Angelica Sanchez: jazz keys and nighttime creatures

LP: I'm very excited to talk with you. I've spent a considerable amount of time with "Nighttime Creatures" over the last few days. It's such an exciting, fun record that covers a lot of territory.

Angelica Sanchez: It took some time to make.

LP: Yes, that was my understanding from reading a little about it. I wanted to ask you about the nonet format. Whenever I speak with an artist who works with an ensemble that large, I'm always surprised when it doesn't feel or sound chaotic or cumbersome. It seems like a real feat to be able to pull that off, especially when there's an improvisational element. Could you talk a bit about your pull to that format, how you assembled the cast of characters, and what the long gestation period was like?

Angelica Sanchez: Initially, I started writing for a big band and wanted to have a big band. I did have a big band performance at some point, but it was not practical in any way. It was really expensive, and I couldn't fund it myself. I don't have a private financier or anything like that. I decided to pull together some of my favorite players and settled on the nonet size because of its long history. My instrumentation is different from other nonets I'm aware of, but I love that sound. With that group, you can get a sort of chamber sound and also a larger, bigger sound, depending on the arrangement. That was both a challenge and the fun part for me. I wrote for all those specific people, not for instruments. I wrote for people.

LP: Oh, that's fascinating. And if I understand correctly, your background, your education is in arranging. Is that your specialty?

Angelica Sanchez: It's funny. Arranging was never always my thing. I didn't go to school as a young person. I tried, but it didn't work out. I just wanted to play the piano. Then, in my late thirties, I decided to go back to school. I didn't have a bachelor's degree, so I got one and then studied at the same school for a master's in jazz arranging. I chose it because I had never really studied arranging formally. It was a blast. I loved doing it and found a deep love for arranging. It was just by chance that I ended up loving composing and learning to arrange on my own, but studying with someone and seeing what many different people do was really fun. The master's degree didn't feel like work at all. I loved it.

LP: Was it a conservatory-type environment?

Angelica Sanchez: No, it was at William Paterson University, a state college. They are known for having one of the best jazz programs in the country, which is why I went there. Harold Mabern was teaching there, as was Cecil Bridgewater. I studied with David Dempsey, who runs the program. They have wonderful players teaching there, and it's a great school for music.

LP: Can you talk a little about the importance of that lineage of education? Obviously, you went back to school very deliberately. That was a conscious choice, rather than doing what many young people do by going to school right after high school. And now, being involved in education, what does that mean to you outside of just a way to sustain a life as a working artist? In the jazz tradition, there's a mixture of conservatory training and the oral tradition, the doing part of the tradition, and learning from other players.

Angelica Sanchez: Jazz education, for a long time, was mostly taught by white males. This is something that's changing now. I always tell my students, I can't teach you how to play. I won't tell you what to play, and I can't teach you how to play. I show them how to teach themselves and how to build a language. There isn't just one way to do something, and I tell a student that if someone says they have to play something one way, they should find another teacher. It doesn't allow any room for the student to learn about their likes and dislikes.

Jazz education is evolving. Many universities and conservatories are realizing they want professors and teachers who are actively creating music today. For a long time, those teaching weren't the ones making the music. You can't show someone something you don't do yourself. That is starting to change. That's why I'm working and have a job teaching. I have the unique experience of going through a jazz education program geared towards playing. You play a lot in that program because that's the only way to learn — to play, with guidance, of course.

Jazz education is more than just understanding chords and their relationship to music. I teach students how to teach themselves and how to make their intent clear, and I teach them the history of it. I tell them to look at what others have done, find what they like the most, put it under a microscope, and then expand on that. And then, after 20 years, they might sound like themselves, if they're lucky. There's no guarantee. That's how I approach it.

LP: What was your early piano education like, even as a younger person taking piano lessons? What was your introduction to being a student, and what was that experience like for you?

Angelica Sanchez: I started taking piano lessons when I was ten years old because my brother did, and I wanted to do what he did. It was just a local woman who taught us. A lot of those horrible method books they make children learn from—I hated those books. The education wasn't great, but as a kid, I got to go somewhere every week and learn something new.

Things really changed for me when my father introduced me to his record collection. That's when I started to get really serious. I began playing along with records, trying to form bands, and learning standards, even though I had no idea what I was doing at the time. A professor from the local university came to my high school, heard me play, and offered me free lessons once a month at the college. So, my father would drive me to the college for these lessons. It was really lovely, and thinking about it now, it was something great that he did. His name is Chuck Marohnic, and I believe he still lives in Kentucky. I realize now, many years later, that this experience really gave me a leg up from all my friends because I was learning about the music from a great player early on.

