Kait Dunton: Transcript

Episode Video and Podcast with image gallery

Kait Dunton:

And that's something I love still to play around with is there's so many different ways to say the same thing. And that's also true musically, whether you're writing or whether you're improvising or just performing. And I love exploring the nuance of music and of language and theory is what gives you the tools for that, because there's a C major chord, but then there's a C major situation. There's so many things involved with just a simple C major chord.

Leah Roseman:

Hi, you're listening to Conversations with Musicians with Leah Roseman. This week's guest is the brilliant and engaging keyboard player and composer Kate Dunton. In this wide ranging conversation, we talked about her early days with Snarky Puppy recording the soundtrack to A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, her love of vintage keyboards and the challenges they present, and her unique approach to teaching, which has been influenced by her mentor John D'earth. Kate has a robust following of Spotify listeners and has gained a huge following on social media like Instagram and TikTok, so I was curious to get her perspectives on connecting with her fans and dealing with necessary boundaries. Kate's new album, Keyboards, features the sounds of the 1970s, and we got into some of her influences and her personal journey to becoming a full-time performer. This episode features some of her recorded work, and she generously agreed to demonstrate as well. You can use the timestamps to navigate, and you can listen to this wherever you get your podcasts, watch the YouTube video or read the transcript. Everything is linked to the show notes on my website, leahoseman.com with a gallery of images of Kate's vintage keyboards as well. I'm an independent podcaster, and through the series, I hope to inspire you with the stories of the incredible breadth and depths of a life in music with my inspiring guests. This podcast needs your support to continue, and every dollar helps. The link is in the description.

Kate Dunton, thanks so much for joining me here today.

Kait Dunton:

Thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to talking.

Leah Roseman:

Like lot of people, I think I discovered you - well, I know I discovered you on Instagram, some amazing reel and I was like, who's this amazingly cool jazz pianist? And I started following you, like many, many thousands of people, but I realized when I was researching you for this episode that I actually heard you play in that beautiful movie about Mr. Rogers neighborhood with Tom Hanks.

Kait Dunton:

Wow, that's very cool. Well, you must've learned that after the fact, right?

Leah Roseman:

Yeah.

Kait Dunton:

So that was such an exciting project. It was - You know, my very first film scoring experience was with the full orchestra in this huge room, but that was a very intimate experience. It was just me, the composer, sort of a smaller studio, and we were recording direct to picture, so it wasn't, a lot of the segments didn't have a click, and I just sort of had to watch and go with the flow was also very exciting and somewhat unusual. So yeah, that was really, really a beautiful experience.

Leah Roseman:

And what you did then would've been very close to what the pianist would've done in the studio when they were recording the original episodes then.

Kait Dunton:

Yeah, I mean, certainly, and I got to play the celeste too, and also that was kind of the classic sound from the Mr. Rogers. But yeah, I mean, certainly there is a scene, it was one of the final scenes where it shows him playing piano on stage, and that all had to feel very natural, very just improvised. So yeah.

Leah Roseman:

Did you watch that show growing up?

Kait Dunton:

I did. I did. So that was also just kind of one of those unusual full circle moments. Another, it's funny, another moment like that is do Raffi the composer in children's music?

Leah Roseman:

I know, yeah.

Kait Dunton:

Yeah. So I used to listen to him all the time too. And then he connected with me also on social media, and I was like, this is so wild. I used to listen to your music as a child in the car.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah, I'm actually interviewing tomorrow composers who write for Sesame Street, and it's those early memories. You're a mom now, that whole world of children's tv,

Kait Dunton:

It's amazing. Yeah, well, Sesame Street is just so well done. I mean, it stands up even now. It's just incredible to watch it.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. So should we start with your new album Keyboards, which is fabulous.

Kait Dunton:

Thank you.

Leah Roseman:

I can't stop listening to it.

Kait Dunton:

Thank you.

Leah Roseman:

So it's a relatively new thing for you to have all these different keyboards, all these different sounds to play with.

Kait Dunton:

Yeah, and they're literally all here in, I am in the keyboard studio, so that's where we are. This is also a relatively new development, just having this private space to work. It was completed only last year in August, and it's sort of this standalone structure in our backyard, but it has allowed me to really kind of dive into these instruments and really get comfortable with their function, their field, their tonalities, and I just love listening to the records from the seventies and hearing how all these different instruments combine and what their purpose, what they're used for rhythmic or top line or pads and just, I love all the different roles that they play and being able to just record everything myself. I've learned how to stack everything and build these whole parts with all these different keyboards.

Leah Roseman:

How does that work when you perform live though?

Kait Dunton:

Yeah, so great question. When we went into the studio for the record, we recorded the bass track live, so we were all performing together, but then I would add overdubs. So of course we can't do that live, so we needed a fourth person, and that's why we've been performing with Andrew Synowiec on guitar. So the guitar adds all the extra stuff we could have performed with another keyboardist, but I really just love guitar and we have all worked together so much, and we're all friends. So it was a perfect fit to have Andrew join on the live performances. Yeah.

Leah Roseman:

I was curious because you've performed as a trio for so many years, and I saw your post on social media that now you'd be performing live as a quartet.

Kait Dunton:

Yeah, well, I think it's also just, it's a shift in, I feel like this record is a very different sound than what I had been presenting before, and I've really enjoying performing as a quartet. It's a very different energy, and so I'm just sort of riding this with, let's go, let's see where we can go with this. So I'm on that train right now.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah, I was researching a little bit some of your influences for this 1970s sound on the new album, and I wasn't familiar with Herbie Hancock's album Thrust, so I listened to it. Awesome. And I was seeing in the notes that he has seven different keyboards he plays on that.

Kait Dunton:

Yeah, yeah. It's all about keyboards for sure.

Leah Roseman:

So these vintage keyboards, are they easy to find?

