Naomi Moon Siegel Interview

Below is the transcript of my interview with Naomi Moon Siegel, and the link to the podcast and video version, with show notes and additional links, is here too. Naomi Moon Siegel is an award-winning trombonist, improvisor, composer and educator. In this episode we’re highlighting her beautiful sextet album Shatter the Glass Sanctuary, and you’ll hear her reflections on the valuable mentorship process with Allison Miller and brilliant collaborators including Marina Albero and Ray Larsen. Naomi reflected on her journey finding a supportive musical community, overcoming injury, and how she’s advocated for intersectional gender justice for many years through her workshops for fellow educators and music students.  We talked about some of her mentors including Kristen Strom, Wayne Horwitz, and her duo project the Syrinx Effect with Kate Olson. Naomi shared how her career path has been shaped by personal decisions and outlook,  some of her experiences on several inspiring trips, as well as how she’s able to find grounding and inspiration in both her new physical landscape in Montana and her new emotional landscape as a parent. 

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:00:00):

She said something along the lines of, I only play music with people who I love and people who love me, who I can be myself with. It sounds simple in a way, but it was really revolutionary for me. I had never heard anything about that. I had never really heard people talking about valuing relationships as part of your process as a musician, which I think is immensely important. But more the message that I had had ingrained prior to that was that I'll do whatever I can to get ahead in this music, which meant I would play with anybody or be treated in any particular way, which really meant I created a shell for myself and didn't really share myself vulnerably, which is a really interesting thing to do an improvised music, which is all about vulnerability.

Leah Roseman (00:00:57):

Hi, you're listening to Conversations with Musicians with Leah Roseman, inding a supportive musical community, overcoming injury, and how she's advocated for intersectional gender justice for many years, through her workshops for fellow educators and music students. We talked about some of her mentors including Kristen Strom, Wayne Horwitz, and her duo project, the Syrinx Effect with Kate Olson. Naomi shared how her career path has been shaped by personal decisions and outlook, some of her experiences on several inspiring trips, as well as how she's able to find grounding and inspiration in both her new physical landscape in Montana and her new emotional landscape as a parent. Like all my episodes, you can watch this on my YouTube channel or listen to the podcast on all the podcast platforms. I've also linked the transcript to my website, leahroseman.com. It's a joy to bring these inspiring episodes to you every week, and I do all the many jobs of research production and publicity. Have a look at the description of this episode where you'll find all the links.

(00:02:25):

Hi, Naomi. Thanks so much for joining me here today.

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:02:30):

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Leah Roseman (00:02:32):

We're going to focus today a little bit on your beautiful new album, but also your other creative projects and different strands of your creative life. I really enjoyed Shatter the Glass Sanctuary, and I understand this was one of those pandemic projects like so many musicians I've talked to. It started a while ago, right?

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:02:50):

Yes. Yeah. I thought I was going to record this music in June, 2020, and then it took on a different life, which I'm pleased with as well.

Leah Roseman (00:03:01):

So how long had you lived in Montana before you wrote that music and started that project?

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:03:08):

Yeah, so I moved to Missoula in 2016 and started, so most of the core content of the album was written in probably 2018, 2019, although there's a few compositions that are a little more recent. And then in 2022 was it, I got a grant from Chamber Music America to workshop this music with support from Allison Miller, who's a great drummer as a mentor and somebody giving us feedback. So that was an amazing process to be a part of because we had six listening sessions throughout the year. It started off as just a core quartet before we added the final two pieces. The core compositions remained, but the way they were arranged and the way we treated some of the melodies and grooves and different sections transitions, we really had an opportunity to dig into those and work those out. And that's pretty rare, honestly, to be able to rehearse that much. So it was a fun process to be a part of.

Leah Roseman (00:04:21):

So did you know Allison from before or only of her?

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:04:24):

Yeah, Allison and I have sort of worked together in different capacities prior to that. So when you apply for that grant, you apply specifically to work with a certain person that you feel will help you reach the next level of growth in your development as a band leader.

Leah Roseman (00:04:44):

Okay. Yeah, that's very cool. And I'm unaware, I'm Canadian anyway, but Chamber Music America, I didn't know that they supported jazz projects?

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:04:53):

So I think they are primarily known as classical chamber music, but they do have a, have a couple of jazz grants that are pretty awesome that I don't really know any other organizations who are doing stuff like that. The one that I was speaking of is called Performance Plus, and it's specifically for women and non-binary led ensembles, basically.

Leah Roseman (00:05:22):

Fantastic.

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:05:23):

Yeah.

Leah Roseman (00:05:23):

And in terms of, I mean, you mentioned the careful listening and feedback, but was there one main thing of working with Allison that you gained from this process?

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:05:32):

Yeah. Well, one of the things that really sticks with me is the rehearsal process and how she would deal with that. I think just from so many years of having such little rehearsal time, I would often try to cover as much content as I could in one session, but because we had more time in this process, we were able to really just simmer. So if there was one groove or one transition or one thing, we could just stay there for a while and see how it wanted to come to life, and each musician could really find their voice in it. And that was something that I really appreciated. I wouldn't have thought to really do that prior.

