Greg Curtis Trumpet Interview

Welcome to the show notes for Episode #140 of The Other Side of the Bell – A Trumpet Podcast. This episode features trumpeter Greg Curtis. Listen to or download the episode below:

About Greg Curtis

Greg Curtis episode links

Website: gregcurtis.net

Greg Curtis on Facebook

Email: gregtpt at gmail.com

Find Paul Litteral’s album, The Litteral Truth, Outrageous 8 Records. Engineered, mixed and produced by Greg Curtis

Paul Litteral episode on The Other Side of the Bell, Episode 92

Podcast Credits

• “A Room with a View“ – composed and performed by Howie Shear
• Audio Engineer – Ted Cragg
• Cover Photo Credit – Greg Curtis
• Podcast Host – John Snell

Transcript

Please note, this transcript is automatically generated. It may contain spelling and other errors. If you would like to assist us in editing or translating this transcript, please let us know at info@bobreeves.com.

[00:00:00]

JOHN SNELL: Hello, and welcome to The Other Side of the Bell, a podcast dedicated to everything trumpet brought to you by Bob Reeves Brass. We’ll help you take your trumpet playing To the next level, I’m John Snell, trumpet specialist here at Bob Reeves Brass, and I’ll be your host for this episode. Joining me today is trumpeter and recording engineer Greg Curtis.

We’ll get to Greg’s interview here in a moment after a word from our sponsor and some trumpet news. [00:01:00]

– promo –

Well, first I wanna start off by thanking all of you who listened to the last episode, uh, featuring me very, uh, still a very, uh, unusual feeling [00:02:00] to be on the other. Other side of the bell. but, it truly means a lot. The number of emails and YouTube comments and phone calls and texts that I got. really I’m, I’m humbled and it means the world to me that, uh, you got so much out of my interview.

it’s funny, the. Other than, Hey John, it’s nice to finally know a little bit about you. You’re an enigma that I’ve listened to for hours and hours. Other than that comment, the other comment I got was that I forgot to talk about, uh, equipment and like what I use and that sort of thing. so I’m not gonna bore you with the details now because I know a lot of you are here to listen to Greg’s interview and, which is a fabulous interview by the way.

a lot of great, stories from Greg. but I will at the, end, during my outro, after I. Graciously thank our guest. I’ll do a little bit, little segment where I talk about the equipment I play, for those of you who are curious. some trumpet news coming up. Uh, wow. School is in full swing.

my freshman son is in marching band, so, uh, kudos to all you high school and college trumpet players out there playing in all sorts of weather at [00:03:00] football games here in the us. and the parents that drive them to rehearsals and competitions and football games. A lot of you’re back to school either teaching or in school.

if you need anything, we are your place for that. I have a ton of guard bags in stock for trumpet trombone. We even have some euphonium bags. we actually have a few saxophone cases, so if there’s any saxophone players that listen to this, uh, we have a few saxophone guard bags.

Kind of hard to come by. lots of trumpets have come in. I have a great selection of Shires trumpets. I have lots of Charlie Davis trumpets in the shop right now. A couple Van Lar Sea trumpets, and uh, of course tons of mouthpieces. we’ve had a lot of folks come in. for valve alignments and mouthpieces in the last month or so, were up to our neck, up to our ears and mouthpieces.

but if, by all means, if you’re interested in finding, your first lead mouthpiece or that, uh, orchestral mouthpiece, or a fugal horn mouthpiece, whatever you might need now that, uh, school year started, Feel free to give us a call or send us an email. We’ll be glad to help [00:04:00] you out. couple shout outs.

Greg, who’s been listening, uh, he reached out to us a few months ago, for some work, and he said he just found out about the podcast and he is, he started from episode one. If you can believe that. And he’s working his way through. And I just talked to him the other day and he’s up to the pandemic years, which should be some interesting podcasts.

cause those were some interesting times, but he’s made it through, uh, well over a hundred podcasts in the last, few months. So shout out to you, Greg. Uh, when you get caught up, you will hear, uh, the shout out to you. and a lot of you of course, have reached out with, uh. Podcast guest suggestions, keep those coming.

info@bobreeves.com. You can send that along, for who you want to hear on upcoming episodes, last few, uh, episodes, we’re featuring folks like myself who do something a little bit outside of the ordinary. we’re also trumpet players and have professional careers at some form or another, but have done other things.

And so it just kind of happened. Uh, you know, I, uh. [00:05:00] Make mouthpieces, but also play today’s guest. Greg Curtis is a recording engineer and owned, uh, the Bridge Recording Studio here in LA and also plays our next guest. Uh, Tim Larkin is a, uh, video game composer and sound engineer and who just released an album.

So, we’ll kind of keep that theme going for a few episodes until we move on. I think that’s all the news I have. Oh, quick, uh, quick thing, on your calendars. Uh, veterans Day weekend, we are finalizing our plans to go out to North Carolina, for our annual visit with Greg Black mouthpieces in, uh, Mount Holly.

Outside of Charlotte, uh, North Carolina. that’ll be probably the Friday and Saturday before Veterans Day. I believe that’s the eighth, seventh and eighth. Or eighth and 9th of November. And then we’ll be at the North Carolina Music Educators Association Conference on that Sunday. And Monday, I believe it’s the ninth and 10th, and that’s up in Winston-Salem at the Convention Center.

So a lot of you visited last year. Around that [00:06:00] time. And so we’ll be heading back that way. also finalizing our plans with virtuosity in Boston. that should be during the fall sometime, and I know I keep plugging, getting out to Dylan Music in, New York, and I swear one of these times we’re gonna do it if they weren’t just so darn busy.

And, same here. but that is gonna happen and as soon as it happens and it’s confirmed, I will make the announcement. Okay, that’s all I have today. Let’s get right to my special guest today, Greg Curtis.

​

JOHN SNELL: Well, I’m so honored to have joining me today. Today’s guest, Greg Curtis trumpeter, recording, engineer and founder of the Bridge recording in Los Angeles, where projects from the Simpsons to Marvel films were recorded. A versatile performer in orchestras, jazz, and Latin ensembles, and. Greg has also produced and mixed Paul Lit’s latest album, the Literal Truth, continuing his Unique Career at the intersection of Performance and Production.

And I should also mention that Greg played in the Northridge Brass Quintet with me [00:07:00] many, many years ago. So Besides being a dear friend of mine, Greg is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to both trumpet playing and on the other side of the window in the engineer’s booth at a recording studio and look forward to our conversation. So without further ado, here’s my interview with Greg Curtis.​

Oh, I’m so excited to have joining me on the other side of the bell today. Greg Curtis. Greg, you’re looking wonderful.

GREG CURTIS: wow. Thank you. You too, John.

JOHN SNELL: how’s things? We used to play together all the time and we haven’t seen each other.

GREG CURTIS: been we’ve known each other for over 20 years. We played in a quintet low those many years ago.

JOHN SNELL: And rock ink and all kinds of fun stuff. So, well, you have a lot of black, you have a lot of blackmail on me, so I’ll take it easy

GREG CURTIS: I do. So be careful, man.

JOHN SNELL: You know how sharp I actually play.

GREG CURTIS: No, it’s

JOHN SNELL: so with that, just to remember the trumpet Harold guys, he plays sharp.

GREG CURTIS: Don’t wanna [00:08:00] get into that. I have no idea what that is all about. Is that the thing?

JOHN SNELL: that’s a thing. That’s a thing. Well, let’s

GREG CURTIS: job of the lead trumpet player to fail just a little sharp so you

JOHN SNELL: it’s energy, it’s excitement.

GREG CURTIS: up. It is, yes. That we can talk about that later. That is actually a thing.

JOHN SNELL: We’ll get into that. And I, I know how this interview’s gonna go already. It’s gonna be a lot of fun. But let’s talk about you and let’s talk about how you started playing trumpet. how did it find you?

GREG CURTIS: Oshkosh, 1970 something. Fifth grade. And thanks to my mom,

Strong advocate for music and music education and getting us, us kids, my two sisters and I into music. So fifth grade. Um, well, I went to the petting zoo, end of fourth grade. Pick out a, you know, hear the band play and. Pick out an instrument.

And I liked the trumpet. It was loud and bright and high notes and sounded cool. So fifth grade I got the school horn and the mouthpiece took it home. I couldn’t play a note, but eventually I did. Then I came [00:09:00] back and got private lessons and did pretty well. So by the end of grade school I was playing at my local church and they were paying me money so I could say I was a professional musician since the late seventies, but five bucks or 20, I don’t know what it was, but I was playing like every Sunday at church.

And then high school had a great band director, Leroy Walter in Oshkosh, north High. Um, I was there with some great friends. Michael Durkey played saxophone, a great band. We actually cut records in high school at a professional studio. Yeah, no, and we played professional events. We would play like businessman’s lunches at the Holiday Inn big band. And he had a concert band and all that stuff too. Played at the Special Olympics, which hit Oshkosh for some reason, the mid eighties. So yeah, a great band director, great mom paying for lessons.

JOHN SNELL: so, did you have any other musicians in your family? I know that all your brothers and sisters played instruments, but

GREG CURTIS: they kind of dropped out and we all took piano [00:10:00] lessons too. I stuck with the horn and was good enough that I was playing in like honors the local, the regional honors bands, going to summer music camps in high school. Bobby Shoe was a thing in the Midwest. He’d come out every summer for summer music camps and also played concerts at the local college and stuff.

So I was, you know, lessons and stuff with Bobby Shu. Um, he was at the Green Bay Summer music camp in the like 86 or 87 when I was a junior senior. That was a two week camp. And I took lessons with a guy named Al Butcher at UW Oshkosh, his son, I believe it might still be a pro player in Nashville Trumpet.

Great teacher. He got me started with the Arban book and all, and the Chitz studies and all that. And he prepared me to audition for college.

JOHN SNELL: Really? So you were, I mean, with the plane experience you had

GREG CURTIS: Yeah, I was ready.

JOHN SNELL: enjoyed the horn. You were raring to go.

GREG CURTIS: I took lessons with Chitz at Northwestern before college. I auditioned for [00:11:00] him. I auditioned at UW Madison and that’s where I got in with a little scholarship there. And I studied with John Ailey for three years. And then I transferred to UW Milwaukee. I studied with Wayne Cook and then Dennis Na,

JOHN SNELL: Wow. Well, so quite, quite the uh, yeah, quite the list of teachers. Um, I, I want to jump back a little bit. Talk about your, hearing Bobby Shu and then getting lessons with him. What was that like?

GREG CURTIS: He had, he was coming out with a shoehorn, which had the two bells, right? I think one was a trumpet and one a ugal or two trumpets, one with a mute.

He, these were, these were lessons that were short ’cause there were, uh, 300 kids at a camp. So it’s 15 minutes, half an hour. It wasn’t like a protege situation, but he taught me the ease of playing, the fun, of playing the guy’s.

A lot of fun if, if you know him. And just general outlook on the instrument and, uh, a musical lifestyle of just giving into the music. Technique. He was cool that he didn’t bother ’cause he knew it was a short lesson. He [00:12:00] just gave people inspiration and, and tips. Like, here’s an alternate fingering for that high a, you know, stuff like that.

Or he would tell you a story about, Sinatra or something which was cool. But then in high school that, that’s a big thing and that stuck with me. And, uh, and just the way he led, um, uh, ensemble readings and concerts and stuff like that was hugely inspirational. And I ended up meeting Bobby later at the North Texas too.

JOHN SNELL: When you were down there. Yeah. Amazing. It’s, yeah, you can’t discount what those kinds of experiences

GREG CURTIS: especially to a kid.

JOHN SNELL: At a young age, get your kids to a summer camp or if someone’s playing in town or, or if you run a university, run those kinds of summer programs

GREG CURTIS: mom would drag me to every concert she could. And that was huge for me.

JOHN SNELL: Did you have any direction at a young age, say like in high school, about which way you wanted to go in music?

