Sara Caswell Interview
This is the transcript of my 2024 interview with Sara Caswell; the link button to the podcast and video with show notes is right above. I was honoured to have this opportunity to record this conversation with the phenomenal violinist Sara Caswell, who is a GRAMMY Nominee for the Best Improvised Jazz Solo. We focused on the recent 9 Horses album, Strum with mandolinist and composer Joseph Brent, and she also spoke to me about some of her other collaborators including esperanza spalding, Chuck Owen, Nadje Noordhuis, and mentors including David Baker, Mimi Zweig and Josef Gingold. She shared how she started playing the 10 stringed Hardanger d’amore, her rich early musical life in Bloomington, and how she is grounded and inspired from her family and friends.
Sara Caswell:
Yeah, I still have to pinch myself when I see that medal on the wall. It was just such a thrilling experience that just to be nominated and I mean, there's so much amazing music that was put on every year when you are given a pat on the back by your peers and said, keep going. Keep doing what you're doing. It's a really beautiful, wonderful thing. And the Grammys are an opportunity to really celebrate all musicians doing amazing things, and it's a really wonderful time to celebrate what we as a musical community are doing.
Leah Roseman:
Hi, you're listening to Conversations with Musicians with Leah Roseman. This podcast strives to inspire you through the personal stories of a diversity of musicians with in-depth conversations and great music that revealed the depth and breadth to a life in music. I was honored to have this opportunity to record this conversation with the phenomenal violinist, Sara Caswell, who is a Grammy nominee for the best improvised jazz solo. We focused on the recent 9 Horses album "Strum" with mandolinist and composer Joseph Brent. And she also spoke to me about some of her other collaborators, including esperanza spalding, Chuck Owen, Nadje Noordhuis and mentors, including David Baker, Mimi Zweig and Joseph Gingold. She shared how she started playing the 10 stringed Hardanger d’amore, her rich early musical life in Bloomington, and how she's grounded and inspired from her family and friends.
Like all my episodes, you can watch this on my YouTube channel or listen to the podcast on all the podcast players. And I've also linked the transcript to my website, leah oseman.com. The podcast theme music was commissioned from composer Nick Kold, and you can use the timestamps to navigate the episode. This weekly podcast is in season four, and I send out an email newsletter where you can get access to exclusive information about upcoming guests. Have a look at the description of this episode where you'll find all the links, including the merchandise store and also the support link to buy this independent podcaster a coffee. I take care of all the many jobs of research, production and publicity, and I really do need the help of my listeners to keep this project going.
Hi, Sara. Thanks so much for joining me here today.
Sara Caswell:
Oh, thanks so much for having me.
Leah Roseman:
It's a real honor. I've really been enjoying listening to your recent album with 9 Horses "Strum". Yes, and we'll be focusing on that a little bit in today's episode. I listened to it a lot. I was just telling you, I was on a trip, so one of the albums I had downloaded on my phone and I was just listening to it quite a bit, and it's like this great colorful party. You guys have so many layers and other instrument, other musicians you've invited, and it's just fascinating and talk about conversations, like so many conversations.
Sara Caswell:
Absolutely.
Leah Roseman:
I know that Joe Brent is kind of the mastermind behind all the layers and the production. So actually one of my first questions is, at what point or does it change when you put in your line as a violinist?
Sara Caswell:
I suppose it does. I mean, the one person who's going to know of course is the Mastermind, as you said, Joe, Joe Brent. He has these incredibly complex and just beautifully intricate compositions in his mind. So in a lot of ways I don't really have a full picture of what's happening until I actually listen to the finished product. So I'm not sure. I mean, I would imagine that in any situation where you're breathing life into a piece, because a lot of times Joe will give us mockups of what he's visualizing, what he's hearing, and they're computer generated mockups. So as soon as you're breathing life into it when human beings are actually playing the music written on the page, I would imagine for Joe, yes, that those compositions are going to morph as well because he's maybe hearing things in a slightly different way, or one of the things that part of his process is to invite particular people on board who have that prepository skill as part of their musical offering.
And so someone might have an idea of something to offer either to improvise or maybe a slightly different variation on a line, and Joe might be like, oh, that's great, do that and sort of scrap what's originally written. So I can remember several instances throughout the course of recording Strum where I came in prepared to do and perform what was on the page, but then as we would track, things would get modified, things would change, things would evolve, and there were other times where I played exactly what was written on the page, and that was exactly what is on the album. So I love that aspect of recording with Joe with 9 horses because we have a template, we have a grid that we're following, but there's also that freedom and flexibility to really let the music evolve based on what we're experiencing in the moment, what we're experiencing as a group, how as the layers get added, how the piece is evolving and how that might affect what it is that we're contributing to the piece itself.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah, I love to include some music early in an episode. So I was going, all these tracks are fairly long, so I wanted to include short clips of a few tracks just to give people a taste and then everything will be linked back.
Sara Caswell:
That sounds great.
Leah Roseman:
So maybe we could talk about one of the ones I was thinking. I mean, there's great violin playing in all of these and just so many interesting things, but
Sara Caswell:
Thank you.
Leah Roseman:
The House that Ate Myself,
Sara Caswell:
That's the last track on the project. Yes.
Leah Roseman:
And I think it's a reference to the fact that he was moving at the time.