Leah Roseman (00:06:17):

Yeah, yeah. Very interesting. So in the Suite, which you have the latter part of this album, you have these interludes with free improv and you feature some of the amazing collaborators. I was curious about Marina Albero, the pianist. She's really great.

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:06:33):

Yes, she's wonderful. Yeah, Marina is originally from Barcelona, and she studied as part of her music training in Cuba, so coming from more of a Russian classical music tradition. So technically on the piano, she's amazing. And then she also has influences from early Spanish music and playing hammered dulcimer and salsa music. She's really versatile, very eclectic. Moved to Seattle in maybe right after I left somewhere around 2016, but we started working together when I would go back to the city. And so she's been a wonderful collaborator. And for those interludes, I really just give people free reign and we just have to get from point A to point B. I do give some context about the emotional content of the pieces for me, just so people know when they can tune into that if they want to. But I really trust my musicians and have learned to trust them more through this rehearsal process as well.

Leah Roseman (00:07:47):

Yeah. Well, I really love the trombone, and I've actually featured several trombonists on this series.

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:07:53):

Yay!

Leah Roseman (00:07:54):

I'll be linking those episodes in the program notes here. I thought we could feature clips from some of your tracks, the third movement of Shatter It, the ending of this. Do you want to speak to that a little bit?

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:08:10):

Yeah. Well, first of all, thank you for featuring the trombone. I feel like it's sort of the undersung instrument in this world, and I love for it to be featured more in general. In terms of Shatter It, which is the final movement of the Shatter the Glass Sanctuary suite. That piece is simply said, it's the catharsis piece for me. It's the release. When I first came up with that main melody, I found myself just playing it on the piano, finding the chords that went with it, and just belting it out over and over and over again. And it was for me, a piece of letting things go, not holding things so preciously, letting myself feel things that I think I had been putting at bay for a while, and I think culturally are very easy to put at bay. Things like grief and sorrow and isolation. We don't make a lot of room for those feelings, and then they kind of build up. So that was that piece, letting that all out.

Leah Roseman (00:09:25):

You're now about to hear an excerpt from Shatter It, the third movement of the Shatter the Glass Sanctuary Suite. You'll find both the link to this album and Naomi's website in the show notes.(music) It must've been very hard to go through the isolation of the pandemic in a more isolated place, right?

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:12:05):

Yeah, I mean, I think there were probably pros and cons to any situation. We have more open land out here in space, so that was definitely a pro. I also got pregnant as soon as lockdown happened. I found out I was pregnant. So there was this added isolation piece for me about wanting to protect my child in a time where there was a lot of uncertainty. So we were very conservative and very closed off for a while, and that certainly added to the isolation. So it was interesting to have already written this music, but then sort of recreate my relationship with it as I was going through a different kind of isolation and transition.

Leah Roseman (00:12:56):

What about living in Missoula has surprised you the most?

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:13:01):

I think I was just naive enough to make this move and thinking I'm a creative musician. I'm committed to my path as a creative musician, I can do that from anywhere. I thought I would be working more remotely with people recording, and I do that some, but it's not as robust as I thought it would be. And I think no matter where you are, the presence of the internet helps to create a certain pace that really I was trying to get away from and this hyper-productive capitalism, how much stuff can you get done in a day, in a week, in a year, in a lifetime? And so that's been an interesting thing for me to navigate is in some ways my life is slower here. There's less traffic. Nothing's really more than 20 minutes away. I can see I could connect with community more easily here, which is one of the main reasons we came here. And though I can also get caught up in this pace that I feel like is not serving me from a life affirming perspective. So it's interesting.

Leah Roseman (00:14:25):

So you're saying you can't escape that push from the internet despite the fact,

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:14:30):

I think, I think it takes a lot of discipline and I fall in and out of that. So it's been a challenge for me for sure.

Leah Roseman (00:14:40):

Wonderful. And I mean, I'm happy to include whatever clips from whatever you'd like, but I was just picking things I really loved, "Seep Into my Pores".

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:14:50):

Yeah,

Leah Roseman (00:14:50):

I love that one.

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:14:52):

So that was a piece that sometimes melodies just come out sort of fully hatched and fully formed, and that was a piece like that. What I did mess with a lot was the harmony and how the arrangement and where is there improvisation and not, when I first used to perform that piece, I kept it very, very stark. I just wanted this kind of open, expansive feeling. So instead of full harmony and chords, I just had a bass note and a melody, but then I did end up by the request of my band and different folks, I ended up being more specific about what the harmony was, even if it's implied. And I think that opened it up in a way that it's fun and lush and it still has that expansive feeling, but there's maybe even perhaps more depth to it. That phrase "seep into my pores" was a phrase that I found coming to me, just being in this landscape and walking around even just by my house, let alone out in the woods or in the mountains somewhere, and there's so expansive and there's so much to take in any given moment. So I found myself just saying that almost as a practice of like, can I really take this in from an embodied perspective instead of from a heady perspective? So that's what that piece is.

Leah Roseman (00:16:22):

Now, you're going to hear a clip from Seep into My Pores from the Shatter the Glass Sanctuary album.(music)

(00:16:27):

And you had mentioned that originally this ensemble was just a quartet, and then it ended up being a sextet. Was that based on the musicians or other considerations?