Kait Dunton:

It's certainly become popular to collect these vintage instruments. I feel like that is on trend. I mean, I feel like everyone's talking about 'em, and they are easy to find, but not necessarily in good shape or not for, they're very expensive right now. I mean, even just, okay, so let's see. Maybe this all happened for me within the last five years. Even then, some of the instruments I've purchased have doubled in price just even within a couple of years. I mean, it is kind of crazy. And then there's so few people who can repair them, restore them really well, that then there's a whole waiting list to get involved with someone who can properly bring them back to life. So again, with this keyboard haven that I have, I really don't like to remove them from here. I mean, I used to schlep 'em to gigs or take 'em wherever I needed to go, but now they stay here, I'll get something else to use on the gig or I'll use cart, or hopefully the club has something there, but they're so sensitive. I finally got my hands on a D6 Clavinet, which is the classic Superstition, Stevie Wonder Sound, and that was years and years of asking, searching, trying to find, and I took it home and immediately a string broke. So they're very sensitive.

Leah Roseman:

So I mean I've heard of the clavinet, but I didn't realize there were strings involved. Can you explain how they work?

Kait Dunton:

Yes, I can show you. May I? Is that all right? If I,

Leah Roseman:

Awesome.

Kait Dunton:

Shall we, come with me.

Leah Roseman:

And Kate, for those people listening to the podcast who can't see, could we maybe have, I could put a gallery of images associated with your episode of some of these instruments. That might be cool. Yeah.

Kait Dunton:

So I'll do my best to have this camera going, but here is, this is a D6 clavinet, so it has all these different pickup settings, and it's a passive instrument, so it does not connect to power, but if you open it up, oh, sorry, this is getting a little difficult to see, but maybe you can see the little strings back there? I'll have to maybe send pictures because I don't want to move everything around. But yes, it almost, it's interesting the history of the clavichord, and I am no expert, sorry, clavinet,I'm no expert on this, but the reason I said clavichord is because I was leading up to the history of the clavinet. It was originally intended as a practice instrument, and it's almost like a harpsichord, because a little thing strikes a string. And so anyways, but it's interesting how the Wurlitzer has become so famous, and that also started as a practice instrument just meant to be kind of an inexpensive item to replace the acoustic grand piano, but very hard to find a clavinet these days.

Leah Roseman:

I was also looking up Richard Tee, another person who influenced you, and I hadn't even heard of him. And then one of his things that people might've heard is Simon and Garfunkel's concert in Central Park that he played. I think the Fender Rhodes on that? Well, I was just curious, did you listen to these records when you were younger or is that also more recent, these influences?

Kait Dunton:

Well, it's interesting because I think a number of these things I had heard when I was younger, but I wasn't - I don't know how to explain it, but my family wasn't really musical. I didn't really have a musical kind of group of friends. So there wasn't a discussion of music, which I know sounds kind of odd, but I would be interested in who was on the record, who was playing, but not all the time. And so if I had just heard something, I wouldn't necessarily go, I got to figure out what that is and who's on it. I would just say, oh, that's cool. And now that this is my whole life, now I'm learning who and kind of filling the pieces in from the past. And so Richard Tee is, I would say only in the last couple of years have I become much more focused on trying to unpack his style and learn more about what he's doing. And that really came from hearing him with the band Stuff and the way he plays with Steve Gadd. And they also have this sort of instructional video where you can watch them play just as a duo, which is very interesting. But now you realize he's been on so many records!

Leah Roseman:

This would be a good place to have some music.

Kait Dunton:

OK, from the new record. Lunch Break was very much inspired by the Richard Tee style of piano, so that would be a good track to share. The reason I called it Lunch Break is because there's these sections that you might consider a break in terms of a musical break, more like a breakdown almost. And so it's a very riff based song, just kind of these little groovy elements, just motivic little ideas. And there is a section where, see, this is where I could just go sit and play at the piano too and show what I'm talking about. But yeah, there's a section where I'm doing this whole thing with, maybe I should just go play it. So Lunch Break was written very much in the Richard Tee style of piano playing, and it's very much a riff based melody. (music) And then there's another section in that song that I really took right out of the Richard Tee playbook, and it's got a lot of this really cool kind of growly left-hand stuff (music), and also this back and forth (music), very percussive, but unique to the piano(music). But don't ask me to write that down. I couldn't notate that quickly. That would take me a long time (music).

Anyways, that's a little riff in there.

Leah Roseman:

Here's the complete track Lunch Break from Kate's 2023 album Keyboards. (music)

Have you recorded most of your albums at home, or in -

Kait Dunton:

No, which is funny because we do have this professional quality recording set up. I mean, the stuff we're doing here is going on major motion pictures. I mean, it is fully set up for anything we need, but it's not set up for recording live together, 'cause we just don't have the space for that. When you're at home, it's like, oh, why are the sprinklers going off? And then all of a sudden you're distracted. It's just weird stuff.

Leah Roseman:

So you said "we". People who don't know you, might not realize. Can you talk about Jake and how you met?

Kait Dunton:

Yeah. So Jake Reed is the drummer on I think every one of my, no, nearly every one of my albums and is my husband. And we met at USC. We did a doctorate together, but let's see, gosh, that was back in 2009. I want to say that we met and we've just been, we immediately started playing together, hanging out, eventually got married. Now we're still hanging out and playing music together, but we both have become so involved with what we do that very much we work separately and come together when we have time, but we have our separate studios at home, so we're doing various projects, but whenever we can, we love to work together, perform together. It makes it easy for travel, certainly.

Leah Roseman:

And now that you have a child, it's completely different lifestyle as a musician.

Kait Dunton:

You can say that, to say the least. Yeah, it is all about logistics. The thing is, it felt like things were hard before, and now it's just challenge mode. Everything is still possible. It's sort of another complexity to it, because now we have Lucy in the mix and you want to spend time with her. But music is also such a passion for us, and if we now have to play a gig at night, we need to schedule childcare if we want to go out to a concert, I mean you know. So it's just not the same level of movement, free movement that we had before, but it is working out great, and we love it.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah, I have children too. They're now adults, but I can relate. I work with my husband. He's also a musician.