Sara Caswell:
Yes. There are very specific stories that Joe has in mind, as you might have read in the liner notes. He's one who very much wants the listener to experience the piece without his say. He really wants there to be freedom for the listener to really experience it in their own, their own zone, in their own world. But I always enjoy when he actually does in those occasional times when he does actually give a description of what the track is about or what inspired the particular composition. I always love reading what he has to say. It doesn't happen very often when we're doing performances. He very rarely will give background information on those tracks, so I enjoy reading about them just as much as you might. But yes, this was a piece that was part of, there were a couple of pieces actually that were written during his move, and I know there were some stressful things that happened. He and his wife had bought a house and there was a delay and there was moving in, and things were definitely taking a little bit longer than expected, but this last piece was one of those pieces that was inspired from the experiences that he had during that time.
Leah Roseman:
This is a clip from the House that Ate Myself from 9 Horses' album Strum. The link to this album is in the show notes of this podcast. (music)
Now, this group formed in 2013, and I'm curious when you perform live as a trio and you're doing residency, so I'm kind of curious how that looks compared to the album product, which is involving so many musicians,
Sara Caswell:
Right. Yeah, our first album was actually done as a trio as well. So we started in a very acoustic setup, violin, bass, and mandolin, and that's how we conduct our residencies as well. It's really a chance for us as an acoustic trio to connect with the students and perform repertoire that we've developed over the years. But I think in a lot of ways, the recording projects that we've been doing as of late are a wonderful playground for building up projects that maybe in the real world wouldn't necessarily be possible to perform live, at least in the setup that Joe has created. And I think the first time we really did, it might've been a Covid thing when we did Omega, this idea of since we weren't really able to gather together in a more of a traditional studio format where you bring us the trio plus five or six of the people, our losing that ability during Covid in a lot of ways opened doors for us to be like, well, if we were trying to do this live and in a real studio, it would just be this insanely expensive production.
But since we're able to do remote recording and we all have the capability of doing our own tracking, we could actually make this a larger experience and something that connects us all, even though we're not able to be in the studio together. So it was really in a lot of ways, making lemonade out of lemons, just the idea of really making the most of what opportunities are potentially there. And I know with Strum as well, that same sort of paradigm of just really making the most of technology and being able to bring everybody together in these remote situations. It was really a very inspiring thing to see.
Leah Roseman:
The name of the group 9 Horses is from a Billy Collins poem, I understand.
Sara Caswell:
Yes, that's correct.
Leah Roseman:
But we would expect nine players when you see the name of the group.
Sara Caswell:
That is true. We've had many questions about that, but I think Joe's reason for choosing that name, I think had more to do with the sentiment behind the poem, the idea of it being a simple gift and something that was a very heartfelt gesture and something that was, like I said, was very simple in its presence, but had a very deep and meaningful impact to the recipient. So I think that is something that is more of the connection, not so much the number, but we certainly, when people see our names in concert programs or on billings, they're surprised to see a trio not be like, where are the other six people? It's like, no, we're actually a trio, but always a little bit of explanation of involved there.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. You are about to hear an excerpt from Americannia from 9 Horses album Strum. (music)
Now you have a preference for acoustic instruments, Sarah?
Sara Caswell:
Well, most of my experience has been with acoustic violins. I certainly, as a jazz musician, which is sort of the world that I live in, I've certainly had the opportunity to try electric instruments. And I certainly am, I love experimenting with them, and I love just sort of dabbling in that world. But it's been something that's been more of an experiment on just on my private time, my practicing time. And I do some work, a little bit of work I'm starting to do with pedals as well, but most everything I do in performance is coming from an acoustic place using acoustic instruments. The only electronics I'm using in my performance are essentially technology to amplify my instrument. So when I'm playing with a rhythm section with my group, or in more of a traditional jazz context, when drums are involved, I'll use a pickup that I have installed on one of my fiddles.
And then when I'm doing performances with more acoustic groups, like 9 Horses, then I'm typically using a DPA clip mic, which just mounts on the side of the instrument and really just magnifies the acoustic tone. So I'm not really adjusting or modifying my sound in any, through any kind of filter, through any kind of alterations. I'm just basically amplifying the acoustic tone of the instrument. And I'm not opposed to stretching beyond that and seeing what colors, what textures I might be able to achieve using an electric instrument or pedals. But for the time being, I'm very comfortable and very much my voice anyway at this moment is within that sphere.
Leah Roseman:
And the Hardanger d’amore fiddle. How does that come into your life, and how is it different for you?
Sara Caswell:
Oh, that instrument is truly amazing. So my introduction to it, well, for your listeners, if they don't know, this instrument's called Hardanger d’amore. It is a 10 stringed Norwegian folk fiddle. Now, the traditional Hardanger violin is an eight string instrument. So it has four strings on top that you bow as you would with the traditional classical violin, but it also has four resonant strings which are strung underneath the fingerboard of the fiddle. And you never bow those. You never play them, but they resonate. Their purpose is to resonate with the vibrations at the instrument, and it gives it this beautifully lush, warm, reverberant tone that is very, it's a beautiful musical setting for a lot of the Norwegian folk music that is involving a lot of chordal harmony and drones and things of that nature where that resonance can really magnify the music.