Around 16, I started applying for music camps in the summer—jazz camps—because I knew I had to get out of the city I was in. I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, and there weren't a lot of opportunities for me at that point. There were a couple of local youth bands, like a big band, but beyond that, not much.

I started going to these summer camps and gained a lot of experience. The first one was in Aspen with a saxophone player named Paul Jeffries, who played with Thelonious Monk. Then the second one I went to was Banff in Canada. That was the big one where I was exposed to Muhal Richard Abrams, Jim Hall, Kenny Wheeler, and other wonderful musicians. We could talk with them, play with them, and learn from them, and it was a month-long program.

At that point, I knew I wanted to be a jazz musician or at least play music. I wasn't sure. Right around that age, a local jazz group came to my grade school and played in the cafeteria. It must have been a terrible gig for those guys. I don't remember who it was.

I remember feeling like they were playing just for me. All the other kids were going crazy, but I was fixated. I ran home to my father and asked if he still had those old jazz records. He did, and he just let me devour them. But I knew then—I told him I wanted to be a jazz piano player. And they were like, "Okay." He was a working-class guy, but both my parents loved music, so they were supportive.

LP: What was in that record collection?

Angelica Sanchez: My father loved George Shearing. He had records of the Modern Jazz Quartet, a lot of Dave Brubeck, Willie Bobo, and Tito Puente. He had all the Jobim records and Stan Getz. I wore them out as a kid.

LP: He had a really cool sound.

Angelica Sanchez: Yeah, it's a great sound. I still have a deep love for Brazilian music even today. But he would take me once a month and let me pick out a new record. It was a great experience. I didn't know what I was choosing when I picked it based on the cover. The first record I bought was a Yellowjackets record when I was about 13, and the second one was an Oscar Peterson record. I was randomly picking up these cool things. Eventually, I found everyone else.

Marian McPartland's show became syndicated, and jazz was on the radio around when I was 14. People don't realize, if you grow up in a town where there isn't a lot of jazz, that radio is really like a lifeline. I learned so much from listening to her programs.

LP: Yeah, it's interesting about Marian's show. Radio has that unique ability to come into your home. All you have to do is explore on the dial or have it set there because you were listening to the news or whatever. And then a few hours later, there's this signal from another world. She played that role for a lot of people, bringing a lot of interesting music into homes that probably would not have otherwise encountered it.

Angelica Sanchez: Absolutely. I learned a lot about the language of jazz from hearing her program. I used to have a tape recorder attached to the radio, and I could record shows. I would sit there and press record all day long. My parents were really supportive. At some point, they were like, "Maybe you should go outside." And I was like, "Nope, I'm going to sit here and practice because that's what I want to do." They were okay with that.

LP: Something else that's really neat about what you just told me is the idea of coming across records or acquiring them without any larger context. The idea that you grabbed a Yellowjackets record and an Oscar Peterson record without getting bogged down in external expectations or ideas of what's high and low art or what's proper. You have to form your aesthetic. That's a really neat thing to do without having to bear the baggage of a tradition or a school of thought.

Angelica Sanchez: As a Mexican American, in many ways, finding your footing is always a gray area. It's just where you came from. But I invented my universe through that. I invented my own identity in the music. Nobody was telling me what I should or shouldn't listen to. One record, just like one good book, leads you to the next. I would get a record, read the liner notes, learn everyone's name on it, and then get records from all those people.

Eventually, I found my way to Thelonious Monk and Geri Allen. I was about 16 when I discovered Geri Allen, and that really resonated with me. At that point, people were starting to tell me, "You play differently. You shouldn't play that way." But when I heard Geri Allen, someone with her own language but definitely coming out of the Monk school, I thought, "No, I'm not going to listen to anybody." Around 16, I just stopped listening to teachers, stopped studying with people, and just worked on the things that I loved, practiced, and played a lot. I tried to play as much as I could with all kinds of people. That's why I started doing the summer camps, and I had access to people.

LP: I don't want to make any assumptions. I have some ideas, but when people said you were playing differently, what was it they were trying to bring out of you? What were they hearing that was, for lack of a better way to say it, objectionable to them, or what did they want you to stop doing?