GREG CURTIS: not really.

JOHN SNELL: orchestral, just you liked playing?

GREG CURTIS: I like listening to Maynard Ferguson and playing along.

I [00:13:00] had a radio and a record player. I would get, go to the library and, and get records and just play along with Maynard or um, Bobby Shoe stuff, whatever I could get, you know. Um, doc Severson was another one, so I was more into like high energy.

I was a kid, high energy stuff. My dad listened to opera and or orchestral stuff, so I was always listening. I had that on in the house all the time, so I knew about that. And being a talented young player, there’s always the bands and, and orchestras, youth orchestras and stuff that I played in. I didn’t really get into the heavy orchestral stuff till college.

JOHN SNELL: Yeah. So that was, so, yeah. When you went off to college, what was your progress like, uh, did teachers get you from A to B and

GREG CURTIS: Yeah, so I start

JOHN SNELL: struggles or

GREG CURTIS: yeah I struggled at Madison with John and John Ailey. We just didn’t mix. It was like oil and water, just some, some disconnect. Just the way he taught and the way I learned and functioned. I don’t know how to describe it. Maybe I was more of a, a natural player and he was trying to get me into a certain [00:14:00] mode.

He was heavy into Monets at that time. I don’t know. I don’t wanna disparage anyone. I just didn’t have a good time and I felt like I was falling, kind of like, what am I doing here? So, that’s one of the reasons I, I transferred to Milwaukee. I wanted to play more too, in, in town and Addison’s a small town.

So Milwaukee gave me an opportunity to play in lots of orchestras. I

And it gave me teachers that I connected with really well. I connected great with Wayne Cook, who’s kind of an old school Bud, Seth kind of guy. Very by the book, but just this eent joyful guy and great advice and just took me to the basics.

But he was smart enough. He didn’t try to break things down or change anything. He is like, you’re a good player. We’re not gonna wreck you. Maybe we’ll give you a darker sound for orchestral. So here’s a one and a half C, got rid of the seven C. So that, that was, that helped a lot.

JOHN SNELL: That’ll do it. That’ll do it. You know, it’s a, it brings a big point that, uh, especially folks going to college where they’re gonna spend 2, 3, 4, or like me, seven and a half [00:15:00] years um, you know, it, just because a player is great doesn’t mean they’re a great teacher. Just because they’re a great teacher doesn’t mean they’re gonna connect with

GREG CURTIS: may be a great teacher. It’s just the kind. It’s just the equation. He is A, and you’re B, and then the equal sign is less than A or B,

JOHN SNELL: Yeah. And,

GREG CURTIS: didn’t work out.

JOHN SNELL: so are you glad you transferred

GREG CURTIS: Oh yeah, a hundred percent. And as best, great move. Yeah, and it was on my initiative too. I just was falling out, so it taught me something too.

If things aren’t working out, move on.

JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Yeah. Really. And we have a similar path in, in that regard. ’cause I was at Cal State Long Beach for three years. And I mean, for me, the, the change had nothing to do with my trumpet teacher. ’cause I had Charlie Davis and loved him to love him to death. He’s like a second father to me. but, uh, no, I needed to, I need a change of scenery, for a zillion other reasons.

And uh, yeah, it was, I found my wife that way. So there we go.

GREG CURTIS: Yeah, dude, we have very similar

JOHN SNELL: And we and I think we, we probably wouldn’t have met because when I was at Northridge, [00:16:00] that’s when I got into the circle of friends that then you were involved with. So, everything happens for a reason. But yes, change is a good thing sometimes.

GREG CURTIS: path, path leads certain ways, but I had a great time in Milwaukee. Milwaukee, civic Symphony, Racine Symphony, and the Kenosha Symphony. They’re all a FM and I was second trumpet in all of them.

JOHN SNELL: So you were getting professional experience still finishing up your undergrad and

GREG CURTIS: yes. taking lessons, playing a lot. So I was in those three orchestras all at once and, um, a we called a salsa band, a Latin band, more merengue style with my buddy Greg Garcia on trumpet playing high notes.

I was in a disco band every Wednesday night at the Bradford Beach Club playing three sets of memorized disco songs and end to end. Yeah, that, that helped a lot with my range. I got a pretty, I was playing high notes a lot. I was also playing in the, um, green Bay, opera. As well. So I would, I was, I remember driving down [00:17:00] from Green Bay ’cause I’d stay in a hotel and then driving into a driving rainstorm to my gig at, at b at the BBC on Wednesday nights.

And of course that night I made 20 bucks ’cause it was whatever the door. But the next week we, it was a nine piece spam. We made, I made 300 bucks. I, we had good crowds.

JOHN SNELL: Amazing. Yeah, so I, chop wise then, how would, did you find it difficult to switch gears from playing disco to opera? No.

GREG CURTIS: I loved it. I loved doing that. I love going from an opera pit to, uh, stage wearing polyester and a Afro wig. It was ridiculous. And it was awesome. Absolutely loved it.

JOHN SNELL: Are there pictures?

GREG CURTIS: There are, but you’ll never see them. Oh, there’s even a video on VHS

JOHN SNELL: Come on.

GREG CURTIS: Oh, my son found it.

JOHN SNELL: Oh my gosh.

GREG CURTIS: uh, Daniel found it and he watched it and I think we’re gonna have to burn.

We’re gonna have to digitize it. I put it on Trumpet Herald

JOHN SNELL: Yes. I love it. I love it. I love it. I mean, equipment wise, were you, go, were you, [00:18:00] you, were you using the one and a half C for everything

GREG CURTIS: No, Bach Strad. And Okay. for the legit Bach one and a half C, the open backboard commercial stuff. I was switching to everything. Silky 13 a four a, a, a, was it Bob Black? Some Greg Black. Yeah. A Bob Reeves.

I found a Bob Reeves 43 s and I’ve, I still have it. That’s my favorite.

Probably does Desert Island mouthpiece. You could do that.

JOHN SNELL: Love

GREG CURTIS: Love it. And, uh, yeah, that was playing on that and some other wacky stuff. I would, I had a jet tone, like an MF model, jet tone. It was just ridiculous. I would just try stuff out, you it’s, I’m a trumpet player. We have a drawer of like a hundred mouthpieces, right?

Like Lou Zoloft on stage. Well,

JOHN SNELL: He’d have a hundred on his stand, let

GREG CURTIS: I remember ITG Yeah, him switching between phrases.

JOHN SNELL: He wanted to give Doc Severson a run for his money.

GREG CURTIS: Ah, no, I never saw Doc Clive, unfortunately. Even though he was like [00:19:00] the the pops orchestra director

JOHN SNELL: I was gonna say, yeah, he was up in Milwaukee.

GREG CURTIS: It was, I was always gigging, I dunno,

JOHN SNELL: Well, I mean, I guess that is a good problem to have.

GREG CURTIS: Yeah, and it was, yeah, towards the end.

JOHN SNELL: so what, I mean, what was your practice like? I mean, you’re playing so much, you’re getting your undergrad, I mean, were you just playing trumpet all day

GREG CURTIS: all day, eight hours a day. So practice was the top of the pyramid. I was doing the plan, and then if I had time I’d practice. I didn’t, you know, that’s one thing I kind of regret. I didn’t really practice. I didn’t nail, I wasn’t a Alan Vadi going crazy. I was just a meat and potatoes, good trumpet player.

I did solos and stuff hide in the Hummel piccolo. I really go to piccolo trumpet if I had my brick. So I could do that. But I was not gonna play Carnival of Venice for anybody. I I could if I sat and practiced, but that wasn’t my mode. My mode was to jam, was to play with people. I really like communicating music in the moment.

Playing practicing was drudgery to me. Still is.

JOHN SNELL: I’m, yeah, I [00:20:00] understand. And I think a lot of us do I go back to what Bobby Chu said about, finding joy and what you do and,

GREG CURTIS: Yeah, if you find your joy playing I suggest doing it. If you find your joy in practicing good, but make sure people hear you too.

JOHN SNELL: exactly. Exactly.

GREG CURTIS: one more thing. I also was subbing in the Glen Miller band that played in that too. And so when it

came, when it came to town, they, they needed subs, uh, ’cause they were North Texas guys and Alaska guys and Eau Claire guys in the band. So they would have to do finals. And so they would call me and Greg Garcia and we would do, we would jump into the band.

And that was wild because it’s the original sheet music. You have to go to a bus that’s filled with clothes and try on clothes, get their clothes, and you had to use their mutes. And the music is handwritten with all sorts. Stand up, wave left, wave right. Say shout this. And it’s at, I’m tall, so it’s at my ankles and I’m standing trying to do these choreographed moves I’ve never done in my life.

So it was pretty wild.

JOHN SNELL: How often did you

GREG CURTIS: Just a few times. No, I was up in Green Bay generally.

JOHN SNELL: when [00:21:00] they’d come into

GREG CURTIS: Yeah, they play in this big hall up in Green Bay and it was a big venue of thousands of people. So it was pretty wild. That was my first like, whoa. Big band. And also played a a, a stage summer fest as huge stages too.

Played on those for

JOHN SNELL: What

GREG CURTIS: Yeah, it was fun. It was like, holy cow, I can have fun playing.

JOHN SNELL: I also, before, before we move on, I also want you, you mentioned you studied with Dennis Naje as

GREG CURTIS: Yeah. Oh yeah. Great guy. Great friend. Oh, wonderful. He bridged the gap between the tech technical aspect and the joy of playing and just the naturalness. He is a natural player. He’s the kind of player, I don’t think I’ve ever heard him miss or chip a note ever. In four years of studying with him. Um, and we worked on my horn.

I’ve got the Dennis Zu, uh, ultra lightweight lead pipe to help it speak a little better. Little subtle things, kind of like Charlie Davis, kind of in a way, just tinkering. Um, but he really had a good, a good knack for figuring out the physics of the horn and, and matching it to a player. So we did a lot of work with mouthpieces [00:22:00] and the horn and the lead pipe and just trying different things, moving the, the spit valve around, just really tweaky stuff, which is kind of fun.

’cause I’m a, I’m a hands-on mechanical kind of guy, so that, that appealed to me. Plus he was just a natural player, so that appealed to me too. Yeah, he was really cool. I really enjoyed that. That was at the end of Milwaukee.

JOHN SNELL: End of Milwaukee. So you ended up graduating from there. And then

GREG CURTIS: Audition, audition. Flew around, audition everywhere I could.

JOHN SNELL: so you wanted to go on to a graduate

GREG CURTIS: I was hoping to go out to the east coast. Yeah. Boston Berkeley, all those Rochester, New York, Manhattan School of Music. but then the last thing, uh, place I as a kind of like, okay, I might as well, I’ve took a flight down to North Texas and auditioned for Keith Johnson in Candelaria. And a couple a month later I got a letter from them saying, Hey, you got a full scholarship for grad school?

So I was like, okay, I’m taking that.

JOHN SNELL: Can turn that

GREG CURTIS: Yeah, that was really cool.[00:23:00]

JOHN SNELL: Wow. So you end up down in Texas at uh, UNT with, uh, Canaria.

GREG CURTIS: I chose Con Candelaria, it was him or Johnson. And, jay Saunders was there too, but I didn’t really know about him, so, I ended up with Candelaria. ’cause here was another fork in the road. I wanted. Dennis and Wayne were so nice and so, so giving, I wanted kind of as a more of a drill sergeant and Candelaria had a, a reputation as a drill sergeant, so I was like, okay, I’m gonna really button down, get my ass kicked.

So I took Canaria and it worked out okay. It worked out.

JOHN SNELL: Mm-hmm.

GREG CURTIS: I don’t know what would’ve happened if I with Keith either or, but in hindsight, maybe Jay would’ve been more fun. I don’t know. I don’t know. But I ended up playing as a, I was a orchestral, I was a legit music major with a musicology minor.