So the Hardanger d’amore is essentially that same sort of construction. It just has an extra string on top and an extra resonance string. And the body itself is a little larger. It's in between the sides of a violin and a viola. And yeah, it's a beautiful instrument. It is been in an existence for about, well, I think the first one was made maybe around 2012, 2013, a violinist commissioned this luthier out in Osla Norway. His name is Salve Håkedal , the luthier, the violist commissioned Salve to make a tent stringed Hardanger violin. And I'm sure, I don't know if he was expecting this to gain popularity, but it certainly has. I think there are maybe around 50 or 60 of these fiddles in the world now. And they're not just used by Norwegian folk fiddlers, they're used by people like me. I don't play a lick of Norwegian folk music, but I think the instrument really invites a lot of experimentation.
So my introduction to it was from a friend of ours out in Bainbridge Island, Washington, which is off the coast of Seattle. And we were out there doing, I think it was a house concert. Joe and I were out there doing a house concert for him, and he has a wonderful assortment of instruments, a lot of guitars, some violins, I'm sure he has some mandolins in there as well. And he had just acquired one of Salves early Hardanger d'amore. And so when we got there, he's like, Sara, I've got this amazing fiddle that I would love for you to try. And so I was like, sure, that sounds great. So I pick up this instrument play one note, and the vibrations that this instrument resonated, it was insane unlike anything I ever experienced with even the most incredible violin. And I was in shock. I was in awe. It was just such an incredible experience. So I played that violin for hours, ended up playing a couple tunes that evening on that fiddle, and I did a very uncharacteristically, I wouldn't say what was it, I'm not one who acts quickly in the moment
Leah Roseman:
Impetuous?
Sara Caswell:
Thank you. I'm one who, I wait. I'm very cautious, proceed with caution with anything. And I emailed the luthier the next morning Salve, and I said, please, I've just tried one of your fiddles. I've been playing it for hours the last day. I'm in love. Would you make me one? And so about six months later, a big old wooden crate showed up on my stoop in Manhattan, and inside was this beautiful Hardanger d'amore. And yeah, for the last 10 years, I feel so lucky to be the caretaker of this fiddle and have the opportunity to really witness its growth.
It's blossoming because as you know, violins get better with age. And so the more they're played, the more they are being, they have notes and vibrations being channeled through them, the better they get. And this instrument has certainly, we already had a spectacular sound when I played its first note, but just to hear how it's changing over time, and to be inspired by that to try different music. I'm using it in 9 Horses. I'm now starting to use it in my jazz quartet. It's beautiful on Bossa Novas and Brazilian music. It's just been really fun to try that out. It's a really fun adventure, and I love that. I would never have predicted that this instrument would come into my life, and I'm so grateful to our friend in Seattle who introduced me to it and to Salve for making me this fiddle and everyone being on board to let me try it out.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah, I've interviewed quite a few people who play string instruments with resonating strings. Sometimes it's been altered or invented. I have to admit I haven't tried one myself. I have to get access to experience that.
Sara Caswell:
Oh, definitely. It's amazing.
Leah Roseman:
I understand in Norway, they have a lot of different traditional tunings they use with it.
Sara Caswell:
Yes, they do. And I haven't experimented with that yet, and I say yet because I am very curious about what avenues that could lead to. But right now, the way I have it tuned is the traditional tuning on top. So from the top down, EA, D and G, and then the resonance strings, I have tuned to A GE, D and B, and that particular combination of pitches really just opens the fiddle. Actually, no, wait, I'm sorry. On the top I had E, A, D, G and low D, I forgot the low string. So the low string is a slightly smaller interval than what is usually it's a whole step up from say, like a low C that you'd have on the viola. So that particular combination, those five on top and those five below, it really enables the instrument to resonate in a beautiful way.
Leah Roseman:
Okay. Now, there was one of the tunes, speaking of Strum, I think in long time away you had to retune the hardanger.
Sara Caswell:
Yep. Yeah, no, I think Joe may have mentioned it in the track. We have to stop the track so I can alter the tuning and then carry on with it. And I've done that actually in a couple of different situations as well. Different recording projects where I've had to adjust the string so that we're really able to get the lowness and pitch that's called for in the piece. But yeah, with the quick time, the lack of space between those, there just wasn't enough time to essentially change the alteration. So the instrument has geared pegs, which makes tuning considerably easier. I'm not having to fish around for the pitch. It very smoothly settles into, I can tune the peg very gracefully and smoothly into the lower pitch, and there's no real time that's eaten up in that adjustment.
Leah Roseman:
This is a clip from Long Time Away from 9 horses album Strum (music).
One of my colleagues who's a violinist has changed her pegs because we can use geared pegs, but most of us shy away from them. Have you considered it? I've heard it's a lot longer to change the strings if they break.
Sara Caswell:
It does take a little bit longer. I haven't had to worry about it too much. These strings are very, they age well, and so there hasn't really necessarily been the necessity to change them often. But I have heard the same thing that it does take a little bit longer to use them. I haven't changed over to geared pegs on my other instruments. I guess I'm in, maybe I'm a more traditionalist in that way, but I like what I have and I don't necessarily feel a need to change them. But I think if you are using an instrument where altered tuning is a very regular or expected part of your use with that instrument or the tradition, then it makes sense. And I have found it to be very, very helpful, especially with just making sure that everything is super dialed in pitch wise, having those geared pegs really enables me to get everything right in line, and I probably wouldn't be able to do that quite as easily, especially with the resident strings if I had traditional pegs.