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:19:57):

Some of the music I wrote initially with the idea of it being a quintet, so with piano and guitar, drum, bass, trombone, but I found myself really yearning for, there's a feeling that you get when you play with another horn player, and you could get this with woodwinds and saxophone, but I found it even deeper when it's more than one brass player playing together, and just the feeling of the sounds blending together and augmenting each other's sound, and it becomes kind of this whole other entity. So I reached out to Ray Larsen to play trumpet. He's somebody who's playing I really admire, and he's a wonderful human to work with. And so I'm really pleased. I'm glad we went there. I was waffling, but I'm really pleased to have him. And then Andy Coe on guitar was somebody that I had worked with a lot in my early years in Seattle, more in a dance band, jam band, groove kind of settings. But I know he has this background playing more improvised creative music jazz, and adding him to the mix was really lovely as well, just adding these dimensions of ambiance and tams and sounds. And so it felt right. It felt like these pieces wanted to live in a little bit more of an arranged, instrumental way instead of the intimacy of the quartet is great too, but I like the full version.

Leah Roseman (00:21:37):

Yeah. Yeah. I love the way a lot of the guitar lines are very melodic. And when I was first listening to the album, when you're playing with Ray, I actually thought for a second, are there two trombones? Is she overdubbing? And then I realized it was trumpet. Really beautiful combining of sounds.

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:21:53):

Thank you.

Leah Roseman (00:21:55):

And it was wonderful to discover these other musicians. It's always a perk of this job.

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:22:00):

Yeah, totally. I am glad to shine the light on them. Each one of them is really a luminary of the Seattle music scene. And actually, Marina just moved to New Orleans, so now she's going to take flight down there.

Leah Roseman (00:22:17):

And I was noticing when you released the album, you had these listening parties, which is a thing people are doing more of.

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:22:24):

Yeah, partly it was logistical. I am in Missoula, my band's in Seattle, I'm releasing this album. I had some shows set up in Seattle and Western Washington, Pacific Northwest, but I wanted to do something here. And there's a great space here called Suite Two, and they have vintage Hi-Fi speakers. And this was the first time that I did something like this. I know a lot of people are doing them virtually on Bandcamp, and I wanted to have an in-person experience and be in the room with folks and share the music and answer questions. And it was really lovely. I think everybody who came was surprised because we're so used to stimulation. Even any concert we go to, there's a light element, there's special effects or whatever, but just to sit in a room with other people, I feel like the way we listen changes and it invites more of that embodied listening that I was speaking about earlier, and we're less apt to be distracted or go on our phone. And so there's this presence that happens almost similar to if you practice yoga and then suddenly you're practicing yoga in a room with other people, you can deepen sometimes, not for everybody, but deepen into your practice in a way that the community helps you bring more gravitas to the situation. So I really enjoyed it, and it makes me want to do more just, for my album or any album because even listening to an album is so rare these days, we just listen to a song or whatever.

Leah Roseman (00:24:04):

That's right. And especially, I mean, this album is more than a set list. I mean, you have the suite and then the way you put it together. Yeah, I've heard about these listening parties from some younger people I know, and it's such a wonderful thing that sort of a different iteration of something people used to do all the time. Of course,

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:24:24):

Yeah. Yeah, totally.

Leah Roseman (00:24:26):

I'm curious, were you kind of nervous for it as though you were performing?

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:24:31):

I was a bit nervous. I think it was different than a performance feeling. It was more like, will people be engaged? Should I make a slide show? I felt like I should have something else. I also invited my three-year-old child to come, and I was like, is that a mistake? But actually he did great and he just colored in the back of the room. So I think just nervous in the sense of this is something I haven't done before, but it was great.

Leah Roseman (00:25:05):

Now I read your essay, "Embodied Music Makers: We Are the Vessels Through Which Sound Is Made", really beautiful piece. So I wanted to dig into some of that with you.

(00:25:16):

So one of your tipping points in your life was teaching at this jazz camp, and you had some kind of negative experiences. Do you want to speak to that?

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:25:24):

Sure. It was sort of like people speak of this word microaggressions, but to put it in non terminology, it's like so many experiences build up over time, and then sometimes you hit an edge with it, or at least that's what happened with me. And I just think all through my college experience especially, but even probably prior to that, I was experiencing things that basically told the story that I didn't belong in this music. I didn't belong playing trombone. My voice wasn't worthy and I wasn't a worthy investment as a student or whatever. And so those things add up over time. And they're reinforced by anything like representation, pictures of who musicians can be, who do you hear on the radio, who do you see featured in festivals? Who's on the faculty of any given school or music program? Who are the guest artists, let alone with how you're treated interpersonally.

(00:26:35):

So I had an experience with an elder trombone teacher at a jazz camp where I was what they call a mentee. I was a younger faculty member who was there to learn how to be a faculty member and this in a class, a trombone studio class. Instead of being treated like a younger faculty person, I was treated more like an errand girl, or my presence didn't feel valued basically in the space. And I felt like my musicianship and trombone player-dom, it was sort of like a non-issue. And so I just had to leave at a certain point. I was just so over it. And I ran into a musician that I really admire named Kristen Strom right as I was leaving that class. And she was frankly kind of the first older female jazz musician that I really had a chance to get to know, let alone talk to or perform with, or so I just said, Kris, how do you do this?