Which, that opened up a whole new chapter of my life too, instead of a jazz secondary.

Canaria convinced me to do musicology. Maybe they needed students. I don’t know. Maybe he thought I [00:24:00] couldn’t play, I couldn’t hack it because he didn’t, you know, just know me for my audition and just private lessons, so, yeah, coming outta the blue. So yeah, I’m doing that. And I met a lot of great people in Dr.

Michael Cooper is, is a friend of mine from the musicology department, and I’m involved, we were involved with the project now, in fact. So, um, it’s another branch in life that, never where it goes. But anyway, I, I was playing in, um, the Wind symphony and the bands and all that stuff, taking lessons, playing in chamber groups.

Denton, Texas is an isolated town. There’s not much going on. Eventually I got smart and I was practicing and I saw a sign up, a jazz band auditions. I was like, oh, cool, I’ll give it a shot. And, and then I ended up playing split Lead in the two with Pete Dsna. So that was cool. Yeah.

JOHN SNELL: Wow. So the orchestral guy played split lead in in the two o’clock.

GREG CURTIS: could, I was like, what you doing here, man?

JOHN SNELL: Yeah, all the jazz guys, like, where did this guy come from? Who’s this? Oh, that’s awesome.

GREG CURTIS: was cool. So it was [00:25:00] like third trumpet and then, uh, doing meat and potato lead stuff while, Pete rested his chops for his double C craziness. Uh, it was just cool to be with Jim Riggs in the, in the Kenton Hall and rehearsing every day and then subbing in the one o’clock when they needed it and stuff like that.

The one of the two were cool. They were kind of their own entity. Like we had the sax section from the one o’clock the previous year or the semester, and they came into the two, and then vice versa, they just swapped around. The two was the standards band, and then the one o’clock is the new music band. So

in that band, you’d have the 12 pages spread out.

In the two o’clock you had the three pages. Whoops. Have, uh, swing band stuff, and we’d do tours. We’d just sight read, concerts and stuff. It was cool. It was a

JOHN SNELL: Yes. Yes. And I mean, every, there’s always incredible players coming out of there. I mean, PTCN, like you mentioned like, uh, anyone else in the inspiring

GREG CURTIS: there was, there’s that famous little house on IU Street by the [00:26:00] cemetery in Denton. That’s where all the trumpet players lived. So Adelfa, Costco’s living there. Scott Englebright was living there and a bunch of other guys. So I’d come over there and drink beers at night and just play high notes and watch crazy movies.

And that’s, you know, Bobby, that’s where Bobby Shu would end up after gigs and stuff. He’d up there, we’d bring, bring a six pack in and we’d just shoot the shit. It was cool. Yeah.

JOHN SNELL: Were any of the uh, tasty Brothers tracks recorded during that time?

GREG CURTIS: they were pretty much done with that stuff. They were doing it, um, and finishing it off. ’cause I think Donnie Diaz was moving on to something else or outta the school. Scott was done with the university. I think he was, Adelfa had just finished with Maynard. Scott had been previous to Donnie, but Scott was just hanging out and doing crazy stuff.

He wasn’t doing much except hanging out,

JOHN SNELL: Hanging out and playing high notes.

GREG CURTIS: on high notes and having

JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Yeah. I’m proud to say that I bought the complete set

of Tasty Brothers CDs in the mid [00:27:00] nineties.

GREG CURTIS: Tasty brother story, so I’d go to a lesson with Canaria and he is like, look, listen to what this kid Audi submitted for his audition. And it was the Tasty Brothers humel. They were submitting it to the professors as audition tapes.

JOHN SNELL: I mean, I could totally see that.

GREG CURTIS: Canaria for, to his credit, Canaria loved it. He thought it was amazing.

JOHN SNELL: I mean, it’s it for what it is, it’s one, it’s hysterical. I mean, and two, like the, the chops that they have to do that kind of stuff, as tasteless as it is

GREG CURTIS: Tasteless is possible. They would go to, uh, classrooms at night, late at night, bring a six pack and just record these on the cheapest equipment possible. Yeah. It was just nasty. It was awesome. It was tasty.

JOHN SNELL: Yeah. My, that’s it with two E’s. My, my favorite track of all of ’em is the the cat food, the meow mix

GREG CURTIS: Oh, I don’t know that one off the

JOHN SNELL: Oh, I’ll have to dig that one up. Meow, yum. Meow. Yum yum. Meow, yum. That’s the commercial again. It’s cats wander around and then they just play that up three and a half

GREG CURTIS: Yeah. Play that. Put that as the outro music to this episode.

JOHN SNELL: yeah, that’ll be the new [00:28:00] outro of music. Yeah. So I mean, I, mean, that must have cost a, I think a hundred bucks back in the nineties for burned CDs.

GREG CURTIS: Yes. Scott was counting his money from all the sales and creating new t-shirts and hats and stuff. I think that’s what he was doing

JOHN SNELL: Brilliant. I mean, he was an

GREG CURTIS: way before his time. And in the

JOHN SNELL: way before his time.

GREG CURTIS: he was, they were viral before viral was a

JOHN SNELL: yeah, And you got to hang out with him and learn from them, and, yeah.

GREG CURTIS: Yeah. Just barbecue and drink beer and talk music.

Listen to music all the time. I always be listening. Young trumpet players.

JOHN SNELL: yeah, but to have those kinds of, I mean, I mean, Pete Desna, I mean Adolfo,

GREG CURTIS: Adolfo is so

JOHN SNELL: and Scott.

GREG CURTIS: The most chill dude ever. So chill. You’d never know how he plays. Just hanging out with him. He’s just a freaking nature. Great guy.

JOHN SNELL: I need to get him on here. Speaking of

GREG CURTIS: That’s another one. Yeah.

JOHN SNELL: I have a good Adolfo story. I’ll get to that when we get to Rock Inc.

GREG CURTIS: Okay, cool.

JOHN SNELL: So, so you’re working around Texas, right?

GREG CURTIS: Really working much. Not really. It was two, it was two years there. Grad school, 98 to 2000. [00:29:00] Um, so just doing the school thing and, uh, newly married with my wife Emily, living in a rented little, it looks, you know, you ever seen, um, king of the Hill, right? It’s that house basically. And that town that is the town and the house, that’s where we lived.

So we’d just have little trumpet player parties and she was getting a, a degree in, uh, American history and I was getting my master’s in music performance. And it was two years and went by pretty quick, But not a lot of gigging. Not a lot of gigging,

JOHN SNELL: What did you do when you got out?

GREG CURTIS: What do you do? Yeah.

JOHN SNELL: for work?

GREG CURTIS: Yeah, so we’re sitting there, Emily and I like, what are we gonna do? Go back, go to Chicago, we want to go to big music city, right? Chicago. Nah been Midwest New York. I kind, my, my idea again, I wanted to go to the East Coast and go to New York. It’s like, okay, New York. Yeah that’s probably number one.

But what about la That’s a music town, right? So let’s check it out. So we flew, uh, to LA and stayed in Santa Monica in a hotel and we’re like, [00:30:00] holy cow, this town is really awesome. It’s not like what they tell you in the Midwest. then we went back a couple more times. This is towards the end of of college.

And uh, it’s like, okay, I think we’re gonna go to LA ’cause it’s really cool. And I’m a car guy, so I was like, my God, LA I love it. Connect New

JOHN SNELL: Car culture.

GREG CURTIS: Yeah,

JOHN SNELL: Car culture out here.

GREG CURTIS: culture man. And you better get into it ’cause you’ll be driving a lot.

JOHN SNELL: Yeah, that too. Yeah. Yeah.

GREG CURTIS: yeah, we moved to LA in 2000 fall of 2000 after grad school. Didn’t know anyone.

Save one guy from I knew from Milwaukee, Sean Hickey, who moved out here. He ended, he quit school before he graduated. He moved out here to LA and started working at Universal, studios as a music prep.

So he was the only guy I knew. I didn’t call him till a few months after I’d been here and I was like, I don’t know what I’m doing out here.

JOHN SNELL: A town of 12 million people and you know, one person. But at least he’s in music, so. Well then what did you do? How did you start getting on the

GREG CURTIS: How do you find a gig in 2000? There were the interwebs back then. [00:31:00] So I logged on my old Mac computer in the basement. I

JOHN SNELL: Is that it behind you, by the way? I was looking at that.

GREG CURTIS: that is an emac and there’s a whole nother story that is actually a, a gift from my friend Sean Hickey. He found that and my kids love it. It that’s, uh, yeah, that’s early two thousands and that is, that weighs about 70 pounds.

JOHN SNELL: yeah. My grandpa had one of those. I love it.

GREG CURTIS: It is wild. I found, we need a trumpet player at the Occidental University for our jazz band. They had student band and they needed a ringer, you know, whatever. So I was like, okay, that’s just on the street. I lived in Atwater. So, uh, I drove there and there was another ringer, uh, Elliot Kane, uh, and we’re like, Hey, man, oh, what’s up?

And so we became friends there during that engagement of a few weeks, you know, once a week, and then a concert. And he said, Hey, man, I, I can’t make this, uh, rehearsal with this band in Altadena. So can you handle this? It’s like, okay. So I got there and I, I met Jesse Korn and a bunch of other people, and [00:32:00] Hey man, you need, I need a sub.

It’s the same story, right? It’s, it’s the musical sub you play well, and someone needs a sub and you get the call. So I just, uh, the tree grew from that little seed of the Occidental University Oh. And through the Occidental, I, I played with the Riverside Symphony too for a while. Yeah.

JOHN SNELL: So from that

GREG CURTIS: The leader of that band was the bass player and like the um, personnel manager of the Riverside Symphony at that time.

JOHN SNELL: see, I mean, a little bit of luck, but also you obviously played

GREG CURTIS: Yeah. Be able to hack it and uh, yeah. Make friends be

JOHN SNELL: And that that, that big band, it was a big band, right? You played with, uh, Jesse Korn, and I mean, there was a lot of working musicians in that group,

GREG CURTIS: Yes. Yeah, A lot of then the early two thousands, that band did a lot of, uh, a lot of gigs, funerals, not funerals, weddings, maybe. We did a, actually we did a funeral and then out at the county parks all over la uh, on the ocean, and we did, um, Dina Martin’s wedding at the question facility.

That [00:33:00] was a good gig. You know, it was a union gig and lots of money and fun and good. We did, um, union gigs. Uh, Charlie Davis came in. We played a bunch of, we backed up some pretty good, some talented artists at different shows, and we kind of outfitted the bandwidth, seeded it with like guys, like Charlie and stuff in the band.

So yeah, it was working pretty hard for 10 years or so, you know, and then, then Dennis. Our Rock Inc. Guy who was another promoter, relentless promoter, was in that band. So got got side gigs and other bands out of that.

JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Yeah. That, so that, that seemed like, I mean, ’cause I, I must have met you, what, 2001? 2002? It was,

GREG CURTIS: In the quintet

JOHN SNELL: yeah.

GREG CURTIS: with Noah and those guys. And then yeah, and that, that led to the other chapter of my life, the film scoring stuff. But that’s, we’ll put that on the table for later. But,

JOHN SNELL: Yeah. So,

GREG CURTIS: yeah, you were subbing in Dennis’s band too, or we both wear a rotating group.

JOHN SNELL: yeah. Well, I did the, I mean, he did the swing in which, like if you picture the mid, late [00:34:00] nineties, I mean, even though they weren’t, you know, big, bad voodoo daddy, there

GREG CURTIS: Yeah, we were doing uh, the Hat, you know, and yes

JOHN SNELL: the Green Hotel, I think they had a weekly spot for years

GREG CURTIS: Eagle Rock Bowling Alley is where we play,

JOHN SNELL: Oh, all star lanes. All star lanes. So yeah, so, so Dennis k had a, the swing group, and then he started rocking to cover the rock sided classic rock side things.