Leah Roseman:
Well, actually, Sara, that kind of leads to you do quite a bit of teaching, sort of ear training as part an educator, as a jazz educator.
Sara Caswell:
Yeah, certainly it is part of what I do. I mean, all the teaching I do essentially is private instruction. Most of my students, most of my teaching is done up at Berklee College of Music up in Boston. I'm also on faculty at Manhattan School of Music, New School and NYU, all of which are in New York City. All my teaching is private instruction, but of course, part of what I'm teaching and working on with my students is their ear training development.
Leah Roseman:
Some people, I guess a lot of people are coming from a classical background.
Sara Caswell:
Some are, yes. I think one of the things that I love about these schools, especially one like Berklee, is that there's actually quite a variety of backgrounds. The school tracks. So there's certainly a lot of classical students who are coming with that background as their foundation. But there are also a lot of students who are coming from basically fiddle background, either Bluegrass or Irish or Celtic or Irish or Scottish, any number of traditions. And they're wanting to expand their ability to musically communicate, and they're wanting to learn a different language, a different manner of speaking musically. And jazz is something that oftentimes they're interested in doing.
Leah Roseman:
So what kind of work do you do help when people are struggling, memorizing chord changes and hearing the chords?
Sara Caswell:
Well, there are any number of things that can be done. A big part of the process I encourage all of my students to settle into and to get used to practicing as part of their daily, weekly routine is to transcribe. And what I mean by transcriptions is to, in jazz context, is to essentially learn someone's solo. If they're working on a particular tune that maybe they're having a difficult time really internalizing and hearing on their own, then oftentimes if they listen to numerous recordings just to really get their ears acclimated to the harmonic context, the melodic context, and the rhythmic of course as well, that will certainly help them internalize it. If they're then able to go the next step and to transcribe somebody else's solo, their improvised performance over those chord changes, then that further, further deepens their understanding of how harmony is working, how melodic line is working, the idea of voice leading all these different harmonic concepts that really will deepen their understanding of what it is that they're hearing and also what they're eventually going to be improvising over. So really, the more context that they can put themselves into where they're just saturating the ear, I think it can be a really well just the more they're doing that, the quicker and the better. They're going to understand what it is that they're going to be playing.
Leah Roseman:
So you were nominated for a GRAMMY for the Best Improvised Jazz Solo 2018.
Sara Caswell:
That's right.
Leah Roseman:
And it's pretty amazing to think, because violin is still a little bit of a minority instrument in jazz, unfortunately. But it was like any instrument, best improvised jazz solo on all the instruments, right?
Sara Caswell:
No, I was so shocked by the nomination. I couldn't believe so, this is kind of a funny situation. I was aware that my name had been submitted, but when you look at the voting list that they have, the initial list that gets, people can submit their solos. And so when you're doing the first round of voting, there are hundreds of solos that get submitted. And so I was just honored that the band leader whose project I was on had decided that he wanted to submit my solo as a potential Grammy nomination, for a potential Grammy nomination. I had no clue, no idea. I wasn't a voting member at the time that my name was. There was potentially beyond that initial bout. I had no idea that it was going to be something that people would actually, I don't have a name necessarily. It's as big as some of these other jazz artists.
So I had no hope of getting really beyond that initial voting round. So I was in Boston hanging out at a coffee shop before I started teaching, and my drummer in my quartet, he texted me and he said, Sara, I'm so excited for you. It's amazing. I was like, what are you talking about? And he sent me a link to the list of Grammy nominees that had just been made public, and I saw my name on the list, and I let out a huge scream, and everyone was like, oh my God, what's wrong? I'm like, no, it's a good scream. Everything's fine. I ran in and told my friends and called up my parents and my boyfriend, and it was just over the moon. And yeah, I still have to pinch myself when I see that medal on the wall. It was just such a thrilling experience that I just to be nominated and to be there witnessing so much. I mean, there's so much amazing music that just put out every year when you are given a pat on the back by your peers and said, keep going. Keep doing what you're doing. It's a really beautiful, wonderful thing. And the Grammys are an opportunity to really celebrate all musicians doing amazing things, and it's a really wonderful time to celebrate what we as a musical community are doing.
Leah Roseman:
And that album, was it with Chuck Owen?
Sara Caswell:
Yes, that's right. Chuck Owen and the Jazz Surge.
Leah Roseman:
So you've done quite a bit of work with him over the years, or
Sara Caswell:
Yes. Well, he's put out, believe I've been on, let me see Whispers in the Wind. So I've done two albums with the Jazz Surge, and then I did another project with him as a guest artist. He did an album with the WDR Big band in Cologne. So he brought me out as a guest for two different tracks on that album. And then right now I'm part of a smaller group that's extracted from the jazz surge called Resurgence, and we put out an album, I believe it was last spring actually. It might have been this spring, I'm sorry, April or May of this year.
And so we are doing some performances. We did some touring in the spring. We're doing some more this fall. And yeah, I love working with Chuck. He's such a phenomenal composer and arranger, and he's also just a wonderful person. And everybody in that band is just, I think they're almost all Orlando, Tampa based jazz musicians, and they've been together, that band has been together for close to 25 years, and there's just beautiful chemistry and comraderie among them all. So I'm kind of the newbie in the group having been part of it for about seven years, but they've just been such, they've become very quick family, and I love making music with them all.