Kait Dunton:

So you know.

Leah Roseman:

We know, yeah, although it was, we had the same schedule because we're orchestra musicians, so it was complicated, but at least we were both doing the same thing at the same time. But all my musician friends, I mean, it's a problem to get the right level of care and not feel,

Kait Dunton:

But I think that's really good. What I am always fascinated by are couples where one person is the professional musician and the other person has a much more traditional nine to five type job. That seems such like a hard mix. Whereas if everyone has crazy schedules and that's the norm, then it's fine. It just continues to be crazy. Yeah, it was funny. When she was very young, maybe eight weeks, we finally realized we had to get a nanny. We just needed help. And the nanny comes in and says, well, what schedule is she on? What are you talking about? She's not on a schedule. And that's when we realized that children need schedules, and now we are on Lucy's schedule.

Leah Roseman:

Although, to be fair, at eight weeks, I don't think most babies are on a schedule,

Kait Dunton:

Maybe not, but certainly it has become much more regimented in the sense of, certainly on the weekdays, it's very much nine to four is work time, more or less, where it used to be much more freewheeling: creativity on a schedule.

Leah Roseman:

In terms of your childhood, you study classical piano full on, and did you have a role model for life as a professional musician, or

Kait Dunton:

Not really? It's interesting looking back on all of that, because you don't know any different when you're in it. So my parents would take me out to see classical concerts, so from full orchestra to chamber music, solo, all kinds of stuff like that. So that was probably the only real role model I saw for a professional musician from teaching. I had plenty of teachers who I liked and worked with. So I remember in high school or maybe middle school, I don't know, but sometime in school I was like, oh, when I grow up, I want to be my music teacher. Because that's all I really knew was what you did. I knew I loved music, I wanted to do music. Music teacher was what I knew, but I had no idea that there were so many things in the professional world. I had no idea about composing or film, and TV music or any of that improvising was not even on the docket. And certainly being a solo artist was so farfetched that I don't think I even considered that. And I wasn't writing my own music at the time, so that wasn't really a thing I was thinking about.

Yeah, it was almost more of a, I don't know. I knew I had this passion for music. I knew I wanted to get better, but I didn't have a clear direction that I was going with it, if that makes sense. I just loved it.

Leah Roseman:

And you were a Spanish major as an undergrad?

Kait Dunton:

I have always been really fascinated by language speaking, other languages, even just reading, I mean English too. I mean, just language in general. It's usage. And I think I intended to be a linguist or something as an undergrad. But the thing is, I logged more hours with the jazz band, with piano music lessons than I did actually pursuing my major. So you could tell that there was sort of a skewed interest going on,

Leah Roseman:

But you had a bit of a turning point when you took a course with, is it John D'eearth?

Kait Dunton:

Yes. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Oh yeah. John D'earth is big influence for me. I mean, he changed everything pretty much because the relationship with him was so formative, so inspiring, so encouraging that, I mean, I still think about him every day, and he has affected how I play, how I teach who I am as a musician. I mean, I have never met a teacher like him since I've had amazing teachers, but there's something different about John. He had an improvisation workshop that was open to anyone, and I really wish I was more clear on what my thoughts were at the time, because it's a little bit unclear exactly when I started to improvise. I mean, I am always assuming that I walked into that class not knowing anything about it, but clearly I had an interest in it or I wouldn't have signed up. So I don't think I was doing any improv before that at all, but I must have known that all these jazz records that I love to listen to had improvisation going on, but I didn't have a who taught me that or talked about it. I don't know. It's a little unclear. I do wish I knew the story, but certainly his class was where it all really started to happen.

Leah Roseman:

For people who don't know who he is, could you just say a few words about him?

Kait Dunton:

Yeah. John D'earth, he is a trumpet player. He's the head of the jazz department at U V A. He is from New York, but he moved down to Charlottesville and has made a whole career for himself there. He has all these wonderful music projects. Famously, he helped Dave Matthews get his start. John has played in this little club in Charlottesville called Miller's every Thursday for 25, 30 years, I don't know, forever. And Dave Matthews used to be a bartender there, so that's where that all started. But that's kind of an amazing story. John used to play with Bruce Hornsby, and he's played with all kinds of different folks, but he has named mainly an East coast guy. We've gotten him out a few times for a couple shows and records. But yeah.

Leah Roseman:

So that story with Dave Matthews. So did he just talk to him? "I'm a musician." And how did that happen?

Kait Dunton:

Well, because John was there playing every Thursday, and so Dave also, they had music on other nights, and so I think Dave started playing with his band, or maybe he sat in with John, but certainly he started as a bartender there and got to know John and realized what a master musician John is, and asked for help getting the band together, getting some of the music together, getting things going, and the rest is history. Pretty interesting.

Leah Roseman:

I wanted to ask Kate, is there another track from one of your older albums you'd like to use for this to point people in that direction as well?

Kait Dunton:

Yeah, I'd love to share something from Planet D'earth. We've been talking a lot about John, and that is something of a tribute album. I mean, this was very much inspired and encouraged by my just fondness for him. And I just love his writing style, and I wanted to do a record where he wrote a couple of pieces and I wrote pieces thinking about his style of playing. I do find that he has a very unique approach to playing the trumpet, a lot of low registered stuff, very rhythmic, very driving, cool improvisational style. And so probably the title track is, I just called it Planet D'earth, kind of has a Brazilian feel to it. And we recorded that with Dane Alderson, who is the bass player for the Yellowjackets, and also lives in Charlottesville and knows John from there. And it has Jake Reed on drums.

Leah Roseman:

Right. Thanks so much. (music)

Hi, just a quick break from the episode. I'm an independent podcaster, and I really do need my listeners' help. Please consider buying me a coffee. The link to my Ko-fi page is in the description. Every dollar helps me cover the costs of this huge project. Thanks so much.