And what was cool about that band is we had I mean, it was a big horn section so we could do fun stuff,

GREG CURTIS: Two trumpets.

JOHN SNELL: trumpets, trombone,

GREG CURTIS: Weiss on trombone.

JOHN SNELL: Ed Weiss Dave Howell sometimes. Katya Reman was a doing trombone with Sachs, with, rod Stewart. And yeah, I mean, he got some, a lot of great players through there.

and us,

GREG CURTIS: And us

JOHN SNELL: then there was us, but I mean, I owe it to that band. That’s what where I really developed. Uh, and actually standing next to you and Paul literal, well, we’ll get to Paul here in a little bit. So standing next to you guys, learn hearing your [00:35:00] phrasing and how you could play the horn.

Like that’s how I started developing my quote unquote commercial jobs.

GREG CURTIS: yeah. You were like a legit guy, right? Is that

JOHN SNELL: yeah, it was great.

GREG CURTIS: You did great. Yeah. I didn’t know.

JOHN SNELL: except for the sharpness,

GREG CURTIS: Well, that’s that. We’ll talk about that.

JOHN SNELL: But well, and that was right around the time I started working for the shop and Bob Reef said, John, what the hell are you doing playing a three C in a rock band? And playing salsa gigs.

GREG CURTIS: Yeah. Why

JOHN SNELL: I thought you’d do everything on one mouthpiece.

GREG CURTIS: No.

JOHN SNELL: So yeah. A lot of those pieces just in my own plane started coming together.

thanks to you. And you also made me feel short.

GREG CURTIS: I have that ability somehow. Imagine me playing with these, I played in a lot of salsa bands too during that time. At least three or Casta, Casta, za and Zumba,

JOHN SNELL: Yeah.

GREG CURTIS: like three, three nights a week, all over Southern California. And those guys aren’t very tall. These Mexican dudes, south Americans, they used to try to pass me off as like Ecuador or Ecuadorian.

They call me the Grigo or from Peru or something. They just try to, they’d make up shit to, [00:36:00] to pass me off as a some freak from South America.

JOHN SNELL: The hulking Wisconsinite.

GREG CURTIS: Yeah. And I’m just this Polish guy from Milwaukee.

JOHN SNELL: I love it. I love it. So, I mean, you were, you were working a ton. I mean, and that must have been difficult. You had a family at that

GREG CURTIS: No, not, no, not yet.

Not yet.

JOHN SNELL: kids yet. Okay. So that gave you a little bit of wiggle room in terms of gigging and

GREG CURTIS: yeah. That’s the only way that would work. ’cause I was three or we’d do every Thursday in the gas lamp at, uh, cafe Illa, in the gas lamp in San Diego on Thursdays. And I’d get home three or four in the morning,

you and I’d have to drive a bass player who was a Coke addict.

That was, that’s a whole nother another life there too, so That’s

JOHN SNELL: yeah. That’s the real side of the music scene, unfortunately, sometimes.

GREG CURTIS: He passed away. So Don’t do drugs, kid. Yeah.

JOHN SNELL: yeah. well, So what, so you’re, you’re playing a lot in la you made a shift at one point to get into recording, right? Is

GREG CURTIS: Yeah, so I was playing with you and Noah and Dylan and all those guys, and they’re at USC, [00:37:00] most of ’em, and they’re hooking up with film composers there. Right? That’s a big film school. So, Patrick Kirst, uh, is a composer and no one knew, knew ’em pretty well, and so you needed, you needed the guy with microphones, to do it.

And I, I did, uh, one thing we didn’t mention is, uh, during Milwaukee era, I dunno how many hours were in a day back then, I was also doing live sound on the weekends at a punk rock club called Quarters on Central.

JOHN SNELL: on top of all the plane and gigging and schooling

GREG CURTIS: Yeah. Yeah. I was doing live sound for everything from bands. I can’t say their names ’cause they’re too filthy to folk music trios, and who knows what would walk in the door.

I had no idea. So yeah, just put up some 50 sevens. Had a good sound system. It’s all wooden room. Actually. The room sounded cool and I just filled in some night and the guy’s like, Hey, you’re really good man. Let’s, it’s like, yeah, because I’m listening, I make it sound right. So he [00:38:00] is like, you, you got a job?

I’m making five bucks an hour, man. It was awesome. Yeah. In the nineties, that was, hey, it was called quarters because beer was a quarter

JOHN SNELL: Oh man. God, that’s so.

GREG CURTIS: during happy hour, but you could buy a pitcher for four bucks. So

I

JOHN SNELL: like when my grandpa used to say, I used to get a gallon of gas for a nickel. You know? Now where were those people, Greg?

GREG CURTIS: I know,

JOHN SNELL: Were those people

GREG CURTIS: it’s come to

JOHN SNELL: I remember when beer was a quarter.

GREG CURTIS: So I, I was doing well mixing and then another guy heard me, he was like, Hey, I’m got a company his name is Brian and we, he had a private sound company, so I started working for him too. And yeah, we worked all over Milwaukee basically.

So I was doing live sound, so when

JOHN SNELL: you had that in, you had that in your

GREG CURTIS: in my pocket and, in grad school, I didn’t use it. And then I came here and I wasn’t using, I was gonna be the next studio trumpet player. and I, someone needed a guy you could record. So I did it, you know, I helped, um, Patrick do some film scores and then I went, I was like, Hey, I, I like this [00:39:00] stuff.

I’m a mechanical guy. I like engineering. I like physics. I hate math, but I like putting microphones and making things sound good. So I took, uh, UCLA, uh, in audio engineering course and went through their, their program certificate program, two years deal. And that was cool. At that time, early two thousands because UCLA did not have a studio, so they used capital Westlake Conway.

JOHN SNELL: Oh, so you got to go into the Great

GREG CURTIS: Yeah. And record

on the tape. Yeah. And we like recorded like weird ALS bass players band. the teachers were great ’cause they were, they were engineers working in the studio industry in the early two thousands. They were leftover from the eighties and nineties. So they’re actually real recording engineers.

Um, and they taught us big consoles, tape decks, microphone, technique, uh, and serious stuff. It was, it was in depth. And also we had a course in physics and math at UCLA in classrooms, which I hated. And then, um, really cool [00:40:00] course in, um, psycho acoustics, which is how your brain interprets sound, uh, which is really interesting with Sean Olive And, uh, his boss Floyd tool are two of the preeminent guys in the audio industry.

And they’ve groundbreaking white papers. They’re, they’re real scientists. So I learned, yeah, so

JOHN SNELL: like, I mean, can you give us like a, a 32nd primer on that? I mean, is that like the brain process, like how we see like optical illusions kind of thing? Like the way the brain processes isn’t necessarily,

GREG CURTIS: Yeah,

JOHN SNELL: Am I on the right track

GREG CURTIS: You got it. Well, it starts with a sound. We’re in a medium called air and air is, is a medium. It’s not just nothing. So compresses and rare refractions of, of air pressure waves hitting your ear and your ear is a weird shape, right? And you’ve got a opinion and everyone’s ears are different.

And you’ve got a ear canal and a tympanic membrane. And the way all this mechanical voodoo works and ear is incredible device, and then it sends a electrical signal to your brain to interpret it all. So we are, [00:41:00] audio is one of the most easy, it’s one of the easiest ways to fool your brain. You’ve heard of the McGurk effect?

JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Yeah, the VV.

GREG CURTIS: yeah,

JOHN SNELL: There’s a great YouTube video on that. Well, if I remember, we’ll link

GREG CURTIS: That is psychoacoustics in a nutshell. Yeah, you can be fooled easily. And I learned a lot about uh, snake oil, $5,000 speaker cables and all that stuff. the cool thing about that class was it was held ’cause they worked there at, uh, Harmon Labs, JBL a KG corporation in Northridge, big facility.

And they have some of the best audio testing labs on earth in those Antioch chambers where it’s like zero does the quietest rooms on earth or one of them is there. So we as a class participated in a lot of studies about. The relative qualities of, of loudspeakers. They had a special lab where a loudspeaker would jet up into position and play and another one would be there within three seconds and play the same thing.

And you would judge the quality of these loudspeakers in a perfect room or a, a, a room that doesn’t change in a position that doesn’t change for the speaker. [00:42:00] And you would grade them. And they, on that, based on that study, they, they created some groundbreaking discoveries on how people interpret sound out of a loudspeaker.

And that allows them to sell more loudspeakers too, of course,

JOHN SNELL: Real fascinating. Oh,

GREG CURTIS: so that informed me a lot going forward to building a studio.

JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Well, yeah, literally. And well, I have to turn this around to trumpet

GREG CURTIS: Yeah. Sorry, we’re off the

JOHN SNELL: Did any did like the psycho acoustic stuff, did any of that inform your trumpet plane at all, or were you, were there any takeaways?

GREG CURTIS: Yes. And that, now we could talk about playing sharp. You interpret? Yeah. If you’re gonna play perfectly in tune. Well, what? Let’s talk about just and mean intonation. Right. There’s that. So define even being in tune is, you know, there’s leeway there. but you’re gonna hear, if it sticks out, you’re gonna hear it.

Now, you don’t wanna be too sharp and you, if you’re good, you could play around with it. Right? So, uh, use it to your advantage, but don’t abuse it. Um, there are limits. But if you’re

JOHN SNELL: [00:43:00] do it intentionally too, I

GREG CURTIS: If you’re being, if you’re being buried by the band. Yeah, maybe playing a little sharp will help you poke out.

They may need to, they may need to hear you better too. So, yeah, especially with dealing with the trumpet section, with fi four guys, trying to wrangle that and get in the sound and just, if you’re a lead trumpet, telling them how to, a little softer, a little louder. Here’s how we do stuff. Yeah.

Informing your mind and then seeing the space you’re in. If you’re in, um, a pizza joint that has no acoustics on the wall, don’t blast. Especially third trumpet. Doesn’t need to blast, you know, stuff like that. Drums don’t need to blast. Just, just, uh, just recognizing where you’re at before you even play a note.

You know, snap your fingers, clap your hands. Hey, kind of do the echo tests. Know what you’re in for, and maybe you’re the only, you don’t pick that ultra bright mouthpiece. Maybe you’re gonna play the three C for this gig. Or maybe you’re gonna choose a different butte

JOHN SNELL: Yeah, your patrons will thank you. The restaurant owner or the contractor will [00:44:00] thank

GREG CURTIS: Yeah. Then you get hired again.

JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Amazing. And yeah, I mean, considering, uh, considering yeah. The room you’re in as an extension of your

GREG CURTIS: I always be aware of your space you’re in. It’s a lot different than a practice room. A lot different than a stage in a huge auditorium. These commercial places. Plus there’s air conditioning, there’s people talking, lots of stuff to worry about. And then you may have some, some guy with a, a microphone that doesn’t know what he’s doing up

JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Well, that’s a whole nother story. But still, I, I, you know, it’s something to be mindful of. I’ve been in bands, certainly big bands, for example, that are playing for a charity function, and the room is really live and, I won’t point any fingers, but the brass section says, well, we play how we play.

And it’s like, well, you, you’re gonna offend people. They’re gonna, you’re gonna hurt physically hurt their eardrums at the volume we’re gonna play.

GREG CURTIS: Know your

JOHN SNELL: Tone it down, Tone it down,

GREG CURTIS: Know your audience. Yeah.

JOHN SNELL: you know?

GREG CURTIS: Know the gig. Yeah. Don’t, and don’t abuse people. Yeah. Loud isn’t good. Loud isn’t necessarily better.