Angelica Sanchez: I can't speak for them, but I think it was the way I was interpreting the language, the way I was interpreting bebop language, because I learned bebop language or the way I was interpreting rhythm. It wasn't what they were used to. At that point, I was already listening to Keith Jarrett, Dewey Redman, and Geri Allen. That was my reference, and that was the music that attracted me. You're studying with older people who are coming from a different tradition. So, that's why I don't tell students what to play. I say, make sure that your intent is clear. If it's not clear, think about it, or I'll help you make it clear. As a teacher, that's what we're supposed to do. But, of course, the student has to have a foundation. I had a foundation and was forming my ideas about the shapes I wanted to use or how I approached the language. If I wanted to use the language in an abbreviated way, or in a way that was more angular or disjointed, that was not something that was widely supported. That's when I dropped out of college. I thought this was not for me.

LP: Yeah, I think you got a better education from Monk and Geri Allen. (laughter) You weren't going to get that anywhere else at that point. Something else you said really landed for me because it took me back to being a child and taking piano lessons. You didn't quite say it this way, but the way I heard it, the way I felt it was that you said something about learning what you like and didn't like. I'm of the same generation where my piano lessons were with a stern older lady who didn't make it fun in any way. It was a year of lessons before I was even really allowed to play the piano. It was like drawing notes in theory books. As a six- or seven-year-old, you couldn't ask me to do anything less fun. So, the way I heard what you said was, it took me years to learn what I liked.

My piano lessons were always defined by what I didn't like, and that made doing them a drag, and it sapped them of that essential fun and joy. For years, I lived in New York, in Brooklyn, and my kids were raised there for the early part of their lives. My son took piano lessons at a school that was the exact opposite. It was very much play-based. His first lesson, he came home and pecked out a little four-note melody on the piano, but it gets you going, right? You get to hear yourself making something that actually has some, and you make a little song. And when it was time to learn about rhythm, they sat him at a drum. It was very engaging. I'm grateful that the pedagogy has evolved. (laughter)

Angelica Sanchez: Especially with little ones, it has to be. There was a time in my life when I taught little kids to get by. I would have three to five-year-olds. Often, parents would come and say, "Little Timmy hates music because he had a really bad piano teacher," someone who was not fun. So, I started to develop ways of reaching younger kids who can't sit still. How can you make this fun for them? How can you bring the music to someone so little? I learned that they already have the music inside them. It's already there in their heads. You have to not talk down to a kid and show them a clear path to how to get that music out of their head. I did the same thing. I would have little five-year-olds writing tunes. Then, I might write it out for them and say, "Oh, the first note of your song is on the first line. Let's learn the name of that first line." And then I would stop right there. You have to ease a child into it, but they were so excited to make something. Yeah, I'm happy to hear your children are having good musical experiences.

LP: One of the most fun things about that experience was that every year, instead of doing a recital, they did a gig, and the teachers in the school formed the backing band. Each semester, the kid learns the song they're going to lead the band with, and it's really fun to watch—an hour of kids from six to high school age picking the song or picking the song with their teacher. Because, obviously, there's nothing like sitting in front of a band. When the drummer kicks in, it's a whole different thing. It's fun.

Angelica Sanchez: Yeah, it lights the fire. Getting to play live music with grown-ups sounds wonderful.

LP: So you said you were 10 and you had this moment of realizing you wanted to do what those folks were doing. Were you tunnel-visioned? Were you still into the pop music of your day? What was your musical appetite like?

Angelica Sanchez: I loved all kinds of music as a kid. I would go to hear U2, Elton John, or Culture Club. But as I got a little older, I found McCoy Tyner and remember spending years in the dark, in my room, blasting Coltrane, much to my poor mother's dismay. My friends weren't into that. At that point, I wasn't that interested in pop music, but I became more interested in it later. Now, I love all kinds of pop music from different countries. I loved the music of the '80s. I played club dates in the Southwest at a club called Casuals, but I also played at weddings and bars. So, I learned all that music. I love R&B music. I got to play a lot of it as a kid. So, I learned it. I knew all of it. I was also lucky to have an older sister who's 18 years older than me. She introduced me to all the music of the '60s. So, I got to learn that music, too.

LP: Oh, that's amazing. Having that musical mentor, and it sounds like you had a few just within your own family, helped you find all those avenues to explore.

Angelica Sanchez: Yeah, everyone loved music. I was the only musician.

LP: I read a little bit, but I would love to hear in your own words the inspiration for "Nighttime Creatures." Listening to the title track, it's almost literal. I can hear the opening passage; there's that spine-tingling feeling of it being dark out, with sounds out there, and what is it? It's very evocative. Could you talk about the genesis and the inspiration?