And when you were still, I think you were a master student when you joined Snarky Puppy, when they were first getting going.

Kait Dunton:

That's right. Yep. So I was in North Texas, and actually interesting story is, so again, I had majored in Spanish. I still wasn't really sure what I was going to do. I did not have a clear path for becoming a musician. I wasn't like, I'm going to do this. I was still a little like, huh. John D'earth, again, very formative for me. He was one of the first people to say, "look, you need to take this seriously. You need to go do this". And so he really encouraged me to apply for music grad school, and very fortunately, another faculty member there named Pete Spar, who was a bassist. He was a combo teacher, and I got to play with him a couple times. He had gone to North Texas, and so he just recommended it as a place to look. I mean, this was not on my radar.

I did not know. I was like, oh, that sounds good. It's very casual. And when I went there to visit, I ended up meeting a couple of students, and one of those students was Michael League, who's the head of Snarky Puppy, and him and a drummer named Ross Peterson who played on my first album. We ended up just jamming in somebody's apartment. I was on this Casio up on a couch. It was all crooked. I mean, it was just crazy. But I remember thinking, wow, I have never played with musicians like this. It's just the level was unreal. And I was like, I got to go to this school. And I can't remember exactly when, but at some point, Mike had this large project that he was working on, and he just asked if I would like to start rehearsing with the band and start playing with the band. And so I was thrilled. And I remember the very first rehearsal. It was some insane song and just a meter I've never before played or since, but it was just interesting, very challenging, cool music right off the bat with Mike. Yeah.

Leah Roseman:

So you were on the first record and you did a little touring.

Kait Dunton:

Yes, that's right. We did, let's see, we got as far as, well, Atlanta, New Orleans, Oklahoma, yeah, we all just piled in a big van. We had a little trailer in the back for the instruments. I think there were 10 of us, maybe a few more. It was a while ago, but we all just did the very rustic scene where we all just, Mike would know somebody and we would sleep on their floor, and we just did what we could. It was really fun. Yeah, something good to do in your twenties.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. You were in the corporate world for a while doing music marketing, right? Yes,

Kait Dunton:

That's right. Yep. You've really done all your homework.

Leah Roseman:

Well, I was curious because you've developed such a strong social media following, and did that come out of that experience and that knowledge, or was that

Kait Dunton:

Different? I don't know. It's hard to, I certainly did not approach it with a plan in mind, but I can't separate it. I mean, marketing has always, not always, but it's an interest.

But honestly, the social media thing, I just took Jake's advice, thank you, Jake. And he's like, I've told you this for years. But he just said, be consistent. And so just one day a flip was switched, and I decided I'm going to make kind of a relatively straightforward video three times a week at the same time every time. And that in a way was a blessing because there's no time to worry about it. The point was to get it done and to put it out, not for it to be some mind blowing amazing thing every time. It's like there's no time for that. You just put something out. And aside from that, that was my only strategy. So that I assume, was what kind of got it going

Leah Roseman:

Well on the platform -Did you really focus on Instagram as opposed to, let's say YouTube or something?

Kait Dunton:

Yeah. Well, the other interesting thing about all of this is I started focusing on Instagram and occasionally on TikTok. TikTok was much more Instagram. I kind started, they had the reels, and I knew that was a popular medium, and so I just was doing reels, and that was much more of a consistent scheduled attempt. Whereas TikTok was kind like, I'll do something here and there. But the first thing to go viral per se, was on TikTok. And first I was only getting a couple hundred views, whatever. And then Jake was off on a gig one night and he started texting me. He's like, you better check your TikTok account. And sure enough, this one video had kind of gone crazy. And for me, crazy at that time was like 20,000 views, which was huge for a first start. And I was like, wow, this, it actually is possible. This actually can happen. And it was just me playing my own song on the Rhodes. It was not a cover, not anything hilarious. It was just me playing keyboards. So that was very encouraging. And for some reason after that took off, the Instagram numbers also started to take off. So not that they're related, but I dunno, that's just how it all started.

Leah Roseman:

How do you deal with having so many fans in terms of your boundaries and your time with all that?

Kait Dunton:

Yeah, that's a good question. I do really enjoy talking with fans, and I love to read the comments, and I try to reply to most of them. And I really do enjoy receiving feedback. And honestly, I feel like I've been lucky because most everything has been very positive. I very rarely get anybody's who has anything negative to say, and if they do, it's just sort of part of, I just let it go. I've actually been trying to find a way to feel more of a community interaction, because I feel like that's what I'm really missing is I have this audience and I'm so appreciative, but it feels a little one-sided, a little bit of a fishbowl thing.

But at the same time, yes, you mentioned there's boundaries and there's only limited amount of time. What I do sometimes struggle with is I do get a lot of requests for teaching or for recording or collaboration, "can you help me?" And it's hard to know. I can't respond to all of those because that starts to really then take up a whole lot of time. But I do feel bad when sometimes things fall through the cracks or I can't get to everyone. But generally, if somebody is very persistent, I will get back to them. So that already kind of filters it out. Whoever wants to really keep emailing, please, let's go. I'll get around.

Leah Roseman:

One of my guests thanked me for my persistence because this particular person had their manager sort of block most communication.

Kait Dunton:

Wow.

Leah Roseman:

But I really wanted to talk to them, and I tried different ways, and it worked out. It was fine.

Kait Dunton:

Yeah. Well, I think that's great though. I mean, because in a way, it shows that you're very serious, you're committed, you're very interested. I think sort of a blessing and a curse of the social media is the instant access that you have to anyone. And whether they're going to receive that message, I don't know. So it's very easy to just say, "Hey, I want you to play on my project" or whatever, but how serious are they? What does it mean? I dunno, that kind of thing.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. You mentioned a couple times, and I'd really like to dig into that with you. One thing you said is that John D'earth had such an influence on the way you teach. I know you're passionate about teaching theory, and I'm curious about the way you learn theory coming from a classical background and the way you teach it.