JOHN SNELL: [00:45:00] yeah. So, you got some takeaways from the trumpet and you did what every, um, you know, audio and young budding audio engineer did, you built a studio from the ground

GREG CURTIS: Well, this is where this Yeah. This is where family comes in. So I, I was actually at, I built a studio in my basement basically. And this is not the place, this is the, this is new. That basement in Atwater, uh, started recording a lot and recording myself too. kudos to, no, if you get me some gigs, I’m on some like Japanese anime stuff and you know, some things, but I was, ended up recording a lot in my basement, many times, weekly, daily

And we had our first child a Benjamin, and it was just getting too much to have a family in a SA small house and having people, george Deering comes in with 50,000 guitar cases and you’re trying to change diapers and stuff, or kids gotta sleep.

You’ve

JOHN SNELL: you’re

GREG CURTIS: Grant Geissman turning up his amp or a tuba, something.

So yeah, it wasn’t working out. We made it work, but it wasn’t a good [00:46:00] situation. So we thought of ways to get out and started small

JOHN SNELL: didn’t know you had what you started in your

GREG CURTIS: Yeah. Oh yeah. You never really were down there.

JOHN SNELL: that was back when it was a man cave and you had a TV and a weight bench. That was it.

GREG CURTIS: Yes. The weight bench stayed in there, in the corner. Even during the recordings it was damp. It wasn’t resonating, but it just sat there. I mean, it’s ways too much to move it, and it stayed. When we sold the house, it stayed there with the house,

but I turned that front room into the studio

JOHN SNELL: so, so you started literally in your basement, started your business and

GREG CURTIS: I bought a couple of four 14 mics and interfaces and pro tools in early two thousands, and I had my UCLA chops then for engineering. So I just got more and more into it. And that just started taking up my time. And um, when we were approaching the idea of building a studio, a lot of things were happening in la studios were closing down, uh, big ones, big scoring stages, stage M and CBS, Radford stage.

So all this equipment came [00:47:00] online for very good prices. A big ne console’s a million bucks, but here’s one for 85,000. So it’s like, okay, then they threw in the tape decks. So I was like, okay, we, that’s a big console though. That won’t fit in my basement or in my garage or in a little place. so.

We decided, okay, these places are going offline, these two giant scoring stages, which are epic, that have a hundred musicians. And then O Henry was another studio where they did a lot of Disney stuff, a big band that was a smaller room, but they’re going offline. Let’s, there’s a hole in the market, let’s do it.

So conjure up some, uh, upfront money from investors and, six years later, three times the budget. We had a scoring stage and we’re in debt. But it was a good run. Yeah. 10 years at the bridge recording.

JOHN SNELL: You literally, you found it and built the bridge

GREG CURTIS: It was just a, it [00:48:00] took almost two years to find a building, and this was early two thousands again, but uh, yeah, found a place that was super cheap in Glendale. The problem was, it was kind of commercial area and no parking,

JOHN SNELL: parking. I remember that.

GREG CURTIS: And a bakery that was almost outta business. So that was cool.

But then when, when we started, we opened our doors, all of a sudden they were bought and then it became a 24 hour three shift operation at the bakery that was very loud

JOHN SNELL: So people coming in and going

GREG CURTIS: machines. They added all these mixers. We’re talking, we’re way off trumpet now, but we’re talking about 800 pounds of dough flopping and making incredible amount of noise that we didn’t plan for.

So when you build a studio, you plan for the noise you have. So we set up mics and barometers and stuff and studied 20, 48 hours of, of getting all the noises around here. A diesel idling truck was our worst in the train down the street, but we could mitigate that. We had no idea what was gonna be happening at the bakery.

So we ended up having to redo the floor, which was

JOHN SNELL: After it was already built

GREG CURTIS: after it was perfect.

JOHN SNELL: work and Yeah.

GREG CURTIS: to bring it work. Our first group was John [00:49:00] DSA Band. Did a gig session there.

JOHN SNELL: The first group was the Northridge Nebraska quintet.

GREG CURTIS: Yeah.

JOHN SNELL: When you got the sound

GREG CURTIS: first,

The first

JOHN SNELL: and you wanted, you wanted to hear, you wanted to hear what the room sounded like.

GREG CURTIS: did a lot

of

JOHN SNELL: session in

GREG CURTIS: and we had sack butts in there. We had drummers in there. We had ancient instruments. We had all sorts of stuff. It was cool. Yeah, it learned a lot about physics building that place that it’s in, I don’t even, it’s a whole nother topic, but the world is a noisy place.

JOHN SNELL: but you, it was, it was your studio. You ran it, you were the, and I mean, you did

GREG CURTIS: My wife and I own the company and I was there a building was 16 hours a day, seven days a week, or six days a week. Really. We didn’t really work on Sunday, ’cause no one else agreed to work on Sundays. But I would, I would go there anyway. That took about two years to build it. So I was not playing trumpet at that time.

And then,

JOHN SNELL: was gonna say you, you had to hang it up for a while.

GREG CURTIS: to, I was fully engrossed, like living it 16, literally not sleeping four hours a night. Blood, sweat and tears. Building that [00:50:00] place to keep it well, to make it mine and to keep the costs down too. and just knowing, ’cause I, my plan was to be the head engineer there that, but that didn’t, didn’t happen.

but we got hooked up with, with TV shows and, and video games and films. So that’s what we did. Yeah.

JOHN SNELL: a good run. I mean, that was uh, yeah. That was the place to record. And I mean, Todd AO closed, I think. Right? Some

GREG CURTIS: Yep. That’s where we, yeah, we grabbed a lot of from there and Stage M. So yeah. During the run of that studio, we got to hear, I got to hear great trumpet players come in. It was just like cornucopia, oh, there’s Wayne coming in for another day. You know, Gary Grant coming in, Warren Looney and Jay, Larry Hall, all these guys just walking in the door and I just get to listen to him and watch him warm up.

Hopefully engineer ’em and stuff, whatever we could do, but just seeing the etiquette and practice and technique of professional musicians in LA

JOHN SNELL: Well, let’s, I mean, let’s spend some time on that because [00:51:00] you’re, you have, you’ve ha have a relatively unique perspective being a trumpet player yourself, and then being on, in the engineer booth on the other side and work, you know, seeing these guys, take us through it, like their warmups, the, you said, mentioned just their demeanor, like what made them or makes them who they are.

GREG CURTIS: Yeah. You know, uh, Gary Grant had a website that was very good at detailing this, but the, this is true for all professionals, but Trump players are, are unique in that they have different requirements, especially warming up and getting in the saddle. you show up on time. It’s not for one which means you’re early and you’re there.

The great players are always there half an hour, fif uh, 15 minutes. As you’re kinda late, they’re there. And if they’re not warming up, they’re in, they’re communicating and making sure everything is, is correct. You’re walking into a gig. You haven’t seen the music yet, right? You may know what horns you need.

At best, or if there’s a tough solo, maybe they’ve sent it to you the night before. they’re quiet, they are professional and [00:52:00] they are focused. They aren’t running around, they’re not distracting. There’s some shenanigans here and there, but they’re little and they’re like interpersonal stuff and they’re often very funny.

But once you get into the live room, you’re focused on what mus what the music is and getting your stuff out. You’re being quiet and respectful of everyone around you. ’cause there’s a lot of stuff going on. There are other players coming in with larger instruments and setting up. It might be perk, there might be people bringing in instruments.

You know, at the last minute there were orchestrators, conductors, producers, composers, engineers running around and they’re all freaking out because it’s five minutes to downbeat, 10 minutes to downbeat, and X, y, Z isn’t ready yet. So you need to stay outta the way. but you can warm up as expected. You do.

And as an engineer, I really am grateful if you are warming up. ’cause it allows me to see if the mic works. Number one, does it sound good? Number two has a signal appropriate. Are there any defects in the line? The signal at [00:53:00] all. So yeah, start warming up. Don’t, you know, it’s not time to show off.

and conversations are minimal. They’ll, greeting people generally, uh, when they’re on the stage aren’t having conversations because they know there are about 50 live mics around them and it’s all going to the booth. so you just don’t want that broadcast anyway. You’re, you’re focused on the task at hand and you’re getting in the moment to perform ’cause you have to perform.

I’ve been lucky enough to do a few sessions and I know you have two. I figured they’re expensive. And your job is to nail it as best you can just play as as good as you can. So you have to really get into that mode. Yeah, no one’s goofing off. And the serious states are very quiet other than the warming up.

There aren’t people gibber jabbering, so

JOHN SNELL: Yeah. If even if you have an OR full orchestra and there’s 45, 50 people in there or more, and everyone’s having a conversation,

GREG CURTIS: you can’t even hear yourself.

JOHN SNELL: Yeah. You can’t hear yourself. And even if it’s at a [00:54:00] normal conversation level, like you said, there’s so many other people having high pressure, high stress jobs that need to be done by a certain time. Having all of that extra distraction

GREG CURTIS: also assessing what’s gonna be happening. You’re listening to other players too. how are they sounding? You know, how are you sounding? You’re trying to assess the general state of, of things in the moment. How is the session gonna work out? You know, are you feeling good? Is, is this guy sounding good?

Or if you haven’t met you introduce yourself and kind of getting, get to know the guy next to you. But it’s focused on, on getting the task at hand. Um, warming up is good. You should play some low notes, play some high notes, but you’re not blasting. No one likes a guy blasting Double Gs. No, even high Cs, please.

I mean, check it, make sure it’s there. Fine. That’s it. That’s all you need. Although there have been some lesser stress funds that have been fun with some good players and their warmups. I should, God, I wish I had been rolling tape. And some of these, like

JOHN SNELL: Some of the stuff you

GREG CURTIS: warmups are pretty awesome. [00:55:00] he and Rick would sit next to each other. It was fun. But those guys have been doing this for, what, 30 years?

JOHN SNELL: easily. Yeah.

GREG CURTIS: And what they played sounded awesome when they were warming up. So, and it was just like a brass section thing. It wasn’t a big orchestral date that, your life’s on the line.

JOHN SNELL: Yeah, what fun that was. And what about when the, when the, uh, well, I, I did wanna bring up, so you brought up Gary Grant. I mean, he, he mentioned, he talked about being in the zone, which I think is it, you know, like Yeah. Off when the red light’s not on, when you’re greeting people, everything’s lighthearted.

’cause you have to kinda let the pressure go and that sort of thing in a controlled manner. But then once the red light’s on, or you’re in the studio, he called it the Zone and it’s like, intense focus like martial artists, you know, and, just you and the music and your instrument. And also you, the his, yeah, we have his, the musician studio musician’s manual.

We have it on our website,

GREG CURTIS: Oh, good.

JOHN SNELL: we’ll link to that. And yeah, I think like every fifth or sixth thing is keep your mouth shut, I think. Like,

GREG CURTIS: yeah. And when the session’s in play [00:56:00] after, you know, 10:00 AM or 10:00 AM happens, and now you’re in the session, maybe you’ve done the take and you’re getting notes, you aren’t talking you’re waiting, you may have notes to your section or to the conductor and that’s it.

You only talk to the conductor. And often some musicians, and I found this a little odd, get upset that the booth isn’t talking back to all the musicians, only the conductor. So be aware that even though it’s quiet, the guy on the podium or a guy running the session in the room is getting notes from the booth and you’re not, so don’t be upset.

Some musicians got very upset by that. That’s for some reason

JOHN SNELL: The line of command, and

GREG CURTIS: there’s a

JOHN SNELL: efficient way to communicate

GREG CURTIS: And the people in the booth do have the ability to broadcast to the entire group or section by section two if they want, but they’re specifically talking ’cause it is line of command. Yeah.

JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Now what about when the red light actually goes on? What was it like hearing players like Wayne and Larry Hall and et cetera, John Lewis?

GREG CURTIS: phenomenal. First or second take [00:57:00] after that. Just all pretty much, there’s no, no reason for another take unless you wanted a different style, with these top, top LA guys, especially in two thousands, 2000 tens when you know, everyone was there and, and really, really hot. It was wild. Two, two takes move on, two takes move on.

And it sounded like just nuts.