Leah Roseman:
That's nice to hear. Now with your own quartet, I listened to your beautiful album, I think 2023, I think it's called The Way to You.
Sara Caswell:
Yes.
Leah Roseman:
So do you want to use a clip from that album as well?
Sara Caswell:
That would be great. Yeah, absolutely.
Leah Roseman:
I love it all. I was thinking maybe South Shore.
Sara Caswell:
Sure, yeah. Yeah. South Shore was written for the Quartet by a wonderful trumpet player named Nadje Noordhuis, and she was one of the very first people that I met when I moved to New York in the fall of 2004, I had moved to the city from my hometown, Bloomington, Indiana, to pursue a master's degree in jazz performance in Manhattan School of Music. And she was already there. She was finishing up her the second year of her master's degree, and a mutual friend of ours introduced us, and we became very fast friends. And she's been a dear friend ever since. And she knows me very well. She also knows the members of my quartet very well, and she knew exactly how to really write and capture our personalities and our personalities individually, but then how we all gel together as a quartet. And she did a really beautiful job writing this piece for us.
Leah Roseman:
This is an excerpt from South Shore from Sara Caswell's album, The Way To You. That album is linked in the show notes along with her website.(music)
Now, you mentioned Bloomington. It is interesting. Like a lot of people, I did one of my degrees there, and it's a place people go to. But you, you and Joshua Bell and a few other musicians actually from Bloomington.
Sara Caswell:
Yes. I have to ask, when were you there?
Leah Roseman:
I think I'm about 10 years older than you, and I was a master's student in 19 90, 91.
Sara Caswell:
Did you have my father as a professor, by chance?
Leah Roseman:
I did not.
Sara Caswell:
He was in the Musicology department for 30 years from 96, or sorry, from 1966 until 1996. So yeah, I wasn't sure if your paths might've crossed, but
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. Well, your family is so interesting and your sister, do you want to speak to that environment growing up and your early jazz lessons?
Sara Caswell:
Oh, I could talk your ear off for hours, but I'll spare you. No, I feel so lucky to have been raised in Bloomington. As you know, it's such an incredible community. I mean, you wouldn't know. You wouldn't predict that just such a cultural, artistic hotbed is in the middle of Indiana. It's like the middle of cornfields and cow pastures. But here, there's this beautiful creative oasis. And my father, as I had mentioned before, my father was hired there in 1990s, 1966, to become part of the Musicology faculty. And right around the same time, David Baker, who just a fantastic jazz trombonist, originally from Indianapolis, had been hired to carry on the jazz program that Jerry Coker had started prior to David's arrival. And so my dad and David became very, very quick. They taught some classes together and were definitely, David was a member of our family from my birth. David was always present and a big influence for both me and my sister.
Well, and with Bloomington, the university being there and my dad being on faculty, my parents were taking us to concerts. I mean, as early as I can remember, we'd go to the opera, we go to Baroque music, the Baroque Orchestra concerts. We'd go to the festival orchestra concerts, we'd go to the musical productions, we'd go to the jazz band concerts. I mean, there was something happening every day, much like you would expect from a big city like New York, but this was happening in a small town in the middle of Indiana. And so to have that musical exposure at such a young age, I feel so lucky to have had that. I wasn't just getting that musical education through records. We were doing that at home, but I was also having the opportunity here, these artists as they that were coming through and to experience just what live performance is all about.
So when I was about five, my mom was encouraged by one of her students to enroll both me and my sister in the string, the string program there, the pre-College String program. And Mimi Zweig was the director, and she still is of that program. And that was the program where Josh Bell got his start and just a number of just super talented string players. So yeah, I started taking lessons through her program, and I fell in love with the instrument from the first few notes, and I was hooked, and there was no looking back. Violin was absolutely going to be the instrument that I played and just making music was the pursuit that I wanted to follow. But I owe that to the environment and my parents just to be in that space where I was really able to experience all that the university had to offer, and my parents, their willingness and their desire to expose us to all this incredible music and just to nurture that love of what being a musician and being a creative is all about.
Leah Roseman:
You did have some lessons with Josef Gingold towards the end of his life.
Sara Caswell:
Yes. Yeah, so I was with Mimi for about, I started with Rebecca Henry, who was the student of my mom's who'd encouraged us to apply for the program. So I was with Rebecca Henry for, I believe it was about a year and a half, two years. And then I moved on to Mimi Zweig. I was working some with Mimi in the group classes from the very beginning. But private lessons with Mimi started when I was around seven, and I was with her until around age 12. And then I moved on to Professor Gingold. And my goodness, I talk about my musical mentors, and he was absolutely right up there with David Baker, one of the most influential musicians in my life. Just the way that the passion that he had for music and pedagogy and his ability to teach in such insightful, creative ways. There's a reason that he's always ranked as one of the most influential classical violent performers and teachers. He just had such a gift for both. So I worked with him from age 12 until, I think it was 16 or 17 years old for about five years. He passed away in, I believe it was 1995.
Leah Roseman:
And was he supportive of the fact that you were doing jazz at the same time?