Kait Dunton:

Yeah, I mean, the classical lessons were fairly straightforward. You know what you might expect, all the big ones, the Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms. And I remember doing theory workbooks and learning the basics. But it wasn't until working with John in undergrad where I started to kind of see big picture what theory was about how it really is the building blocks of music. I mean, it's interesting. I was always a very good sight reader, so I was able to play quite complicated pieces and not necessarily know what I was playing, if that makes sense. I mean, I could tell you at any moment, yes, this is an F sharp, this is a whatever, whatever. But what I couldn't tell you is, oh, this is a C minor scale, or certainly not. I am playing this structure of notes represents an E major chord. No, I couldn't have told you that.

But starting to learn theory with John and specifically jazz theory and how to use it to learn how to improvise really unveiled to me the language of music in the same way that we learn grammar to speak. Were not reinventing every sentence. There's a structure, there's a system. It's the same thing with music. And so learning to improvise is just learning a language, which I think is why it's such a passion for me. I still love language and I very much approach it that way. And that's something I love still to play around with is there's so many different ways to say the same thing. And that's also true musically, whether you're writing or whether you're improvising or just performing. And I love exploring the nuance of music and of language and theory is what gives you the tools for that, because there's a C major chord, but then there's a C major situation. There's so many things involved with just a simple C major chord.

So with John, I started to learn what a lot of teachers or educators were called, the chord scale theory, how chords and scales work together. But this is just an essential component of music making and music analysis. But the way John would teach it was also very, very fluid, very open, very top down. And I'm so appreciative of that because he did not have these very rigid, formal structures that we all needed to learn and adhere to. So for example, in his improv class, he would say, for example, on this section, you can play a minor scale, but right away he would be very clear that you don't have to start on the first note. You don't have to start on a d. I think a lot of times students are presented with, you have to play D and go up to D and come back down, and that's the minor scale or whatever.

But John was like, no, no, no, no. It's the D minor scale. Are these seven notes are stretched over the entire spectrum. And to start approaching it like much more free and random, like play an E, play an A play a D, you don't need to play it in order. It doesn't need to be a scale. That's just kind of your palette. And I still think that way. And I'm always surprised at how many times as student who comes to me has been taught in a much more rigid way that scales are these little things and it's not a color. I see them more as a color. And I feel like I really got that from John. Just being able to think about the expansive possibilities instead of the confining rule-based music making that is prevalent in a lot of institutions.

Leah Roseman:

So I'm a classical violinist, and I don't have - I mean, I've listened to jazz my whole life, so I know enough to know what I don't know.

Kait Dunton:

Right

Leah Roseman:

So just all this, the jazz harmonies with all the extra notes and all the substitutions you could do, I'm curious, could you do just a mini workshop for us just for five minutes, kind of showing how maybe you could reharmonize a little phrase, you know what I mean?

Kait Dunton:

Sure. Should I head to the piano?

Leah Roseman:

That would be so cool. Thank you.

Kait Dunton:

Okay. Let's see. So the song that kind of went crazy was originally a song I intended to be a vocal song. And I was going to call it, It's The Little Things, but I sort of just did this improvisation over those changes, and that's what went crazy to something I would've never expected. And I decided to just create its own, make it its own thing, and I called it This One's for You. But that is a great example of chord scale theory and how to use chords within a key center. So this song is in the key of B flat, so we're going to be using the B flat major scale throughout. (music)

So that's just the basic B flat major scale. But if we think about it more globally, then instead of thinking it from tonic to tonic (music), we're thinking about this (music) selection of notes (music) as just available anywhere on the keyboard. This particular song starts on the four chord, which is I think what gives it a little bit of that wistful feel because we're not starting on the tonic, we're starting somewhere else.(Music) So I start on a four chord, but it's a major seventh. And then I play (music) what should be a one chord, except that I am putting a different note in the bass. So I'm using an inversion, and this is the way I like to think about just sort of moving globally through the scale instead of just like," oh, we're playing the one chord, I have to play one in the bass." You can play - Inversions are so powerful. This is just like it changes everything when you can start using inversions.(music) So really I should be going (music) not very interesting. (music)So as a very basic breakdown, it would be like

4, 1, 2, 4, 1,

That's kind of the song. But because we're doing interesting things with inversions, I am creating more of a direction for the music to go. (music) So I'm just doing half step motion in the bass. I'm just creating this descending bassline, here's a passing tone, (Music) and I do just a run just using the scale. So I'm not thinking about, "oh, I'm playing, wow, some fancy thing". I'm just notes in the scale B flat major scale, except that we happen to be on a C minor chord for that instance, or a two chord (music) four chord, one chord inversion third in the bass.(music) So I just went back up to where I was and all that kind of fancy stuff is really just notes within the B flat major scale, but organized around the chord that I'm focused on, whether it's a C minor, whether it's a B flat, things like that. I dunno how far I can just go do this all day. So I don't know how far to go of this.

Leah Roseman:

This is great. Is there anything you wanted to add to that? If you were going to do it differently, how you could,

Kait Dunton:

My little personal touch on this song is that perhaps the more traditional way to do this is what you might call a walk down. So the song starts on the four walks back down to the one.(music) So that's a sound we've kind of all heard in our ears. And the theory of that would be the four chord, three chord two, you would add a five chord to resolve back to the one.(music) But instead of playing the three chord after the four, (music) which would be a D minor, D minor seven, still all within the key of B flat, I made it a one chord with a D in the bass. Now, this is a very subtle but very important shift to create a different mood. (music) Here it is without it.(music) So it's not bad, there's nothing wrong with that. It's still sounds fine. It's still definitely within the key, but there is something more powerful, more moving about the B flat over D because it's got more tension to it. (music) I dunno, there's something moving about that chord. And please believe me, I was not thinking about this when I was playing this. I wasn't like, huh, what's the most moving voicing I can do? But this is just the power of, I don't know, this is just the weird thing about music. When you're feeling a certain way and your physical motion can respond to the emotional feeling. I don't know, it comes out, but it's got (music) this crunchy kind of voicing going on as opposed to(music)

Very subtle. I don't know. I guess that's just knowing how the chords can kind of move through a key center allows you to just create pieces even with very simple chord movement. So here's just an example of just another way you could play it through this chord progression. I'm just going to make something up (Music) and I am just playing B flat major scale stuff. Anyways, just an example of another improvisation.