JOHN SNELL: And you say one or two takes, and how many times was, would be the second take just to have a

GREG CURTIS: Safety, that’s what they call it. Okay. Safety. And then be like we’ll do it again. And then sometimes it, usually, sometimes better. Yeah. But after that, it’s, it’s the curve. I ha I, I had, we could also talk about things that didn’t go well too.

JOHN SNELL: yeah. Well, I’ll get to that, but I, it is kinda the point because I don’t think, I mean, a studio work has spread outside of

GREG CURTIS: Oh yeah.

JOHN SNELL: already happening at the time you were doing this. but I, I don’t think players understand the, like the, just the acute listening, like the intonation, the sound, the blend, the accuracy that the [00:58:00] players, especially during that time, what they were able to achieve.

GREG CURTIS: A lot of it comes from playing together a bit. But there’s always news guy, new guys coming in and you’d sink or swim on intonation. Number one, if you’re out of tune. There’s no hope. It’s not gonna happen. You can’t fix it in the, in the mix. Um, and then an engineer’s gonna be on the horn, and that’s when you see more than two takes.

Style you gotta be on knowing what, what style’s going on. I mean, you, if you’re not playing the right style, you shouldn’t really be on the gig at all. I mean, you, it’s, if it’s for this, it’s orchestral romantic music, or if it’s surf rock, it’s gotta be in that style. You can’t mix them, so you gotta be in tune number one.

Of course, be on time and all that stuff. But being, when you’re playing Intune, attack, release style balancing, even though it’s a mic on everyone, they’re really trying to use the overall mics if they can. staying in the pocket. Just be in the po it’s playing call, playing in the pocket, right? [00:59:00] Just play in the pocket and listen to your, your lead.

You have to do it. If you’re the lead you pretty much have gotten there because you know what you’re doing.

JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Yeah. It’s incredible hearing. The, and the fact that you got to do a day in and day out, hearing that caliber or musician,

GREG CURTIS: Get used to it, which is crazy.

JOHN SNELL: Yeah.

GREG CURTIS: So,

JOHN SNELL: So yeah, like you brought up, not everything went well. What were some of the things that what were some of the trials and

GREG CURTIS: Yeah. So you get used to hearing that. And then sometimes the indie film would come in and they were scraping together. Um, brass. So yeah, there’ve been some, and it’s usually the things I was talking about. People show up late. No good. That’s might be your last gig.

And just being out outta tune. You have to be in tune. You know, a lot of players have tuners on their bells, right? Clipping it on, so we’re playing right down the middle. If that’s what you need to do, do it. But use your ears, that just and mean intonation thing. It depends on what, what the, where you’re playing too.

If you’re playing to a rock band, you’d be playing, straight down the middle. But, you know, adjust, just listen to your lead. can’t stress enough [01:00:00] musicianship and playing in the pocket. So the guys that usually didn’t do too well, maybe having a bad day just hanging on, hanging over, that’s not a good thing.

Coming in early, missing notes isn’t a problem. Just raise your hand. I miss the snow. ’cause we’re not gonna hear it all the time, especially if it’s in the, in the cord. So please, yeah, let us know if you missed a note. And it becomes a thing if it’s, if it’s all too often. and we had some problems with guys who couldn’t play high notes either who were hired and having a bad day.

And we’ve had ringers called in.

We had one that, it was some, it was pretty high. I think it was like double, you know, A above high C you know, written for B flat. A guy couldn’t do it, so they called in a ringer and he couldn’t do it. And I was like, I got a horn here. But no, I don’t know if I could do it today either.

Who knows? Who knows That note?

JOHN SNELL: You just need one. Come

GREG CURTIS: I know with that

JOHN SNELL: You just need to get one

GREG CURTIS: that’s that squirrely note. You either got it or you don’t that day. Right.

JOHN SNELL: Yeah.

GREG CURTIS: that A it [01:01:00] sucks. Yeah. GA flat fine, but that a, ugh. Maybe a B is easier. I don’t know. It’s that break. So

JOHN SNELL: It’s right. Yeah. A common break.

GREG CURTIS: they had to fly one in later, but they went, they had to pay this guy a lot of like 300 bucks or something to come in for 10 minutes and play it eventually.

JOHN SNELL: Play one lick and be done with

GREG CURTIS: Yeah. ’cause he could.

JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Yeah. Well, that’s, and you know, and then on the, yeah, that’s

GREG CURTIS: It’s no sauce on the players. If they couldn’t do it, at least they tried and they’re hired for a reason and they got it done. But people please be aware of the beat, you know, the click and listen up the section, play in tune. It’s all, your job really is not that hard. It, and listen, just open your ears.

That’s my biggest beef with playing in some big bands that have been around and there’s some guys in it probably shouldn’t be, they don’t listen. They don’t know what’s going on. It’s like, dude, why did you hang on that note so long? Or

JOHN SNELL: They’re on their own

GREG CURTIS: Yeah. It’s bad news. Don’t stick out unless you’re supposed to be sticking out.

Unless it’s a [01:02:00] solo, you don’t want to be soloing all the time.

JOHN SNELL: yeah. Yeah. so I, I wanna spend a little moment ’cause you’ve had so much recording experience and also as a trumpet player. I know a lot of folks listening, record themselves or have their own little home stuff. Can you kind of take us through some, like quick hints, quick tips on recording the trumpet in particular?

GREG CURTIS: Yeah. We sh we, yeah. That’s something very important. That’s one thing I wanted to get at. So you’re at home. The trumpet’s a kind of a nasty devil If you stick a, a mic right up the bell. So try to get, you know, here’s your bell, here’s a mic. What’s a good way to do it? You wanna be off axis, basically, don’t go right down the middle.

If you have a condenser mic probably find one here. But if it’s a large dye, it looks like a lollipop, or it’s, you could buy ’em like 150 bucks. They’re usually called condenser. Those pick up all the spittle and all the, all the, the hairiness that people aren’t gonna hear in a concert hall or stuff that people don’t wanna hear that, right?

So if you put a condenser mic [01:03:00] right in front of your bell, just a few inches away, you’re gonna kill everyone’s ears. It’s just gonna sound bad. If you need it close, and we’ll discuss how close it should be. Put it off axis. Angle it in off the side. Yeah. Angle it towards the, the throat or probably a little off the throat.

It’s one thing unique to engineering. Okay. You mic a, a bass drum. You don’t never put the mic in the middle mic A snare, never in the middle. You mic a symbol always somewhere in, uh, not in the middle guitar amplifier cone, never in the middle. Same with a horn, never in the middle. You want the, the resonance and the frequencies that are developing off this instrument to collect and not just be this thing down the center of your horn.

We think of playing down the center of the horn, right? But the sound, your horn is radiating sound from. That’s why the bell looks like it does, right? The splash out. And actually you’re getting sound from all the horns coming out everywhere. so you don’t want to aim at the hole. Aim somewhere on the, on the bell, three o’clock.

Not in the center. You know where the end of the middle of the hand is. [01:04:00] And judge the distance by the room you’re in. If you’re in a, a damp, well no one has a damp room. If you’re in a regular house, you know, with no acoustic treatments, maybe a couch or whatever, you’re gonna need to get closer because you’re, your energy from your horn’s gonna excite all these room modes.

It’d be splashing off the walls. You don’t wanna record that. You want to get your horn. So you have to listen, do some stuff, move the play a few licks, move the mic, play the same licks, move the mic, get it to the distance where you’re balancing the room, the stuff that’s splashing off the walls and the direct sound off your horn.

Find that and you’ll be pretty well set.

Then you can do a little stuff. But I guess my gist is move stuff around to it. Sounds good. You wanna find a balance of the room sound. And your direct sound off the horn. A good room. This is why a studio this is why studios are built. ’cause they’re good rooms.

You have more latitude than I can move it back. We, we recorded Malcolm Mc, Malcolm [01:05:00] McNabb for, um, a demo for some Pixar movie that never happened about airplanes. We had a 47 Fat, which I’m speaking into now. Same mike, actually about four feet away, six feet away from him. And man, it just sounded, it was a trumpet solo.

Just sounded fantastic. And then we had another ribbon mic further away. It was just a, a blend of those and then a couple overheads. So we had like four mics on the solo trumpet, but they were all at least four feet away from ’em. Uh, that’s kinda the optimal sound for me. It’s like that’s the instrument in the, in a good room with all the resonance and the beauty of the horn, which is raiding sound.

Not just from the bell, but from all over it. You know, it’s a, it’s a long pipe. It’s a four feet of pipe, right. And it’s just, it’s raiding a lot of it’s coming out the bell because of the way the bell is made, but a lot of it’s coming out the sides too. So you really want to capture the, the meat, the girth of the instrument.

The further away you can do that, the better, but you have to account for the room you’re in. And most rooms are crappy in a house.[01:06:00]

JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and that’s, I think we’ve all experienced that in one form or another where, you know, we play, we practice and we think we sound good, and then we record ourselves and like, wow, that sounds thin and tinny and Yeah, like you’re saying, all of the, all the stuff in the core of the

GREG CURTIS: yeah. There’s one more thing. You have your inter, you’re hearing a lot in your head from the interal cavity. Right? So once we remove that, that’s your, actually, that might be the way you actually sound. Is

JOHN SNELL: Oh, God, don’t tell me.

GREG CURTIS: But no, you’re right. It’s mainly a factor of a cheap microphone and in a, in a bad a room that’s not made for recording, basically.

Yeah.

JOHN SNELL: sticking to that.

GREG CURTIS: It’s not your fault. It’s never your

JOHN SNELL: It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault. I swear it was second valve. That’s what I was told in third grade. It was second valve’s. Why I

GREG CURTIS: during the pandemic, the, I get did a lot of mixing for stuff that was flown in, player in St. Louis, player in Chicago, player in Miami. And um, some of the problems I’ve, some people had Mike’s backwards. A mic has two sides. It’s, if it’s a cardio mic, if it’s aiming at you, a [01:07:00] couple people submit stuff.

The mic was pointing away from them. So you get this, it sounds phasey ’cause you’re actually recording the reflection off the wall and some of the direct sound. So they’re out of time and you’re gonna get a crazy fazi this, and it just sounds really awful, but they didn’t hear it. So listen to the stuff you’re recording.

If it doesn’t sound right, investigate why There’s probably a reason.

JOHN SNELL: Yeah. And either hire a good sound engineer or learn yourself like you did go to school or take some

GREG CURTIS: Yeah. Or just look at the mic and say, oh, it’s backwards.

JOHN SNELL: So I mean, I know you do obviously owning a studio and the high-end recording you do you deal with a lot of high-end stuff. I mean, is could you recommend maybe a, like a range of good Trump trumpet mics and different, price points?

GREG CURTIS: name some the same types first. There’s the, there’s the condenser type, which is kinda the popular. You have to have, uh, like 48 volt phantom power, they call it. That’s a condenser mic, and that’s really accurate and it picks up all the spit and, and a lot of, room noises and stuff.

So it’s a, a double edged sword there. A [01:08:00] dynamic mic, like an SM 58 or 57, like a typical stage mic is a dynamic mic. It doesn’t require any out outside power. Those are gentle. Those actually are cool on horns if you buy a good quality dynamic. Like, uh, Sennheiser 4 41 is a, is my, I love, I just carry one of my gig bag to shows.

it’s a big expensive, it’s like a $500 dynamic, Mike, that sounds fantastic on ours. ’cause it, it, it covers all the nastiness. It gets, it’s like pre eqd. It gets rid of all the grit and, and schmutts. so a very high quality, large, dynamic mic is excellent, can be excellent on horns.

They use that on, I think, tower of Power too, or it is called the MD 80 Eights, his big ev broadcast mics for vocal. I think you have a SM 57 right in front of you.

JOHN SNELL: SM seven

GREG CURTIS: Yeah. Okay. So the derivative of the sm uh, SM seven, sorry. SM seven. Yeah. The good old. Sure. Yeah. That, uh, that is a good, that’s a large diaphragm, um, dynamic, Mike, and those can sound good on [01:09:00] horns and, and voices.