Sara Caswell:
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. That was wonderful because he had been part of the New York scene for years, and part of that as a freelance musician and working and making a living for oneself, he was doing Broadway shows and he was part of that community. So he really, I think there was a Cole Porter musical that he helped premiere. He was in the orchestra for a particular production. I can't remember the name of it off the top of my head. But yeah, every once in a while he would play a couple little tunes that he knew and remembered from his time doing more of that freelance work. And so he was absolutely encouraging me to do it just as a practice and as a pursuit in art. But he also knew David Baker really well, and he was a fan of David's work and as a jazz musician, as a jazz teacher. So I think there was mutual admiration, both in the broader sense of it, just like the idea of being a jazz musician. And they both had mutual respect for each other in their artistic practices, but then they also had respect for each other as individuals. And I think that sort of relationship that they had was something that certainly, it made me feel more confident about really settling into the idea of being a violinist who was potentially going to be multilingual in my musical pursuits.
Leah Roseman:
And just as being a violin teacher myself, I'm kind of curious as to what Mr. Gingold did with you as a teenager in terms of prioritizing what you should be working on, technical and choice of repertoire and
Sara Caswell:
Yeah, it was interesting. It was an early time in my life, obviously, and I'm not exactly a young kid anymore. So my mom went to all my lessons. And so one of the things I'm curious to do in coming years is to go back and look at those notes that she took during those lessons. I have certain memories of the way in which he approached teaching me, but there are going to be many things that I will need to read up on and be reminded about through her lesson notes. But what I remember is he very much like Mimi would oftentimes choose repertoire that it was maybe one or two rungs above what I was maybe able to do at the moment. But I think the intent and the goal behind that was to really enable me then to rise for it. And in those growing pains that I would really be able to pull my technique and pull my musicality up and up and up so that maybe if I went back to play that particular piece that was maybe a little bit hard for me to, too hard for me to perform when I would've come back to play it a year later, it would be there.
It'd be something that I would have the technical facility to perform to execute. But everything, he was such, he loved the music so much and was so connected to it.
The way he taught was very passion driven. He just really felt that connection between the heart and the hand, the idea that the beauty of the music is something that there needs to be that direct channel between what you're feeling through the music and how you have that translate in a physical manner through the gestures and the technical skills that you are learning about. So I think everything was very much coming from that musical core. And then a lot of the technical things just were tools to really realize the music in the way that the composers hopefully were intending. But the other thing I think about a lot with Mr. Gingold is that he was a teacher who believed in the idea of support and positivity. And he's not one who's just going to give you flattery no matter what. If you perform a piece badly, he wasn't necessarily going to be like, oh, that was great. He's being honest. But I remember watching a particular situation where there was a girl and it was in masterclass, and she'd been working so hard on, I think it was the Brams concerto, and she had been working so hard on it, but for whatever reason, maybe it was nerves, maybe she still was kind of feeling under, not really quite ready to perform it in front of her peers. It didn't maybe go as well as she'd wanted, but it certainly wasn't for a lack of trying. She had really been working it very hard. But you could see on her face after she'd finished performing that she just felt terrible. She felt, maybe it was embarrassment, I'm not sure, but you could see in her body language that she felt really bad. And I loved what Mr. Gingold said. He said, you performed that so much better than you think. And he used that as the platform for helping her feel more confident about what she was able to do. And you could see it as soon as he said that she'd been hanging her head prior to his comment. And as soon as he said what he did, she raised her head and had a sense of hope in her face. And that was the way he approached teaching. He wanted students to feel the excitement and the joy in making music. And I think giving them that sort of confidence enabled them to find that joy and motivation to practice and pursue the art. And he was never one. I never saw him lay into anybody and pull them down. That just wasn't his style.
Leah Roseman:
Beautiful.
Hi, just a quick break from the episode. You may also be interested in my episodes with many other jazz artists such as Kait Dunton, Ariel Bart, and J. Walter Hawkes and Jazz violinists like Meg Okura, Tracy Silverman, and Aaron Weinstein. 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 this 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, printed on demand. You'll also find the links to sign up for my newsletter where you'll get access to exclusive information about upcoming guests. Please check out my back catalog with weekly episodes going back to 2021. Now back to Sara Caswell.
With David Baker, so I mean, you're basically still a kid at that point, studying jazz. Were you playing with the university students like in ensembles? How did that work?
Sara Caswell:
No. So when I started taking lessons with David Baker when I was, I think eight or nine years old, so my sister and I both were studying with him privately. So we'd go over to his house and we'd get an hour lesson. I forgot how often they were, probably once every week or so. And my performing opportunities were coming through the middle and high school ensembles that I was part of. And also some of the jazz workshops that I would go to summer jazz workshops I would go to is there was the Jamey Abersold Workshop, which went on I think for 50 years. It was in a pretty incredible camp where David taught. So those camps combined with my middle school and high school jazz bands and combos, those were sort of the opportunities I would have to put into practice a lot of the skills, the language that I was learning from David.