Leah Roseman:

Fantastic. Thanks Kate.

Kait Dunton:

Sure.

Leah Roseman:

People are going to love that.

Kait Dunton:

I hope. So now that I got the key figured out, oh my god, so funny. No joke. I wrote the entire transcription out. People wanted to learn how to play exactly what that was in. And it wasn't until somebody in Russia sent me an email and said, isn't this supposed to be in B flat? And I was like, oh my God, I've already sold like 500 of these. Thank you very much.

Leah Roseman:

So what did you do then? Did you just release it again?

Kait Dunton:

Yeah, I just very quietly re-released it in the correct key. So anyone out there who has an E-flat copy, it is now special and incorrect.

Leah Roseman:

And those etudes you wrote during lockdown, I think they're so pretty, they're so beautiful and people can

Kait Dunton:

Thank you.

Leah Roseman:

Get the music for free on your website for those.

Kait Dunton:

That's right. Yeah. That was just, I feel like during the pandemic, many of us took the opportunity to do something different, and that was a style of writing I really hadn't done before. And it started because my students moved online, and a lot of times during my lessons I would just kind of improvise an exercise for them to do, and I started to realize, huh, these actually might be useful for anyone. And then I sat down and tried to make them as complete and as compact and as beautiful as possible in a limited amount of space. And so it's another thing on my long list of things to do that I want to write more of those or have a book, but that was very fun to write those.

Leah Roseman:

So in terms of teaching, I was curious if you had been teaching online before, because where you live, it's kind of people have to drive so far, maybe.

Kait Dunton:

Yeah, so the pandemic was the first time I really switched to teaching online, and I still do it occasionally, but I'm just not making it a focus right now. Because I am trying to focus on performing and writing and composing. There is a limitation to teaching online, obviously. I'm sure you've experienced that. It's interesting, if somebody who I've never met reaches out and wants to take a lesson, I'm much more interested to connect with the person and talk to them and find out what's on their mind and almost see if I can help them in that way rather than here's a voice saying, here's a way. Because the real benefit of teaching music is being able to work with a teacher one-on-one in the same room, feeling the same rhythm and air and energy. And online you just can't do that. So that makes it really, I feel like the interpersonal connection can still happen. And so I really enjoy that aspect of meeting new students, but the actual, let's get down to it with playing is very hard to do in the online format.

Leah Roseman:

Were there students who started online with you that you then were able to meet in person afterwards?

Kait Dunton:

No, actually I don't think so because most people who started online didn't live in town, so I haven't met them.

Leah Roseman:

And on your website, the teaching part of it is very beautifully written and very inspiring.

Kait Dunton:

Thanks!

Leah Roseman:

You have these great quotes. One of them is "music as a form of personal expression cannot be taught, it can only be learned."

Kait Dunton:

Yeah, I fully believe that. And that's from John D'earth. And that's why also the online format is very hard. So John had this great thing he would say about jazz, and he would say "jazz is a problem that you have to work out". And I just love that so much because jazz has become much more popular in music schools. And I think what's missing a lot of the time is that it really is a personal problem. It's a personal statement. It's a personal journey. It's not just about learning the most alterations, the fancy chords. It's not, yeah, it's great to know as much as you can, but if you don't have something to say, and if you aren't working on yourself as an artist and your own style, what's it for? Yeah, that's why it's interesting. Music a lot of times really, I feel like I should be charging to be a psychologist, because a lot of times with my students, I go in a very different place than maybe a traditional music lesson. A lot of people are surprised when they do lessons like, oh, I didn't expect to be going there. But it is about those deeper places with music.

Leah Roseman:

I agree. Yeah. And you also, this other great quote of yours is that "there is no age at which music ceases to be relevant".

Kait Dunton:

Yeah, never too old. Never too, I mean, I feel very lucky that music is what I want to do because hopefully I will still be doing it in my eighties, maybe even in my nineties. It never ends. There's always more to learn, to discover, to do. It's very exciting.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. One of the discussions I had as part of this series last year was with a woman who's a therapeutic musician. And so we talked about all these people with dementia and how music reaches them. And there was one story. He had been a professional jazz saxophone player who hadn't, he'd just been in his shell for so long, but people should listen to the episode and listen to her tell the story better. But Trudy Létourneau, but they put the sax in his hand, his friends that showed up to play, and then he started to play it was there.

Kait Dunton:

Wow. I mean, I've heard stories like that too, and it's just mind blowing. And it just shows how deep music is to the human psyche, to our understanding of the world, to how we communicate. I mean, to me, music is so heavy because what is it? It's vibrations, it's moving air. It's like matter is energy, right? I mean, this is all, everything, and music is just a very particular way to express that energy. And I just find that so exciting.

Leah Roseman:

And do you feel it's a different experience listening live in terms of just literally the sound waves, the physicality of it, going to a live concert?

Kait Dunton:

Oh yeah, absolutely. There's no substitute for live for sure. And especially in that we're so bogged down with digital everything. I think that's why there's such a resurgence of interest in vinyl and all things analog. It's because the physicality of it is incredibly important. Like I was saying, I mean, it's physical stuff, it's moving energy. I mean, obviously there has to be some sound wave moving through your iPhone to hear the sound, but it's different. It's different when there is a physical medium, physically producing the sound, and certainly what better than actual human beings on a stage. I think it's also just so incredible to witness the group energy, the interaction, and I don't know. Yeah, there's no substitute for a live show.