Michael Jackson sang into those too.

JOHN SNELL: I will not do my impression. I was tempted for a second and I

GREG CURTIS: But one of my

f my favorite mic for horns is a ribbon mic. And those are the hot thing. Remember, um, Royer had the, at the, the 1 21, which is a great mic. Um, I prefer the old RCAs or a EA in here, in Pasadena makes a large, they’re called large diet or large ribbon, big ribbon mics. Those are, little more esoteric.

you can’t just throw those in your, in your gig bag and walk around like Rick Baptist. All the guys had those in their gig bags. But those sound incredible. It’s a big ribbon and it knocks off all the high end and just gives you that sun right on the bat. And the way they respond to transient, the attack of the note is really cool.

Sometimes these card, these condensers are really brittle and bright. I’ve, sciencey stuff I’ve zoomed in on the waveforms on this last album I did ’cause I had a ribbon and a condenser, a time aligned on, [01:10:00] on Paul. And the waveform itself is different, which is very odd, right?

You

think from

JOHN SNELL: on the difference

GREG CURTIS: the microphone, the transducer microphone’s a transducer. They take mechanical energy, you make ’em electrical. So the way they work, ribbons are very pleasant and conducive to good to being kind to us. Uh, brassy loud, annoying trumpets. So look into those. Be aware though red light with ribbon mics.

They’re often figure eight, which means they’re getting the sound in front of you and they’re also getting the sound behind you. ‘ cause that’s just the way they work Mechanically, they’re very simple devices. So if you have your ribbon mic in front of a pane of glass. You’re blasting into the pane of glass, you’re also getting the reflection off that glass equally loud as the, well, slightly less, but pretty much as loud as the direct sound.

So be aware of that. You run into problems with ribbon mics in confined spaces. Be be sure you have room in front of you if you’re using a ribbon microphone.

JOHN SNELL: Yeah, if you’re recording in your dorm room or your practice room, or [01:11:00] your little in-home garage studio, something like

GREG CURTIS: You could fix it too, by just putting something really soft and observative behind it, a bunch of pillows or something, or insulation that will help mitigate the problem.

But, I find that is a common issue with the reflection from a ribbon microphone. Figure eight. Be aware of that.

JOHN SNELL: so depending, depending on your personal plane and also what kind of sound you want to get. I mean, sounds like it’s almost worth experimenting with different mics if you have the luxury,

GREG CURTIS: of the guys, like, Dan Rosenbaum has gone, I just bought a ribbon mic from him ’cause he was just, he moved onto a different mic. So guys, they go through Mike’s as, as they play right. And they. Sometimes they make a collection. For me, I, I liked having a ribbon and a, a good ribbon and a good condenser.

And you’re pretty much sat there.

JOHN SNELL: I mean, I, I know Jerry Hay was famous for his microphones. They came with his horn

GREG CURTIS: what did he, I wonder, did he have U 60 sevens? I’ve seen videos. I’d have to look at those again. I didn’t know that.

JOHN SNELL: And if I was I brought him up and I, I don’t remember model numbers, but he did talk about it in his episode [01:12:00] and

GREG CURTIS: I’ll have to watch that one.

JOHN SNELL: livestream q and a. I mean, his internet was terrible, which was

GREG CURTIS: Oh, no.

JOHN SNELL: But, uh, he went on about microphones and, uh,

GREG CURTIS: yeah. He’s a smart guy. Yeah. He was in

JOHN SNELL: he’s done a few

GREG CURTIS: yeah he, I was lucky to have him as a producer on a couple sessions at the studio.

JOHN SNELL: Oh, what was that

GREG CURTIS: Incredible. One was a Stanley Clark session too, which was even like double, it’s like

JOHN SNELL: his intention attention to detail, like

GREG CURTIS: he is intense. He’s an intense dude.

JOHN SNELL: Yeah.

GREG CURTIS: I see videos of him as a young man and he seems kind of especially playing on stage. He’s very eent and like he’s dancing around ’cause he is like this kind of funky stuff. But as a producer and as a music, he’s folk, he’s in the moment. Yeah, he’s, you don’t trifle with him?

JOHN SNELL: And, but, and if he can hear any, like I, I’ve, uh, he did a masterclass at Citrus College’s Studio, uh, at one of the Adam Fest. And it, it was just, it was super cool ’cause they had basically participants cycle through playing Jerry Hay charts and they would record it in their studio A there [01:13:00] professionally engineered, and then he would go back and listen to things and he, you know, he’d be, pick out this note, oh, third trumpet, that’s sharp.

Third trombone. You’re a hair late here, it’s, and it’s going by, get a 16th. Oh. Stuff like that.

GREG CURTIS: Yeah. Him and Gary Grant. Yeah. Unbelievable. Yeah. A guy gr greatest ears, just like a monster, monster brain in ears. Like wow.

JOHN SNELL: and you hear the results in thousands of recordings.

GREG CURTIS: phenomenal. Yeah. Just,

JOHN SNELL: yeah. A little microphone geekery there. so I, I, you brought up Paul in one of your latest, uh, the latest projects.

GREG CURTIS: I have been busy lately, contrary to my absence off Facebook. I just got sick of it.

JOHN SNELL: You’re not missing anything on social

media.

GREG CURTIS: com coming back. yeah, I spent the last, uh, four months recording a, an album in a studio with live musicians. It’s, it’s crazy people do

JOHN SNELL: still exists. Yeah.

GREG CURTIS: Literal band.

So

JOHN SNELL: Dear friend of both of ours and

previous podcast guest

GREG CURTIS: I met Paul first though, um, maybe 20 years ago, [01:14:00] maybe 2004. At a salsa gig. At the Palladium. Yeah. No, you were you, I knew you before Paul,

JOHN SNELL: Yeah.

’cause he had moved to town, I think after we were already

playing

GREG CURTIS: yeah. This was like 2004 six or something. I was doing a gig, a salsa gig at the Palladium Big show there. And uh, we had a sub trumpet player, and it was Paul Literal, it was like, it was his first gig in town, so wild.

And it was like, Hey man, where are you from New York? I had no idea what,

JOHN SNELL: I think we have very similar story, you and I about that.

GREG CURTIS: yeah, and then he just, he talked about who he’s played. He was like, holy cow. He wasn’t, he was pretty, you know, he wasn’t, he didn’t go on, he was pretty, he was in the moment and there for the gig, not to tell his life story, but we connected. He liked old cars and stuff. And, uh, he played like a mofo and was like, okay.

And we became good friends. Very good

JOHN SNELL: And BMW buddies, I know you guys were always uh, building his car or he was working on

GREG CURTIS: Yeah. Epic. Epic days. [01:15:00] Yes. He was swearing like a sailor and I’m underneath the car with bolts and stuff. We swapped engines out like two or three times transmissions rear end. It was crazy.

JOHN SNELL: You guys are always doing something and then half the time I’d have to drive him to a gig because his car was

like on blocks. Yeah. Or had no engine in it.

GREG CURTIS: Totally cool.

JOHN SNELL: Yeah. But so I wonder if I met Paul because he subbed for you in Rock Inc. Then I wonder if that was the connection, if you, you brought him in.

GREG CURTIS: Sure. Yeah. And what a boon for Dennis, because half the songs he played, he played the original recordings on

JOHN SNELL: I told so, so if you’re listening to this now, go back to episode 92, Paul Litteral. And it was a Uptown Horns which, so I mean Paul is was not a household name as a trumpet player unless you were in New York and

GREG CURTIS: Uptown Horns. Yeah.

JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Uptown Horns though, uh, I mean B 50 twos Rolling Stones, Joe Cocker, James Brown and

GREG CURTIS: living in America.

JOHN SNELL: Yeah.

GREG CURTIS: Yes. Robert Palmer. Power,

JOHN SNELL: word up what we have that.[01:16:00]

GREG CURTIS: power station.

Some like it hot. I remember listening to that as a kid and going, that Trump player’s nuts. Man. Those, I have sharps. Just going

JOHN SNELL: Ray Charles.

GREG CURTIS: so much

energy. Buster Poindexter.

JOHN SNELL: Buster. Yeah. So, so go back and listen to episode 92 and I’ll tell the story briefly. But at the same kind of thing, Greg, where we’re sitting in someone’s garage where, you know, rock Inc. Used to

GREG CURTIS: Yes.

JOHN SNELL: and, you know, I, I, but by that point, I think you had moved on, except you kind of subbed a little bit.

So I got, became the def facto lead player, and, and then, so the sub, trying to find a second trouble player was kind of a rotating player. Uh, until then, Paul kind of settled into the position and I remember the first couple of rehearsals. Mofo trumpet, player, nails, everything. And I was like, you know, I should be passing, he should be sitting in my seat.

And, but he was very humble. He was like

GREG CURTIS: no.

he’s a pro.

JOHN SNELL: I’m just here playing. And then after a few rehearsals, he’s like, oh, when I recorded this, you know,

we, you know, this [01:17:00] happened. You know? And then, And then, then like, he had a story for everything. Like, like half the charts were like, yeah, man, in this session, you know, James Brown was right next door, and then he invited us over to, you know, things like that.

I was like, who is this guy?

GREG CURTIS: Yeah,

Yeah. Living in America, he was on Tour of the Stones and he got called to do living in America for the film Rocky film. And he just like, they flew ’em out one night, they recorded, they laid it down, head chart, basically on the spot. And they flew him back and they continued the tour of the Rolling Stone Steel Wheels tour.

JOHN SNELL: So, so that’s Paul in a and nickel uh, in a, in a nutshell

GREG CURTIS: a lot of energy in his sound and his

JOHN SNELL: of energy.

GREG CURTIS: too.

JOHN SNELL: And what I loved about his horn section is the, um, was his the style, the swagger, the, it wasn’t just, oh, we’re playing an eighth note, hit on the end of two. It’s every note had attitude and grease to it.

So.

So with that introduction, you got

GREG CURTIS: Yeah. Oh.

JOHN SNELL: record his second

GREG CURTIS: So he called me up and said, Hey man, I’d like you to help me out this album. So I was like, okay, I’d love [01:18:00] to, you know that. That’s great, man. I love you and I love you playing and um, I got a hole in my schedule. I could do it. Let’s do it.

Perfect. So yeah, we started out with, um, a Rodrigo chart. Follow me. It’s the suite de nos, right? Take on that. So that was cool. I was like, okay, Paul, this is a new direction. This is really mellow and, uh, ethereal and stuff. So that was cool. And then we started doing the other charts and they’re, they’re the, the high energy stuff.

So it’s pretty wild. Trumpet bone, three saxes, incredible rhythm section. Bill Bode on bass. Tony Pia on drums. Ken Rosser, guitar player. Phenomenal. Rocky Davis on piano. Just phenomenal. I’ve met all these new musicians. I really, I knew um, bill Bode. He is a Trump player too, but.

JOHN SNELL: Yeah, he’s, he is a fabulous drum player as

GREG CURTIS: But amazing a bass player from back in the day, like one of the top studio guys in LA back in the day, and still now really he’s doing a new album right now.

Just phenomenal. So this band doing some [01:19:00] multi-tracking and then we led up to a big session at Evergreen, uh, which is great for me. It’s old school, whole band at once on the floor. Drums in a booth, bass in a booth, guitar in a booth with the horns out on stage, live grand piano and live singers too in little, you know, makeshift booths out on the floor.

Yeah, thanks to

Vicky. It was a lot of fun. And we’d recorded what five songs in, in. And just not, uh, kind of a truncated double session. We were outta there by three 15. Um, we did a lot of work that one day and it’s a testament to the band to be able to play and professionalism. That’s, that’s another thing about being a player show up and re ready to play.

And it might be an easy gigger, maybe be a tough one. This was a tough one. And Paul laid down all the lead and then a whole bunch of solos afterwards.