Angelica Sanchez: Naming things is always difficult for me. It had other names before that. As I was putting the record together, eventually, at the very end stage of rehearsing and playing with these guys, I finally figured out what it should be called. It's like having a kid and waiting to name it until you see it. That's how it was for me. I live part-time up at Woodstock. Just being out in the dark when there's no light pollution is a totally different experience. I used to think, "Hey, I want to live in the woods." Then I moved to the woods and thought, "This is scary." I realized what a city person I was at that point. So, I named it much later in the process. I had to take a step back, like when you're too close to a painting and you don't see everything. I had to step back to see how I wanted to shape this body of work, the mood, and everything. It became very clear to me, so "Nighttime Creatures" came out of that. It's funny; other people have said they almost hear this literal "Nighttime Creatures." So maybe I did, too, and I thought, "Oh yes, this is the right title." The title came much later, so I don't know how that works.

LP: I love talking with instrumental artists about their approach to naming their works. I find so many interesting stories, from the dismissive to almost a hands-off approach. Like, think of a Miles Davis-type approach where it's, "I just let the producer name them," or "I don't really care. I just come up with phrases. I walk around with a notebook of phrases and throw them at songs, and that's fine." Others are very deliberate and almost narrative. Literally, yeah, narrative-based. And this song means a specific thing. Do you have an approach? Do you start with a theme or a narrative concept? Or does that get shoehorned in later? Or is it not that binary for you?

Angelica Sanchez: Titles usually come after a composition. I don't always know what a composition is going to be until I finish it. I don't map out what things are going to be. Often, with the process for the nonet, I would bring things to rehearsal, hear the band play, and then realize, "Oh, I need to make changes." I would go back and make changes. I didn't change the content; I left that alone, but I might change how I arrange something or a voicing, or I might add a section. I had the luxury of shaping it like we played concerts and we did a live recording. We had a lot of opportunities to play. It gave me a chance to really sculpt the music over about five or six years. And by year four, I had figured out what it was going to be, right? And then I had most of the titles early on. But then some of them came later, like "Nighttime Creatures."

And as I figured out, when I finally finished it, at some point, you have to say, "Okay, this is finished. I'm not going to keep editing." But there isn't a set way. I don't have a set way of composing, and I don't have a set way of titling things. I try to let those things evolve and appear to me. The music's already there for me. I have to get myself out of the way to receive it, and then put it on the page, and then figure out how to tell people, "These notes on the page, you don't have to read all of them if you don't want to." Sometimes, I do want them to read through a composed section, but other times, they can take liberties with that music. So it's a tricky, always evolving, moving situation. I want the music to move forward, to have a forward motion.

LP: In the nonet context, do you provide charts for each player? Like, are they getting written pieces?

Angelica Sanchez: Oh yeah, everyone has charts. I wrote charts for all the music. Within the chart, I can take liberties. There are moments when I won't know what they're going to do. As a composer a lot of composers want to have that control, but I don't necessarily want control. I don't want it. I want the excitement of not knowing what's coming.

LP: That's amazing. So you're not precious about it.

Angelica Sanchez: No, I don't believe it to be precious. I wouldn't say I like playing precious music. Life isn't precious in that sense. So, I didn't want the music to be either. People need to be able to take liberties. I can't tell you how many scores I've thrown in the garbage because I'll make another one. There are more ideas. There's more to it. If I don't like it, I'll throw it out. Music is life, right? It's moving, it's alive, it's evolving. And I always want the music that I get the opportunity to play to have that feel, that feeling to it.

LP: I've seen the theme of being alive, life, and movement come up a few times in quotes of yours, in the press material for this album, and in other snippets I've read of yours. Have you always felt that the well was bottomless in terms of source material or inspiration, or did you come to that after years of creating? Were you ever worried that you wouldn't be able to generate or channel?

Angelica Sanchez: Maybe channeling. I treat it as a meditation. If your mind is cluttered in a way that doesn't allow you to get to whatever art you want to make, then that's something you have to work on. And that's something that I've definitely worked on. I tell the story of when I first started studying Tai Chi. I used to work a job I didn't like for money, like in an office, but across the street was a Tai Chi center. I would go there almost every day. Like the first class, you do horse stance. I didn't know anything about Tai Chi, but it's just one move.