And then of course, when I went to IU as a college student, I was doing a double degree in violin performance and jazz studies. And so then that was the opportunity to play with David's ensembles and to be more of a traditional big band as far as the numbers of instruments in each section. And the middle school jazz band I was part of was a little bit more of a large combo, so you had quite a mix of different instruments and the numbers on each instrument. When I was in high school, we had a really fantastic jazz band program run by Janis Stockhouse at Bloomington High School North. So that was a chance to really get more of that big band experience. And then David's Ensemble was really more of just another level, higher level of that, and really having a chance to collaborate with my peers in that sort of setting.
But yeah, same thing, doing combos in college. And then I was also doing the classical tracks. So I think during this academic year, I would do jazz band, and then during the summers I would do festival orchestra or the pit orchestra for the musical productions that would happen. So that was more of my large ensemble, classical experience. And then during the school, both the school year, academic year and the summers, I was doing smaller classical chamber ensembles and things like that as well. And I was still doing a lot of classical competitions up until, I mean, that started in high school and continued on until, I think the last classical competition I did was back in 2002, 2003. And those competitions were opportunities to be performing concertos and sonatas with the hopes of performing with great orchestras and getting access to really great instruments and things like that.
So it was a pretty active schedule, but I loved it all, and I think especially when you're younger as a kid, you don't necessarily see the barriers between different musical styles. Because I was doing the classical stuff with Mimi and Josef. I was doing jazz with David, and then I was also doing Baroque studies with Stanley Ritchie. So it was a busy time, but I wasn't stressed by that as a kid. I loved music so much, and I loved learning about these different styles of music so much that it all just blended into the activities that I loved, which was playing violin and collaborating with other musicians and my sister and my mom, just having that chance to play together. So it was really just a hundred percent joy and just something that I really felt, I really felt truly myself when I had the fiddle and still do. That's where I feel like I always kind of talk about music being my first language and English being my second. I just feel so much at home when I have an instrument in my hand and really have that opportunity to be myself.
Leah Roseman:
When you first moved to New York, were you still playing classical for work, for gigs, or
Sara Caswell:
Not as much gigging? I was, I guess the one musical gig I do that is that can fall under the classical umbrella is the New York Pops. I've been part of that ensemble since I moved to the city. I was friends with the founder and director Skitch Henderson. I was part of his small jazz group, and so when I told him I was moving to the city, he said, oh, I'll save you a spot in the orchestra. So that was really a really nice first gigging opportunity. But yeah, I guess the one classical thing I was still doing at the time was taking lessons. So when I got to Manhattan School of Music, you had the option of splitting lessons with an instructor between a couple of instructors. So I split my lessons between, oh, who was it the first semester? May have been John Blake, I think it was John Blake that first year, and Sylvia Rosenberg, who's just a fantastic classical violin teacher performer.
So I don't think that was typically the way it was done. Usually they would encourage you to split lessons between two instructors within the same department. So it took a little bit of work to split lessons between two instructors in different departments. But I was allowed to do that, and I really loved working with Sylvia. She was an incredible teacher, and I learned so much during my semester with her. But I think I already knew prior to moving to New York that I was really, especially that year before I moved, I really was realizing that as much as I loved all these different musical styles, where I really felt the most myself was when I was in a jazz situation.
So I kind of knew the more time was passing, I knew the more I knew that that was the world that I wanted to live in. But as you can hopefully hear on the Nine Horses album, I'm using all of these different skills that I've used from these different stylistic situations, the repertoire, the technical skills needed to execute these different concepts and different gestures. So the classical music is still so much a part of who I am and the way I approach music making. So it is part of me, whether I'm doing classical gigs or not, it's a fiber in my being. It is just part of my musical muscle, and it's just how I express music. All those skills come together to be part of my musical vocabulary.
Leah Roseman:
Another track from Strum that I really enjoyed was Jennie Pop Nettle-Eater.
Sara Caswell:
Yes.
Leah Roseman:
And what a title.
Sara Caswell:
Yeah, I'm looking back here to see where he even got the title from. I don't even know if he mentions it. I don't think so. Nope. Yeah know it's got a really wild sound, and you can hear it right from the very beginning. The baglama that he uses in there,
Leah Roseman:
This is a clip from Jennie Pop Nettle-Eater, from 9 Horses’ album Strum (music)
I am curious, have you tried mandolin, like being a friend of Joe's and stuff?
Sara Caswell:
Funny you should mention that. Yes. So I initially met Joe, I think it must've been back around 2005, 2006 in a gig we did together. And I knew him then as a violinist. We were stand partners on a particular, like an orchestra gig. It was only after that that I had learned he was this virtuoso mandolin player, and that was really his primary instrument. The violin was really sort of, I guess he had done it, had studied, he did a lot of study at violin. But really, I think for the last decade prior to my meeting, he'd really been focusing on the mandolin. So yeah, when I learned he was a virtuo mandolin player, this coincided with my needing to learn how to play mandolin with to be in a group that I was part of. So my instrument in that particular group is mostly going to be violin, but I'd owned a mandolin.
I'd bought one back in, I think 2001 or so. And when the band leader found out that I owned one, she was like, would you be willing to maybe add violent or the mandolin is part of your instrument in this group? And I was like, oh, yeah, I'm going to need some lessons. And so I reached out to Joe, I guess it was about maybe five years after I'd met him and said, Hey, can I potentially get some lessons from you? And took some lessons. They were awesome. He was a great teacher. But I think what we discovered through that time was that we also enjoyed making music with each other, with him on mandolin and neon violin. And so that was what that friendship and that association, it was what eventually got our duo to happening, and then eventually that expanding to a trio.