(00:27:45):

How do you stay in this music? You've been doing this for a long time. And not only does she does it, she does it with immense joy. I've played with her and seen her perform. She shows up on stage and she's present. She's connecting with her band, her audience. She's super professional, and she sounds awesome. And she said something along the lines of, I only play music with people who I love and people who love me, who I can be myself with. And it sounds simple in a way, but it was really revolutionary for me. I had never heard anything about that. I had never really heard people talking about valuing relationships as part of your process as a musician, which I think is immensely important. But more the message that I had had ingrained prior to that was that I'll do whatever I can to get ahead in this music, which meant I would play with anybody or be treated in any particular way, which really meant I created a shell for myself and didn't really share myself vulnerably, which is a really interesting thing to do in improvised music, which is all about vulnerability.

(00:28:59):

So having that conversation with Chris happened right before I was moving to Seattle, and I was about to start in a whole new music scene. So I decided to adopt that sort of ethos as my mo and when I got started in the Seattle music scene, and it was great. I mean, it just changed my whole relationship with other people in the scene with myself in the scene. And I just think it's such an important message. And there are plenty of music spaces that are stuck in sort of old ways where people are trying to fit into these systems that don't necessarily support their humanity. But there are other plenty of music spaces where you can find the people who you can be yourself with, who support you, who to use Chris's words, who love you. And she's married to a wonderful guitar player, so that's really rings true for her. But yeah, so that's a bit about that story.

Leah Roseman (00:30:11):

Hi, just a quick break from the episode. I wanted to let you know about some other episodes I've linked directly to this one, which I think may interest you with J. Walter Hawkes, Hillary Simms, Katherine Needleman, Meg Okura, Colleen Allen, EmmoLei Sankofa, and Renée Yoxon. It's a joy to be able to bring these meaningful conversations to you, but this project costs me quite a bit of money and lots of time. Please support the series through either my merchandise store or on my Ko-fi page. You'll find the links in the show notes for the merch. It features a unique design by artist Steffi Kelly, and you can browse clothes, notebooks, mugs, and more, everything printed on demand. On my Ko-fi page, you can buy me one coffee or every month. You'll also find the link to sign up for my newsletter where you'll get access to exclusive information about upcoming guests. And if you're finding this interesting, please text this episode to a friend!

(00:31:04):

It's interesting your move to Seattle because so many people feel that they have to go to New York, for example, for jazz, as hard as it is to break in. Did you consider that?

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:31:17):

Not really. I love New York. I don't know that I want to live there, but I love being there. So I went to college in Ohio at Oberlin Conservatory, and basically all my friends moved from all my friends who were pursuing music, either moved to New York or they moved to the Bay Area. I ended up getting a job at this camp in the Bay Area, so I was like, all right, I'm going that way anyway, I'm going to stick around. So I lived in Oakland for a couple of years, but I actually had an injury while I was there that prevented me from playing the trombone about a year, maybe year and a half into living there. And I was struggling with nerve damage, with holding the horn with the left hand is holding all the weight of the trombone, and it's very static and kind of a tricky ergonomic situation.

(00:32:10):

So my whole life in Oakland had been designed around playing music, and when I couldn't play music, I didn't know what to do with myself, and I didn't really have these strong relationships with folks that I felt like could be supportive of me during that time, which goes back and speaks to the fact that I wasn't very vulnerable with people. I didn't really share myself with people. So I had what, more professional level acquaintances, friends, but so I decided to move somewhere where I had deeper relationships, and that was Seattle. I was dating someone who lived there at the time, and I also had a really close friend there. So I just felt like, you know what? I need a fresh start. I knew nothing about the music scene when I moved there, but I ended up getting this job working for a nonprofit called Seattle Music Partners when I moved there.

(00:33:06):

And it was a program that meant to address the deep inequities of music education in Seattle public schools. So I was running afterschool music programs in low income schools in Seattle, and that was a really great way to know the city because I was recruiting volunteers from all high schools and colleges all over the city, and I was getting to know educators from all over the city. And so I found it to be a really great entry point, and I was really pleased with the music scene that I discovered there. I think it's really vibrant and wonderful and multifaceted, and it has its challenges like any city, but it's a wonderful place, I think.

Leah Roseman (00:33:56):

Was that afterschool program primarily band oriented?

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:34:00):

Yes. Well, we did band instruments and orchestral instruments,

Leah Roseman (00:34:06):

But not singing or,

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:34:08):

No, not really. We tried to do a lot. The schools we were in did not have general music programs, so we tried to do a day of augmenting that kind of learning, and then a day of instrumental music that they did have some instrumental music lessons from the district, but it was very short and very little. So we did a day of working like fifth graders a lot of times start on an instrument, so supporting that process.

Leah Roseman (00:34:42):

So let's go back to this injury. I understand the Alexander technique helped you out of that a little bit.