Leah Roseman:

So when you and Jake went back out there performing once concerts started up again, and clubs you had at that point developed this big social media following, so did the audiences, did that affect you?

Kait Dunton:

It's very interesting because I realized that it's not just a math problem. It's not like, oh, 1% will come or 10% will buy your stuff. It's not really that clean cut, clear cut. I dunno. It's not that simple. I am still very much amazed when somebody at our live show says," I found you on TikTok. I'm a fan of yours on Instagram". I mean, I'm just so delighted that this is a real tool. I mean, it works to connect with people I would not normally have connected with, but it's not, what I have not seen is all of a sudden there's thousands of people coming to the shows. I mean, it's still very much a ground level effort. I do feel that I'm hopeful that the social media numbers will just continue to generate momentum, but at this point, I haven't explored whether if we just book a gig in some place, we've never played in a new state, a new city, will people come? I don't know the answer to that, so we'll just have to try and see how it goes.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah, I mean, I find that interesting because with some social media you know where your audience lives, your Spotify listeners, I think you would get a picture of that, right?

Kait Dunton:

Yeah, unfortunately, it's not all that clear. I mean, it's like, okay, US and then, I can't remember if it's Instagram or Spotify, but on one of 'em, the next level is Brazil. And on the other one it's Japan, but it's like US is some big percentage, and then the next is 2% live in Brazil or something. But that's still the second biggest.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah, I find all this very interesting, and I was wondering if, I've gone to, there's a wonderful jazz musicians who live in my city of Ottawa, and the last show I went to, it was very young, and it was a different venue than I've heard jazz before and shocked, as young as my children in their twenties. And I thought, wow, is there a new audience for jazz that I didn't know about? Do you think there's a resurgence of interest?

Kait Dunton:

I do. Yeah. I think I can't be it really speaking for everyone out there, but certainly, so I just feel like jazz has become more popular in schools. It's become more just a normal offering. And so the awareness of jazz, I think is out there. I think it's also part of the, I'm sort of spit balling here, but again, how vinyl and vintage things have kind of come back in popularity. I think that that style of music making has come back in popularity, awareness of instrumental music, awareness of what used to be fringe. But I also just think things just are cyclical. And so jazz had its heyday, kind of went out, and I feel like it's back. I do feel like there's a real moment for it. I mean, there's jazz in pop music, it's very much there. Madison Cunningham just won a Grammy, and her music is described as folk with jazz influences. You definitely hear jazz, harmony, odd meters stuff in her music. And I mean, I think that's amazing. I recently saw a concert by a vocalist named Sophia James, very young. The audience was all her young friends, but she was singing this hip jazz stuff. It was great. I mean, yeah, like you said, it was very cool to see, and everyone was really into it. It's not like it seemed like everyone was fully on board.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah, that's great. So I listened to quite a few of your other albums, and this morning I was listening again to, let me just check the name exactly. Yeah, mountain Suite, right? It was your first album.

Kait Dunton:

Oh, yeah, yeah. Second album.

Leah Roseman:

Oh, oh, sorry. What was your first album?

Kait Dunton:

First album is called Real and Imagined.

Leah Roseman:

Okay. Yeah. So these albums, some of them have sort of an arc or a journey, and I was just curious to talk about albums versus a playlist, which I have a problem with that.

Kait Dunton:

Oh, yeah. Yes, I know. I am fully with you on that one. Oh, it is very hard to let go of the album format, even though I probably should, but still haven't. The programming of an album is essential. The order of the songs, the arc, the feeling, whether it's a fast, slow, what meter it's in, what key it's in, and a lot of thought goes into that to present a cohesive set list. If you went to go see a live concert of a band, they have thought about that set list. There's a reason that you start with a certain song end with a certain song, and you lose that in the playlist format. You just get random songs. And I definitely lament the loss of that. And so that's why I'm holding tight to the album format. So of course, anyone can put a single song on their playlist and you have no control over that. That's great. Please listen however you'd like. But I am still going to continue curating what I feel are full statements, full albums with an arc that has a start, a middle, an end, takes you on a journey. I think it would be like watching, I guess it's like how everything is just streamable. You just watch your hour long episode as opposed to just the whole movie. I don't know, similar to that.

Leah Roseman:

And I know some people of the younger generation, they won't watch a whole show even. They'll watch bits of things, their favorite bits. The culture's kind of changed, but a lot of us really do appreciate full album experience. And actually Keyboards is available on vinyl as well, right?

Kait Dunton:

Yes. Yeah. The first time I released on vinyl, very, very excited and proud that it worked out that we have it, and it's been selling well, and it shows people are scooping 'em up. I mean, I think it is, again, it's just a hearkening back to the physical format and just being able to hold something. And it feels very much when an artist hands you a physical product, it's different than like, Hey, go check out my playlist, like you said. But I think records are particularly special because we can see how the sound is produced. I mean, a compact disc is still a physical format, but it's still a little - what's happening? That is beyond my pay grade. But on a record, you see the grooves, you put the needle on there, it's all this very physical process. It is physically producing those sound waves in the record, and we can see it. And so there's something I think very primal about that. I mean, the first sound we ever made was just hitting stuff together, clapping our hands, and the record is the same thing. It's all physical.

Leah Roseman:

And I'm curious because you've had maybe millions of streams on a couple of songs, so you've actually made some money through streaming services as opposed to many musicians who don't really make any money. So I had looked on Bandcamp first when I wanted to buy your albums. I usually buy, but when I looked you up on Bandcamp people's covers of This One's For You, were there.

Kait Dunton:

Yeah. If you look up, well, I literally, I know it's funny, and I make no money off that, and I never sanction those, so I don't know how to handle that. It's very strange. But for whatever reason, no good excuse. I just wasn't on Bandcamp until about two weeks ago, so that's why the numbers are off.