JOHN SNELL: And yeah. Yeah.

 

JOHN SNELL: So I, I, I wanna bring this around. And so one last plug for our dear friend Paul. Um, the Literal Truth, uh, outrageous eight records. Um, and that’s Numer eight. And we will look down in the description, look down in the [01:20:00] links show notes.

We’ll have links

so you can get

GREG CURTIS: every uh, digital platform available. And CDs, if you want.

JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Maybe we can even get Paul to sign a

GREG CURTIS: That would be cool.

JOHN SNELL: so

GREG CURTIS: Sure. He would.

JOHN SNELL: we’ll work on that. So I wanna wrap this up with the trumpet. Have you gotten back to trumpet plane after hanging it up with the studio?

GREG CURTIS: I have begun my re relationship with the trumpet by opening the case today and looking at, make sure the vows worked and they do, and looking at mouthpieces and my, the 43 s is sitting there waiting. And now that this album is done and, uh, and other projects are done, it is waiting.

JOHN SNELL: Yeah.

GREG CURTIS: should I do?

Should I start doing practice rehearsal bands again at the union? That kind of thing. That’s the, how do you get back into it, I guess.

JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Well, he starts with playing. We can get

GREG CURTIS: Long

JOHN SNELL: duets.

GREG CURTIS: Yeah. Duets with

JOHN SNELL: we can get together and play duets.

GREG CURTIS: Yes.

JOHN SNELL: anytime you want.

GREG CURTIS: Yeah, I agree. No, the horn is a cruel mistress and I cannot wait to be back in her sweet, sweet arms [01:21:00] again.

JOHN SNELL: The trumpet is an amazing thing. As much as I’ve tried to give it up it’s still

GREG CURTIS: can’t, you can’t.

JOHN SNELL: go back to it.

GREG CURTIS: Yeah. People are like, you were this business guy running a studio. Why are you still, you know, a musician? It’s like, ‘ cause I can’t not be

JOHN SNELL: Yeah. It’s who

GREG CURTIS: being an engineer and mixing albums is art and all that. So that’s been satisfactory. But I need to, I need to start playing in the public again.

You know, I could play a few notes here and there and I have, but I the balance is, you know how good you can play and then you hear how badly you’re playing in the moment and then you have to bridge that.

JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, and it, we’ve we run through that a lot. In fact, I just had a, um, retired LAPD officer in Marine Corps 20 years in the Marine Corps very dear obviously amazing service to our country. Came in and he’s like, yeah, you know, I took 12 years off from playing and I’m getting back to it and, uh, on his journey.

And I was like, look, you know, you did, those 12 years are gone. And I know it feels unusual but, uh, and you’re older now, [01:22:00] so it doesn’t, uh, you know, you don’t recover as quick as you did 12 years ago or when you were 20. Uh, but hopefully you’re a little bit wiser. So when you’re coming back, you can come back with a fresh approach and, and maybe you’d be surprised yourself.

You might even be, do things you didn’t know you

GREG CURTIS: that’s true. There may be a new F facet you had in uncovered.

JOHN SNELL: yeah. and then with a renewed joy, well, I think is the most

GREG CURTIS: Sure. And the world is a different place. There’s new music being created, there’s new styles, and uh, there’s a whole new world to explore. Yeah.

JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Let’s start a ska band.

GREG CURTIS: Dude,

JOHN SNELL: Let’s jump around on, on, on

GREG CURTIS: I don’t know about that. Yeah.

JOHN SNELL: okay. Well, okay. Not all of my ideas are good. Maybe just some of them.

GREG CURTIS: Half of it. No, I’m just,

JOHN SNELL: well, Greg, it’s been an absolute honor having you on, um, I, I Equipment you mentioned you using, you still

using, it’s still your Bach,

37.

GREG CURTIS: got two Bo Beef Flats. I’ve got the one I’ve had since high school, which has been modified by Dennis Naje, which is my legit horn. Um, which is just a, a medium large, typical what is it? [01:23:00] The Bell 37 or whatever.

JOHN SNELL: Yeah. 37

GREG CURTIS: yep. And then I bought a a box Strat from Sean Billings when he became a Yamaha artist.

I believe he unloaded a, a really great box Strat. That is a total ripper. You know, the star, the lightweight bell. And that thing has, high notes are just built in. It’s amazing. And it’s just, it’s great ’cause it, it’s, I don’t know, I try, I tend not to play too bright. I try to, but it’s got enough brightness where it’ll cut easily and you have to be careful.

So I love that horn. Uh, 43 s. If I’m doing extreme lead stuff, I’ll use a, this crazy gr mouthpiece I found. Uh, it’s got like six stars at the end of the number. Uh, it’s like a 6 66 Z star, star star, star. I do one and a half C or, uh, modified three C. I’ve got a beautiful Bach ugal horn, which I love dearly.

It’s a real ugal horn, not a trumpet, uh, valve casing efl D box. Strat again silk Keep P five four. I’ve got a rotary valve trumpet for playing polka band music.

JOHN SNELL: You [01:24:00] can take the Polish guy out of Wisconsin, but you can’t take the

GREG CURTIS: Yes, and I, we have done polka gigs and uh, slide trumpet is a lot of fun too.

JOHN SNELL: Yeah,

GREG CURTIS: And natural trumpets. Yeah, natural

JOHN SNELL: Well, let’s see. We can, let’s play slide trumpet duets. I got, uh, I, I got my minute.

GREG CURTIS: they are so obnoxious. There’s no valve. It’s just

JOHN SNELL: Yeah. No, no excuse for poor

GREG CURTIS: we could really annoy a lot of people with those

JOHN SNELL: yeah, let’s do it. Let’s do it.

GREG CURTIS: outta tune too. Let’s do it.

JOHN SNELL: Well, so with that and you still do recording, uh, where can folks find out you have a website or, I know you

GREG CURTIS: I do have a website. Greg curtis.net is my website and I’m on Facebook. I’ll try to, uh, respond to messages and uh, you can reach me at Greg recording or greg tpt@gmail.com. Greg

trumpet

JOHN SNELL: Yeah, we’ll have all that info in case someone wants to do a recording project or play duets with you as well after hearing our conversation.

Great. Absolute honor, having you on. Great. Seeing anybody. And I can’t let you go without one last final question that I ask all of our guests.

If you could leave our audience with your [01:25:00] best piece of advice and it could be about anything, what would that be?

GREG CURTIS: Show up the night before. Be prepared. The gig starts before the red light comes on. Be prepared and when you’re there, enjoy it. Be in the moment and let it happen. That’s the best thing you could ever do, and it becomes a joyful experience. Yeah. Just be prepared.

JOHN SNELL: Yeah, absolutely. Great advice, Greg. Thank you, friend. Good seeing you.

GREG CURTIS: pleasure. Thanks John.

​

JOHN SNELL: What a fun conversation with Greg. And I mean, it’s one of those things where life happens and we used to play with each other on bands and in quintets and weddings and funerals and things almost on a, you know, several times a week. And then we probably haven’t seen each other in years. So that’s gonna change now that we reconnected through the podcast.

but as I said up front, I mean, what a, what a wealth of information Greg has in his experience with. The groups he’s played in, his, uh, pedagogy as a trumpet player and then when he got that bug to do audio, engineering and [01:26:00] recording. everything I know about Greg, uh, you saw on display, you know, never go, um, halfway.

So if you get into audio recording, what are you gonna do? Build your own studio. and I was, uh, fortunate to be around for that whole process and to see the different steps and, uh, our brass quintet played, uh, when he installed the, the sound panels to get a feel for the room, when there was still a bunch of dust and construction stuff around.

So, really cool experience, uh, also for me while he was going through that, process. you can still, uh, check out Greg, greg curtis.net. he still does a lot of, production, things, uh, live projects, uh, audio engineering, recording mastering, things like that. so you can learn more about Greg, at that website.

And we’ll have the links to that down in the show notes. and also check out our buddy Paul Literal that we mentioned, in the interview. Paul was, uh. Previous guest Hollywood Paul Literal, he’s better known as, the Uptown Horns. so rewind, go back down to Spotify or Apple Podcast playlist and [01:27:00] find Paul’s episode.

You had a lot of great stories playing with the Rolling Stones and James Brown, and you name it the B 50 twos. but by all means, please check out, Paul’s latest album, the Literal Truth. Greg, helped engineer and we’ll have the links where you can stream that or even better support another trumpet artist and purchase a download.

we’ll have the links to that in the show notes and description. Alright, as I promised on the front end of this episode, I’m going to talk a little bit about the equipment I use in case you are curious from the last interview with me. so long story short, I practice on, A three CA Bob Reeves, the Symphonic series.

it’s a three C with a 24 bore and a 24 back. Boar. So I do 99% of my practicing on that. And then it’s the complete inverse of when I’m playing. Most of the playing I do, is a lead playing in the big band. And so I use a 40 a Reeves 40 [01:28:00] s with a new 19 back boar, for most of that playing. I’d say 90% of my lead plane is on that.

And then I have a smaller mouthpiece that’s kind of a custom mouthpiece, It’s similar to the Bud Brisboy mouthpiece that Bob made, uh, similar in style. It’s not exactly like it, but it’s like our thirty seven, thirty eight rim. I call it a 37 and a half, a fairly deep V cup similar to what Bud and Maynard Ferguson and others used.

fairly deep for the style of mouthpiece. It is, I don’t even know, it’s a fairly big back Boer as well. so I use that. When push comes to shove, I think, uh, was it Rob Roy McGregor? I think it was in Bill Bing’s episode. bill quoted, uh, Rob Roy McGregor and said, you know, security for a trumpet player means knowing that you have a one size smaller mouthpiece sitting in the case, in case you need it.

And so, my security is that custom mouthpiece, eh, when push comes to shove or there’s a, an arrangement of a big band chart that, Clearly the [01:29:00] arranger didn’t know the range of a trumpet or the endurance of a trumpet. Uh, so that’s, that’s my main mouthpiece is I use a Charlie Davis, trumpet, uh, 25 CD bell.

His signature bell. Been using that for about 10 years. Always wanted a van Lar. Chuck Finley, I use a Van Lar, R two Fugal in rose gold. One of a kind, one of my treasures is that, fugal horn, almost gifted to me from Hu Van Lar. He made me a deal I couldn’t, uh, refuse and, check out.

I, I was on a podcast with Brian Hayes, the, music Mind podcast down in Australia, a few years ago. And I was featured on Pfluger Horn on that. So if you google that, You can see me playing that rose gold flugelhorn, with, uh, dear friend Brian Hayes. I mean, I have all kinds of other equipment.

Uh, I, I love, I have an por, that I play a lot. I have a mimic, soprano trombone that I got from Noah Gladstone. He insisted I learn it if I’m gonna host a trombone. Podcast. So I got the a mimic, uh, [01:30:00] soprano trombone that I love playing. I play on a lot. I just prick picked up its little brother a sopranino mimic one of two, in the world.

A little e-flat, uh, soprano trombone. I have all kinds of fun toys, but 99% of my plane is done on the, the van Lar Flugel, the Charlie Davis horn, and either my three C 24 or 24 or my 40 s 19. So there you go. now you know more about me than anyone else in the world. that’s it for this episode.

I, as I mentioned earlier, we have Tim Larkin coming up. I have another couple other interviews in the can. Dave atmi, uh, I had plugged him earlier. He just did that project with Dave Douglas. he’s coming up on a future episode. I have, Rick Braun has agreed to do an interview, great jazz and smooth jazz, trumpet players coming up in a, in a few episodes and, uh, many, many more.

So, hit that subscribe button, hit that five star review button, and, uh, leave a comment if you’re on, uh, any of those places where you can leave a comment. I call it [01:31:00] feeding the algorithm. Right. The more you interact with, the show, the more people can see it and the more love we can spread. Okay, that’s all for this episode.

Until next time, let’s go out and make some music.