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:34:48):

Yeah. In Seattle, I met some great folks who, and I started taking classes with them and then used that as a way to reorient to my instrument. I was afraid that if I started playing again, I would just do the same thing. So I wanted a new avenue to approach the instrument, and that was really helpful.

Leah Roseman (00:35:10):

Did you have creative outlets during that time? Were you writing music or other art forms to help deal with that?

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:35:17):

That's a great question. I don't recall that I was composing very much during that time. I sort of had a resurgence of composition around 2012. I went to Costa Rica for a month to visit my brother, who was a single parent in Costa Rica, and I used it - I would help with taking care of my nephew, but then every afternoon I went to the beach either with my trombone or my ukulele, and I just wrote sort of in a stream of, I don't know what this is for or what instrumentation or even what style, or I just want to get in tune with hearing my voice and notating it. So I left that trip with a whole notebook full of ideas that then when I came back to Seattle, I could be like, oh, this one, I want to flush this one out. And that became my first album Shoebox View and got me back into a more regular composition practice, although it's still not quite as regular as I'd like.

Leah Roseman (00:36:22):

I love that album too. I listened to it. And one of your collaborators in Seattle who's a mentor is Wayne Horwitz, right?

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:36:29):

That's right, yes.

Leah Roseman (00:36:30):

He played on both your first two albums.

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:36:32):

Yeah, yeah. Wayne's such a huge presence on the Seattle music scene. I met him, I forget what year I met him, but I was spending some time hanging out with Julian Priester, who's a great trombone player, sort of a trombone legend, and they used to share an office at Cornish College of the Arts. So I met him in passing there right around the time when he was bringing conduction Butch Morris style of conduction to Seattle more. Conduction is a vocabulary of hand signals that are used to manipulate music in real time. So Butch Morris developed this particular system, but there's other systems out there as well. But Butch's work is really, it's really widely known all over the world. Anyway, so Wayne started putting these ensembles together using conduction, and then right around that time, soon thereafter, he opened up a club called The Royal Room, which is a really important hub in the Seattle music scene.

(00:37:39):

And so we started playing there every Monday night, and then other projects came out of that. So I was involved in his projects and him and mine, and he's really about community. He's really about getting bands together that are diverse from every perspective, including age, which I think is rare sometimes in the music world. We get kind of siloed and we only play with people in our age range. And that was something I really appreciated about him. And he's very open musically, stylistically, and his compositions kind of opened up some doors for me in terms of I feel like there's this thing that happens in jazz and jazz education and mainstream jazz aesthetics where harmony, everything, harmony, melody, all has to be complex and dense, and this certain even fast or virtuoso and Wayne's music is not necessarily like that. I mean, there might be some elements of that, his music, but for example, a lot of his harmony is triadic instead of seventh chords or chords with upper extensions. And I loved that. I was just like, wow, this is great. What about all these sounds? It kind of just opened some doors for me that I hadn't been thinking about prior. So that was something I really appreciate about Wayne Horwitz as well.

Leah Roseman (00:39:14):

Yeah, it seems to me a trend that jazz is getting more diverse in the way you're talking about less. I've noticed this with other artists too. Maybe more blending of genres or And form isn't always the 32 bars,

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:39:33):

Right? Right. Yeah. And the structure isn't always head solo head. Yeah. I mean, we also have to think we have so much access to so much music now, which I think is sort of a blessing and a curse, but the blessing part of it is that it's very easy to absorb a lot of musical styles. And so to say that we're just coming from this one tradition, I think would be a pretty rare experience for anybody.

Leah Roseman (00:40:07):

If we could go back, I was just curious in terms of your education. You mentioned Oberlin. I didn't know they really had a jazz program. Isn't it more classical there?

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:40:15):

Yeah, the classical program is a lot bigger. I'm not sure how big it is now. When I was there, there were probably like 50 kids in the jazz program. So their jazz program was started, I should probably know the year, but it was started by a phenomenal composer and educator named Wendell Logan, who the African-American composer, I believe, from the Cleveland area. And he was very well steeped in the whole spectrum of Black music, of African-American music, so not just jazz, but R&B and soul and gospel and classical art, music and concert band music. So having that as a foundation of the program was very positive and important, and I think a lot of jazz programs don't necessarily have that perspective. So that was one thing I really valued about that.

Leah Roseman (00:41:13):

Yeah, really interesting. Well, another thing I noticed when I was researching, maybe you had posted about it, this New Standards, this new book of all women and non-binary composers. That's pretty cool.

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:41:26):

Yes. Actually I have it right here. I was just looking at it with a student that is a wonderful resource that came out, is it two years ago now? Or I'm forgetting the time, but it's part of the initiative from Berklee School of Music their, Jazz and Gender Justice Institute run by the great drummer, Terri Lyne Carrington. And it goes back to what I was saying about these messages that we get from the repertoire we play and who's featured, all of that. So this book is a huge, awesome resource to help remedy that situation, let alone there's just some really amazing music in there that I probably wouldn't be aware of otherwise. And I say that both historically. There's some old pieces in there by musicians I have never heard of that are amazing. And then also there's some 22-year-old musicians in there who are writing really cool stuff.