You're holding this movement, right? And your thighs really ache. And he just made me do it for the whole hour. And in that hour, just holding this one position, I would have to stop and restart. I realized I had no idea what it meant to focus. Through that practice, my focus got really clear, and that spread to every aspect of my life, including music. Then I realized what it meant to be in the moment, to have that focus, that meditation, right? And not be concerned with what you sound like. If you're concerned with what people think and what you sound like, you're never going to get to the music. You might get to fame and fortune, but that has nothing to do with music. So, through that practice, I learned what was important to me. I never have an existential crisis or those types of issues because I don't play that game. I'm just in it to connect with people and to make the best music I can make. So, I treat it as a meditation.

LP: Practically speaking, as a composer, are you the type who, much like a writer, gets up in the morning and dedicates the next three hours to putting something down on the page? It may be crap, but you're going to do it because you have to create the space to do it. Or are you going about your day, and then inspiration strikes, and you drop everything? Like, how do you create the environment?

Angelica Sanchez: I've had a busy life, like a lot of people, so I do schedule time for myself. I have a little one-bedroom cabin that I rent up in the woods, and it doesn't have the internet. It's fantastic. I just have paper and pencil, or I'm reading. I read a lot. I don't need to be prolific. I'm writing for people. I have to have these situations that I create for myself. I don't write for random instruments anymore. Maybe I did when I was learning. But yes, I do like to schedule a certain time of day.

I teach full-time, so some days I don't get to it. But on the days I have off, I schedule time and turn off the phone, sit and play, and practice. I still practice the piano. I'll sit and write. There's always something I'm working on for composition. The new thing is I have a poet friend. I heard her poems, and I want to put some of them into music for choir. That's something I might spend an hour on. It might take several years to come out, or it might turn into something else. It's important to do whatever it is that you love every day, even for a moment. I play the piano every day, even if it's not for long. But it's not set like scheduling. It's too crazy. I have an 18-year-old, and I still travel sometimes, so I put it where I can. Sometimes I'll stay at school until 11 o'clock or midnight because I can work and no one will bother me. I love to work in the middle of the night, between 11 and the morning. That's my time.

LP: Great time, yeah.

Angelica Sanchez: It's quiet.

LP: I want to ask about a couple of tracks on the record. Could you tell me about "C.B. The Time Traveler?"

Angelica Sanchez: Oh sure, "C.B. The Time Traveler" is for Carla Bley, Carla Bley the Time Traveler. She was definitely ahead of her time. She was really important to me. As I was putting this record together, I would hear things and think, "Oh, that sounds like Carla." I really heard Carla in the way I was writing or voicing things. She was always very generous and would send me scores. We weren't close friends or anything, but she was always really generous. She wrote a blurb for my first solo record, which she didn't have to do. I thought that was really lovely of her. Every time I asked her for a score, she would send it to me. She never charged me, and that's how we're supposed to share with each other on earth. If anyone ever asks me for a lesson or a score, I always give it to them. It's not our music. She did get to hear it before she passed. I sent her an early, unmastered version, and I was told they played it for her, so I was happy she knew I made that dedication for her. She's someone important who I always think never got as much attention as she deserved.

LP: The Ellington composition comes at such an interesting time on the record because it's almost like an intermission or a small break. That's how it landed for me. The first time I went through the album, I didn't pay total attention. I usually like just to put it on and see what jumps out at me. That Ellington interlude stopped me in my tracks because the record was doing one thing, and then it changed tone. I love that in music and art in general. Could you talk about that composition in particular, like why that song, why in the context of this record?

Angelica Sanchez: I think songs are like family members. That was a particular song that I've loved for many years. You live with these songs, you learn them. It's one of the more unusual Ellington pieces. The harmony is a little bit different. People don't necessarily guess that it's his piece when they hear it for the first time. There's another piece of his called "The Sleeping Lady and The Giant That Watches Over Her," and I play it in a trio form, and no one ever guesses it's Ellington because it's still modern-sounding. He was such a forward thinker and revolutionary with the way he arranged things and pushed forms. He is the line between Duke Ellington and Mary Lou Williams, Cecil Taylor, and Monk. So I've always loved his music. I love the Latin American Suite.

So, I felt strongly about including this piece, and I arranged it in a way that connects to live music. Not that I'm presumptuous to say I'm part of that lineage, but he's definitely someone important to me, as is Mary Lou Williams. I decided to include it and not deconstruct the melody or do anything that I normally do with pieces. But, of course, I changed the mood of it a little bit.

LP: That's what stood out for me. It was not deconstructed. And that's a great way to say it. Yeah, it was so much more straightforward than some of the other pieces on the album that preceded it. However, I love the rest of the record, too. It's interesting about Ellington because he is such a modern figure, yet there are corners of the music world that view him as ancient history. But he is such a transitional figure. It's strange to have been a foundational figure as well as continue to work for so long that we almost don't talk about his work enough.