Leah Roseman:
Wonderful. Now, another collaboration that I'm sure people would be interested in hearing about is with esperanza spalding.
Sara Caswell:
Yes, esperanza. Yay. I love her. She's an amazing musician.
Leah Roseman:
So when you were on that Tiny Desk concert, was that when you first joined the Chamber Music Society?
Sara Caswell:
Yeah, I think that was our very first gig. So esperanza had recorded the album early, I think it was earlier that year with, so the instrumentation is, well, the Tiny Desk Concert was a smaller group of what was the actual Chamber Music Society. So on the album you hear String Trio, so it's violin, viola, and cello, piano, bass drums, and then a backup singer. So that's what you hear on the album itself. And that was the group that toured that instrumentation was what we toured for about three years. Now on the Tiny Desk concert, it's much smaller. So it was just string trio, esperanza and a guitar player.
I was not part of the recording. I think the only person who was actually the only two people who were part of the full tour who did the recording were the violist, Lois Martin and Leo Genevese, the piano player. And of course, esperanza Band leader, Terry Lynn Carrington was on the album. She did the first batch of concerts with us, and then Richie Chet took over for the rest of the tour. But yeah, so going back to the tiniest concert, that was our first real performance together. I was recommended to esperanza by a mutual friend because they were looking for, I think the original violinist in the recording, couldn't do the touring, and so reached, I was recommended to her and was brought on board to do the shows. So we got together at, I think it was Michiko Rehearsal Studios, which is a pretty well-known rehearsal space here in New York.
And it was me and esperanza and Lois and Jody. And we rehearsed the pieces that were going to be likely performed for the Tiny Desk concert. I think we must've met for maybe two or three hours, and then got on a train down to DC and went to the NPR studios and did our first performance together. I was such a nervous wreck. It was esperanza, it was NPR. I grew up an NPR kid. So it was a very nerve-wracking situation. But the beautiful thing about esperanza is that she puts her heart and soul into every performance she does. And that was my first time really experiencing that. And you can't help but put on your A game when you're around her. She's just so inspiring. And so I think all of us, we really bonded having that experience together and the subsequent tours and concerts that we all did as the full band, those were some of the most powerful two years. Just the memories and the friendships and the experiences that we all shared, the music, I mean, every performance, we just gave it our all because she did, and we follow her lead, and the music was so inspiring. It was just a really magical ride. And those people in that band are still my dearest friends. And I look back on that time very fondly.
Leah Roseman:
I've noticed with your career that you, I think it's a choice that, I mean, you could have been more like being a band leader and always fronting your own band, but you really enjoy different kinds of collaborations.
Sara Caswell:
Absolutely. Yeah. I certainly, I love having a chance to share the music that I am hearing and feeling and developing. But I also have realized through these last 25 years of work that I learned so much about myself through other people. And I suppose we all could say that the friendships that we have, the relationships we have with people, we learn so much about, so much more about ourselves through those experiences. And so having the opportunity to artistically see the world through other people's eyes has just helped me grow so much and has certainly helped me develop my voice as a contributing performer, but then also with my own material. So I think I'm so grateful for the chance to learn and experience music in so many different capacities, and to also get those friendships that come from that too. We are certainly not solitary creatures and the idea of really being able to, the relationships that I've developed with all these different people over the years, they're my musical family. And if I were only committed to my own music and writing my own material all the time, all those relationships, I dunno, it wouldn't necessarily be less, but it would be very different. And I just value what I have right now so much that I wouldn't anything as far as how it's, it's kind unfurled.
Leah Roseman:
So in terms of balancing your professional life with performing and writing and teaching, do you sort of try to carve out certain times in your schedule or you just let things go?
Sara Caswell:
Well, I'll say it's difficult for me to say no when really great opportunities come up. But I do realize, obviously that for my own health and for my both physical and mental and also just to be, I dunno, just a grounded person and a good person in my relationships with other people and my family and my partner, that I also need that time on my own to just decompress. And I need that time with them, dedicated time with them to really just to value their company and their companionship. So I'm getting better about carving out that personal time so that I can just be myself and take a breath. But yeah, that comes in many forms. I am baker. I love baking things. That's a big thing I've been doing since Covid. I'm a big cross Stitcher, so being from the Midwest, I do a lot of cross stitching and knitting and handicrafts like that.
I am a big outdoors person having grown up in the woods of Indiana. So I love getting out there and hiking and biking and running, just having that physical experience of nature. And yeah, I find ways of taking a breath whenever I'm on tour. One of the things I love to do is if we had the luxury of actually being in a city for a couple of days, that was actually one of the wonderful things about touring with Esperan is the way that they structured the tours. We almost always had some time to explore the cities that we were in, and I took full advantage of that. Got up early, would go on walking tours. I wouldn't necessarily have an agenda. I would just go walk and just really soak up the experience of being in those new places. And so I find ways, even when schedules are busy, to take a breath and decompress and have those experiences influence what I'm going to potentially do as a musician.
Leah Roseman:
Wonderful. Well, thanks so much for the, Sarahs just such a pleasure to meet you and have this conversation.
Sara Caswell:
Oh, thanks so much for having me. It's great talking with you.
Leah Roseman:
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