Leah Roseman (00:42:30):

That's really great. Are they going to make another one? I mean, that's 101 lead sheets, but

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:42:35):

Yeah, I hope so. And I don't know, I'm not in the program, but yeah, I would hope so. I know at the very least, so Terri Lyne Carrington released an album in conjunction with the release of that book. So it features I think 10 or 11 of the pieces from that book. I believe she is intending to record more of that music, so I think that's going to happen. But I do hope they put out more because there's 101 lead sheets, but it's one per composer, so there's just one Mary Lou Williams piece, so there's a lot more we could dive into.

Leah Roseman (00:43:14):

Yeah, yeah. Now, another one of your earlier projects, the Syrinx Effect.

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:43:21):

Yes.

Leah Roseman (00:43:21):

Interesting duo. And you're using pedals on there with your trombone.

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:43:25):

That's right. Yes.

Leah Roseman (00:43:29):

So Kate Olson, you had collaborated with her in Seattle, is that right?

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:43:33):

Yeah. So Kate and I met probably in 2009, 2010, at a place called The Racer Sessions, which was a really pivotal part of Seattle's music scene for a while. They actually just had their last session at the end of 2024, but it was a wonderful place for improvised music and for experimentation. And so I met Kate there. She had just moved to the city and we started improvising together. We were both curious about adding electronics, so we both got some guitar pedals and started improvising from that. And that's how that project came to be. It has taken different forms. For a while, she was using her laptop instead of guitar pedals, now she's back to guitar pedals. And that project, we've done albums or EPs that were completely improvised, and then our last was much more composed with the improvised sections. As a trombone player, playing in a duo setting is very rare, especially if it's not a pianist or guitar.

(00:44:47):

So that project, I feel is very pivotal and important for my development as a musician. It really pushed my edge. I mean, I remember our first performances. I was like, I don't usually get this nervous for a performance, but it's just me. And it definitely pushed my edge in a way that I'm really grateful for. And Kate and I, we actually just did perform last fall. We're not as frequently doing this project, but we get back together now and then we both have solo versions of what we do. So sometimes I perform as a soloist with my guitar pedals and looping effects and different things, and that's something that I really love to do as well.

Leah Roseman (00:45:33):

Okay. I'm glad I asked about that.

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:45:36):

Yeah, it's a really fun project. And our last album, it's called A Sky You Can Scratch - A Sky, you can Strike a Match On, which is a line from a poem from Melinda Mueller, who's a great Seattle poet. But anyway, I think it's a really great album that more people should know about. So

Leah Roseman (00:45:56):

Do you want to include a clip of that?

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:45:58):

Sure,

Leah Roseman (00:45:59):

Yeah, let's do it. This is Cameronathon from Syrinx Effect's album, A Sky you Could Strike a match on.(music) So of course, everything will be linked directly in the show notes.

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:50:22):

People can just

Leah Roseman (00:50:22):

Go there. Thank

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:50:23):

You. Yeah.

Leah Roseman (00:50:24):

Now, you mentioned your trip to Costa Rica was personal, but also generative creatively, and I know you also went to The Gambia and Senegal.

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:50:32):

Yes, yes. Yeah. There's a percussionist that spent a lot of time in Seattle, more time, I think, than I've ever spent there from Senegal named Thione Diop. And he's featured on my first two albums and playing in his bands, some of the best music time I've ever had. He used to have this monthly gig at a place called The Music Aquarium in Seattle, and it started off kind of small. It would be him and another percussionist, guitar. The guitarist sometimes played kora, bass and maybe drum set as well. And then I would just show up and it was all improvised groove based music, and then slowly the band grew. Other horn players would show up. Then we had vocal, it kept going, and I loved all of that. But I really loved the beginning when it was completely improvised. It had free reign, and I was interacting with these musicians from another culture, and I just loved his approach.

(00:51:40):

He's one of the most melodic percussionist drummers I've ever played with. And a lot of times in the US we're like, where's the one? Or What's the time signature of this piece? And I can't say exactly how he thinks about it, but my sense is more like, this is the phrase, this is the melody. There's no one necessarily, but this is it. So I started to try to experience music that way when I could feeling like I'm just playing a melody or a phrase over and over again, it doesn't matter that this is beat one. So I really appreciate that as well. So that inspired my trip to go to Senegal, and I played a little bit in Senegal, but most of my time was in The Gambia. It was just kind of an easier place for me to travel. They speak English there. And so I ended up hooking up with a family there, a family of musicians coming out of the kora tradition. And I started studying kora, and I toured around a little bit and played with this band called Tata Dindin and the Salam Band. And they were so fun. They were just like, yeah, sure. Come play. So I would just figure it out.

(00:53:04):

And then when I wasn't playing with them, I was on the beach writing music. So it was quite a lovely situation, challenge. There were challenges to traveling, but I really am grateful for that time.

Leah Roseman (00:53:22):

And I wanted you to maybe reflect on some of the workshops you do. I was curious both with faculty in terms of talking about inclusivity and also students in terms of creativity and improvisation. So

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:53:35):

Yeah, I'll start with the faculty kind of question. When I put my first album out in 2016, that was a big investment for me. I did a crowdfunding campaign and I said, Hey, you know what? I have all this music that I've been writing. I want to bring it to life and bring it to fruition in a way that live performance isn't quite getting there for me. I want it archived. So I put a lot into that project, which was a revolutionary experience for me because I had grown up so much with this idea that my voice wasn't worth investing in. So after I put that album out in kind of this bigger way, I decided that I needed to be having these conversations in music spaces that I wish somebody had had with me.