Leah Roseman:

Oh, are you now going to be on, okay, so you're on Bandcamp now?

Kait Dunton:

I'm on Bandcamp. I have the new album on there. I do plan to put all of the albums on there because why not? But I think I'll only have the new one available as a physical option. The other ones I'll just have for download, but I am going to fill it up, I hope.

Leah Roseman:

Awesome. Yeah. If I'm ever able to get a sponsor for this podcast, I would put Bandcamp as number one. It comes up almost every episode because I'm a big fan. Oh, wow. People have said it's a game changer for them because they can sell their merch. Bandcamp doesn't take a ridiculous cut, and I think it just makes it super accessible for so many musicians.

Kait Dunton:

Yeah, I mean, I've had the most success just selling things right directly through my website. So the only middleman, honestly, is well, I have to pay a yearly fee for the website and then a credit card fee if people use a credit card. But otherwise, that's the most return for me selling direct through the website, and that works out great.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah, no, I did buy from you directly, but I have to say, as a consumer, then for the digital version, I had to do this whole thing, right?

Kait Dunton:

Yeah.

Leah Roseman:

You know what I mean?

Kait Dunton:

Oh, right. Because you had to download individual wave tracks, right? Is that what you mean?

Leah Roseman:

Yes. And then I had to put it in the music thing.

Kait Dunton:

Yeah. You know what? I think it's interesting because originally there was a space limitation for what size digital download I could offer. And this is a great, thank you. Very good reminder, because I feel like Squarespace hopefully has upgraded, and now I should be able to offer the entire album as a wave. So I will check into that. Thank you.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah, I don't even mean that. I mean, just in terms of where it goes. So if I use Bandcamp to listen to albums, and I know it's there, but if I buy something independently, which I have a few times from you and other people, then it's like, oh, where did that file go? And then you have to put it in.

Kait Dunton:

I understand. I understand.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah, totally. But I do appreciate why most people use streaming platforms and how accessible it makes music and discoverability, all that is great. I really do. But for all these musicians trying to, it's hard reality nowadays, I think.

Kait Dunton:

Yeah, it's very hard. I mean, that's the thing is I'm not angry at streaming because I mean, like you said, it's easy access. It's the best way to reach the most. Is it fair? No, but it's what it is right now, and so here we are.

Leah Roseman:

So to close out, I was wondering if you could just reflect, because you did go this academic route, you got a doctorate, you were teaching at universities, and then you've decided to pivot and really focus on writing and performing. So it might be interesting just to hear you talk about that a little bit.

Kait Dunton:

Sure. Well, I think it's just been a really long journey to realize that this is truly what I want to do. This is the most important work I can be doing, and not feeling like I have to compromise and consider it like a bonus that I do while doing a real job kind of thing. I fought that for a long time feeling like I needed. I don't know that it was some kind of fantasy to be an artist, and honestly, it's really amazing and it's very lucky that I'm able to do this, but it took a long time to fully commit to trying to do it, to saying, no, I'm not teaching. I'm not doing this other gig. I am working on being an artist. I still think there's kind of a stigma about artists are these freeloaders and what do you really do? And the classic thing like, oh, what do you do for work?

Oh, I'm an artist, or I'm a musician. Oh, well, how do you make money? It's like, no, no, this is it. This is everything. I've committing fully to this. I still think it's misunderstood, but now I don't care. I used to be concerned about what people thought, I guess, and now I am not as concerned, but I think because I didn't have the musical influences early on, you asked about professional mentors, and again, my parents are always very supportive, but we never talked about music as a career choice, and so it wasn't on my radar. I learned music because I loved music, but even coming out of college, I was like, I don't know what I'm going to do. My teachers were like, go to grad school. I'm like, okay.

And even after going to North Texas, which is an incredible jazz school and playing with the top people in the country, I took a music marketing job. I still wasn't quite convinced that I was going to do this. I was playing with Snarky. They moved to New York. I didn't go. I went back home to LA because it's not a real gig. I got to take a real gig. I still had this thought process in my head, and I don't regret any of it. I mean, everyone has a different path, but I did clearly understand that the marketing gig was not the right fit for me. And I started going out and meeting people in LA and that led me to the USC connections. I met Aaron Sarfati who works at USC drummer percussionist. He started introducing me to other students there. I eventually started playing with some of them. They suggested that I apply for this doctoral program. That was my exit out of the marketing gig. So I took that. I only applied there no other. It wasn't like, oh, I definitely want to get a doctorate. I was like, I definitely want to get out of this marketing job.

And that's where I met Jake and met all kinds of people I worked with, Alan Pasqua, Russell Ferrante, Peter Erskine, Bob Mintzer, I met. I've recorded with them. I've learned from them. And that's kind of where the seeds of like, "Hey, I kind of want to do this solo artist thing". And I started playing with the Trio, Trio Kate, and now we've just continued on from there. But I think post pandemic, that's where things really, I mean, have becoming a mother, and that probably had a lot to do with refining what I want in life. Just kind of distilling it down to like, no, what is the most important thing to me, this. This music, trying to be an artist moving forward with this. So here we are.

Leah Roseman:

Wonderful. Well, thanks so much for speaking with me today and for your music. Really inspiring.

Kait Dunton:

Oh, well, thanks so much for having me. I really enjoyed being here, and I hope to meet you in person sometime.

Leah Roseman:

I have the fantasy of traveling all over the world and meeting all these great musicians I keep talking to. Maybe one day.

Kait Dunton:

You have to have a convention. We'll all go. We'll all meet somewhere central.

Leah Roseman:

I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. Thanks for following the series on your favorite podcast player and sharing your favorite episodes with your friends, all of which help find new listeners. I have lots more episodes coming in this season. Three with a fascinating diversity of musicians and their stories and music. Have a great week.