Angelica Sanchez: People talk about his work and make it sound like ancient history, but he was really revolutionary in the way he pushed things musically. And I don't have this idea that there's such a difference between what people call straight-ahead and other forms. When you listen to Ellington speak, they didn't even use the word "jazz." They just used the word music. We want to make good music. There are no categories. And that's what people always say. Someone interviewed me recently and said, "Oh, I didn't know you would be interested in playing swing." And I thought it's just music. I don't see this divide between worlds. It's all one world. It's all music. It's how sometimes people get tunnel vision. Just let the music flow over you, like the wind or water. Try not to judge it. That's really hard for people to do because people love to judge things.

LP: And sort them and categorize them.

Angelica Sanchez: Yeah, doing that. So when you meet someone that you have trouble categorizing, you either get pushed aside or people will pan you because they don't know where to put you. That happens a lot.

LP: Often, as listeners, we don't think of ourselves as like, "Well, I only listen to jazz, or I only listen to the Beatles or whatever it is." It's strange that we project that onto our artists, that they should not reflect what listeners do as well. Of course, if you love music, some people want to explore a form or a genre or a subgenre. And I understand that it is a curiosity and an affinity, but there's also this holistic approach of it is just music. And that's something that I find very exciting about the modern instrumental music landscape. There's such a blurring of what I've referred to as uptown downtown or experimental and traditional or electro-acoustic. It's a particularly exciting and interesting time. There are so many interesting players doing so many interesting things in such a vibrant community. Do you feel that from where you sit?

Angelica Sanchez: I think there are a lot more people doing things. The category of jazz all started; it was named after the fact. People making the music didn't use that word, but it was innovation. So if you want to talk about what the tradition is, it's innovation. A lot of people would argue with me about that. A lot of people want the language of what happened before to stay static and stay the same, but it can't. That's one thing I love about teaching. I see the next generation, and they're going to do things I never thought of. And that's exciting to me. I teach jazz history and tell people, "This is where the music came from, but I can't tell you where it's going." I have no idea where it's going to go. So that's exciting to me. But yes, I see improvisation, just that term, being expanded across all kinds of different people. And I hate to say genre because I don't like to think genre. But yeah, I'm feeling this too. There are a lot of, especially younger folks, coming up with just different things. They've had the freedom to explore, and that's really hopeful to me.

LP: Yeah, it's very hopeful. One other track I wanted to ask you about because I was not familiar at all… could you talk about Armando Carvajal?

Angelica Sanchez: I tried to research him. There isn't a lot of information on him. He was Chilean. I found this song, this tune, this composition rather, in a children's book. It was in one of these old children's books from the '30s or '40s that I had picked up in a second-hand store. The pieces were just beautiful. And I thought, "This is really beautiful. I want to include this." But I wasn't able to find out too much about him. He doesn't have any internet presence, a little bit. I have not found anyone who knows him. You can find people on YouTube playing some of his pieces, but there's really not a lot of information. I just fell in love with this little piece. So I played it myself and thought, "Yeah, I want to include this." I connected with his language, this sort of lyrical language. 

LP: You mentioned earlier that you've been able to perform with the ensemble. That was something I was curious about. Is there a live performance future for this music? Or do the economics prohibit that? How do you think about this particular ensemble as a living entity?

Angelica Sanchez: We were fortunate to play concerts here and there for over five or six years. I would love to play more with this group. It's expensive. You need money to make things go. So it's something I'm working on. The guys always ask me, "Are we going to play again?" And I'm like, "Hopefully sometime soon," but it requires planning and funding. That's just the reality of life. But yeah, I hope to play. Now that the music has traveled so far with these great people that I get to play with, I would love to see where it could go. In the old days of a band going on the road and playing the same music for three months, that doesn't happen anymore. So, it took me five or six years to create that same feeling with such a large group of people. So I would love to see where we could push it, where we could take it further past this recording.

LP: One could imagine, even after a few weeks on the road, what this ensemble would sound like. It'd be hot.

Angelica Sanchez: Oh yeah. It's super fun.

LP: I wish that for you.

Angelica Sanchez: Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, I'm working on it for sure.

LP: Thank you so much for making time to do this. I've loved talking with you, and I've loved listening to the record, and I look forward to more of it.

Angelica Sanchez: Oh, I can't thank you enough. Thanks for having me. Thanks for listening.