(00:54:34):

Also, coming from this background of working in nonprofits in Seattle, I noticed that in that world, we were having workshops, we were having anti-racism trainings. We were addressing social justice, trying to address inequities from a nonprofit perspective. But just the music scene, music world, and even the band room, I didn't feel like any of that was happening, any of those conversations were being had. So I thought, okay, it's time to put these together. So in the wake of that release, I started experimenting with taking some of the facilitation materials and ideas that I had been given in these workshops and mutating them a little bit to speak directly to musicians, music teachers, and to try to be addressing gender in an intersectional kind of way. So I started at that time, that was before me too, that was before the Berklee Jazz and Gender Justice Institute.

(00:55:42):

So it felt like my biggest job was to build awareness because it felt like people weren't aware. They weren't having these conversations, they weren't tools and resources. So that's how I got started. And I would go around and facilitate these workshops and really just have people try to address and uncover their unconscious bias. What are the stories that we've all grown up with, myself included, that lead to these not true and toxic narratives and ways of being in the world and being in our band classrooms. And so uncovering these biases, we can see, oh, yeah, there's only male instrumentalists in the posters in the band room. And oh wow, look at all the music that we have. It's all written by male composers and that kind of thing.

(00:56:38):

So that's how it started. And then I started shifting more to, okay, it seems like people are building on awareness. I still think we have a ways to go, but there's a general sort of baseline that wasn't there. Certainly when I was in school. And when I was in school, we just pretended it didn't exist and everything's fine. So I started doing some workshops around how to address very likely scenarios that might happen in a band room. Maybe this girl gets into a competitive school music program, and some of her classmates say like, oh, yeah, well, you probably got in because you're a girl, some kind of situation like that or something that you could imagine being said in a rehearsal space, in a band classroom, and how do we address these? So I wrote up these scenarios and started having conversations so that people were more equipped to deal with these situations in the moment.

(00:57:47):

So I've done some of that work as well. And again, I feel like there's a lot more room to dig into there. And then sometimes I bring it more into directly, okay, how does this affect our bodies and the way that we improvise? So one of the things that happens, and I spoke to this earlier, is that certain aesthetics in the improvisation become more valued than others. From sort of an external perspective, if you were to ask maybe a fifth grader who doesn't really know much about jazz or music, what is a good jazz solo? And I would ask people this question stereotypically, what is a good jazz solo? What do you think they would say? What do you think they would say?

Leah Roseman (00:58:38):

Well, I'm guessing if it's lots of notes. That's kind of the

Naomi Moon Siegel (00:58:41):

Yeah, it's lots of notes. It's fast, it's high, it's all those kinds of things. So I would write those on a board, maybe on one side, and then on the other side, I would say, okay, what do you really like in a jazz solo? What really speaks to you? And some people really do like that stuff, and that's great, but what I heard more of was communication expression, collaboration, interaction, interplay, those kinds of things, even repetition, those kinds of things. And so we would improvise while holding those, I will call them subtler qualities, more in the forefront and say, okay, how can we improvise while really making collaboration or communication the most important thing, and the fast and the high and the loud and the dense might happen, but if it's based in communication, then it becomes more powerful and more musical. So we would experiment with that and holding those in improvisation.

(00:59:49):

And I would also try to bring that back to, and I am still experimenting with this, but being a musician, especially with an instrument like trombone, but really anything that way that you make sound, you're using your body to make sound. And so incorporating breathing exercises and body awareness exercises, and energetically, the trombone is so outward. It goes really, really far out. The sound is very directional. It's all going out. And as a performer, you're usually directing outward unless you're Miles Davis. So I started to think about some of the principles that I was learning in a yoga class about back body and balancing and what happens when we play, when we perform, when we improvise, but we have a greater awareness of the back of our body, of our feet on the floor, of the space behind us, and how does that open up the experience? And you're listening. And so those are other things that I've been working with in workshop settings as well.

Leah Roseman (01:01:01):

Yeah, I find it interesting to think about the narrow focus and the wider focus.

Naomi Moon Siegel (01:01:05):

Yeah.

Leah Roseman (01:01:06):

Because especially with virtuosic playing, I think it can get too narrow. You know what I mean?

Naomi Moon Siegel (01:01:10):

Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Going back to the essay that you mentioned too, I just think that we get so fixated on the product that we forget about the process, and our body is actually what we're using to make these sounds. And so how can we integrate our body into the experience instead of having it be a casualty of the experience?

Leah Roseman (01:01:41):

And in terms of the presence of women and non-binary people in the jazz world, I think it's changing, but maybe not as quickly as the population. Are you thinking that the pipeline is not the problem? These people are there in schools?

