from the realm of fun to the realm of art. It was probably around that time when I started thinking about going into music. I’m still chasing that feeling, I suppose. It was unlike anything else I’ve done.
Ideally, I am just a musician. Above that, ideally, I am just an artist. And then I play music, and I play Jazz within the category of music. It is just a creative expression. And even expressing myself does not mean that I am going to express a specific emotion every time I play. It is not like that. When I play, I just want to be musical. I don’t feel like saying something super deep every time when I pick up my horn. I am just playing music. It is the most natural thing that I do. The meaning of the music gets applied later by the audience. Just like that Picasso quote: Everyone is born an artist. The hard part is to remain one as you grow up. So, I don’t really think the creator, the artist, or the musician can make anyone feel anything. If I listen to a recording and have some kind of emotions, it is because the emotion already existed. And the music is just bringing that out. Like, a painting is just bringing that out.
Jazz is not simple. It is very abstract, and so is any type of improvised music. You have to go onto listening to it with an understanding that it’s not really going to give you a meaning. It’s not like a pop song that tells you in the lyrics what to feel. Jazz is more abstract and more open to interpretation. Who wants to listen to fifty minutes of improvised music? That can be hard to do. That was hard for me when I was younger. But now, as I play more, I understand the process and feelings that go into that. It just takes time to get used to that.
Living in a big city like New York can be overwhelming, but it was also so much fun. There are so many great musicians. There is always very great music around. I tried to practice four hours every day. On top of that are just learning tunes, transcribing, working on music for ensembles here at school, and working on music for gigs outside. On Friday night, I went to the shapeshifter lab out in Brooklyn. It is a music venue. And then, there are places like the Jazz Gallery, which is on 27 of Broadway. That is probably my favorite place to go. And then there are places like Small Jazz Club too. Small is cool.
For future, I want to have my own band that plays consistently in tours. I want to make records of my own music and just play with whoever I can.