Naomi Moon Siegel (01:02:01):

I think there is a problem with pipeline, too. I mean, it's really different wherever you go and any given year is different. But speaking to what I see in Missoula right now in the high school jazz bands and stuff, it doesn't look that great or middle. And so then you have to be like, okay, so what's happening in middle school or even elementary school? My perspective is we have to hit it from as many angles as possible. And one of those angles is supporting the pipeline is how I feel. But I think if I were to see Seattle or maybe in a city, I think we would see a huge variety in landscapes and gender representation in schools right now.

Leah Roseman (01:02:54):

And do you think it helps women and non-binary people to be a band leader in terms of their career and having more control?

Naomi Moon Siegel (01:03:04):

Yes. That's a good question. It's almost like depends on what instrument you play. If you're a bass player, you're going to get called. And if that's what you want to do, then that's great. But if you want to be a band leader, then yes, you will have more control in terms of what content you're going to play. Trombone is not everyone's first instrument on their list for their ensemble. I think it should be. And so that's a place where I was like, all right, well, I mean, in addition to just wanting to play my music as a composer, but also wanting to play more and play out and travel and all that, that's something that I could do more as a band leader.

Leah Roseman (01:03:55):

And how do you work with these emerging improvisers when you do these school clinics?

Naomi Moon Siegel (01:04:00):

What do you mean?

Leah Roseman (01:04:02):

Well, they're just starting

Naomi Moon Siegel (01:04:04):

A brand new beginning. Improviser. Yeah. So one perspective that I have for improvisation is that it's for everybody. It doesn't matter your skillset. It doesn't matter your level, and it doesn't need to be presented in a way that you're the featured soloist. And I think so often in jazz education, that is how it's presented, which can be pretty intimidating and alienating for people who that socially is not for them. I do a lot of games, improvisation games that involve more collective improvisation, more listening kind of exercises. I love the work of Pauline Oliveros. She has all these sonic meditations that I like to integrate into my teaching. Also, the Butch Morris conduction that I mentioned earlier. That is a great tool, super fun to do with kids, any level professionals to kids. I love doing that. So those are some of the ways that I approach improvisation. And it doesn't have to be about playing a solo, but it can be like, what's the weirdest sound you can play on your end? Just kind of opening up your relationship to your instrument and making sound and your ears so that you're maybe more encouraged to go further down that road.

Leah Roseman (01:05:28):

Okay. So I was curious about your creative practice just on a daily basis.

Naomi Moon Siegel (01:05:34):

Yeah. I actually just got back from an artist residency, which was so awesome, and it's a little bit difficult transitioning to the real world, but I was just at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Actually, there was a great artist from Ottawa there too. And it was such a treat to just have space to create. So what it looked like there was getting back into my meditation practice and then just composing every day raw material, kind of like I mentioned in Costa Rica. I haven't had a daily practice like that in a while. And in particular, what I am thinking about in my composition process right now is a body of work that is reflective of my newer identity as a parent and how that merges with my identity as a musician. And so I actually have some old journals. I was going back and reading from my birth story to early postpartum time, reflecting on that experience and reading some work from other writers about their experience as well, and synthesizing that through composition.

(01:06:55):

So that's a big part of my creative practice. When I can, I find it difficult to have that time when I'm home on a regular basis. And then improvising, just improvising, playing my trombone acoustically or with my effects set up is a big part of my practice that I do every day pretty much. Even if it's very short, I will always improvise with my trombone. And again, it's not only developing my relationship with the instrument, but it's developing my listening, my muscle of listening to myself and developing and trying to push the edge of what sounds I can create and ways that I can be expressive. So if I had all the time in the world, I'd be composing every day, meditating, improvising on the trombone, and also writing and reading, and then hanging out and performing with other musicians, that would be an awesome daily thing. But I also teach, and I also do a lot of administrative stuff as a band leader and apply for grants. And there's other life stuff, including being in my family. So I'm just in my first few days back from this artist residency, which is the first sort of formal artist residency I've ever been a part of. And thinking about that very question, how can I synthesize more of this into my daily life?

Leah Roseman (01:08:33):

Well, any upcoming projects you want to talk about?

Naomi Moon Siegel (01:08:36):

I'm doing a short tour around the Bay Area at the end of February and early March with a quartet version of this band from Shatter the Glass Sanctuary. So it'll feature Marina Albero on piano and Christopher Icasiano on drums. And then we have another phenomenal young bass player named Jayla Chi, who's going to join us on the bass. And then mostly I'm just working on writing new music and seeing what's the next version, what's the next album? I hopefully bringing my Seattle sextet to Montana in June, if that all works out. And in Missoula, I have a trio here. And also doing conduction with a band of professional musicians that kind of span - Not everyone's coming from jazz, and I really like that. I want an eclectic mix, and it's been really fun. So we're doing that just about monthly now.

Leah Roseman (01:09:35):

Wonderful. Well, thanks so much for this today. Really appreciated it.

Naomi Moon Siegel (01:09:38):

Yeah, thank you. It was nice chatting with you.

Leah Roseman (01:09:42):

I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please share this with your friends and check out episodes you may have missed at Leahroseman.com. If you could buy me a coffee to support the series, that would be wonderful. I'm an independent podcaster and I really do need the help of my listeners. All the links are in the show notes. The podcast theme music was written by Nick Kold. Have a wonderful week.