Katie Ernst: bass notes and murder ballads

(This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.)

LP: You're very busy. I looked at the calendar on your website and it's really something. I mean, it's incredible. I would imagine it's hectic and satisfying—all the good things and all the crazy things—but what's your experience like? How does it feel?

Katie Ernst: It feels really great. The pandemic gave us all a pause and in some ways that made a lot of things that were in my regular schedule fall away and left room for other things to come up. This seems to be a season of a lot of playing and traveling. It's fun. It's really cool.

LP: Yeah. That's wonderful. When I saw you out here with James as part of Wayfaring, I recall that you had borrowed a bass locally.

Katie Ernst: Yes.

LP: Is that common? Is it too difficult to travel with such a machine?

Katie Ernst: Totally. I live in Chicago, so unless I'm doing something in the Midwest where it's a driving situation, there's a gracious network of other bass players. It's pretty risky to ship a bass and it's expensive. Yeah. So I often will play a different instrument when I'm out and about.

LP: Something that struck me, because I think you mentioned that sort of at the tail end of the gig when you were wrapping up and saying 'thank yous' to everyone. And something that struck me was just the fact that you and James don't play that frequently.

It seems to be like bursts of activity because of geography and other issues. Yet there's such a beautiful interplay between each of you on your own instruments and voice as well as with each other. I'm very curious about, like, how do you just pick up somebody else's bass like that? It seems so, it seems like such an intimate relationship. I guess it's part of being a professional, but I don't know. It really struck me as it added to the magic of it.

Katie Ernst: Yeah, I mean, there is a, each bass is different. There's no standard size for bass. So, even a bass that's technically a three-quarter size will be total, like, string length will be different or the distance from string to string, the size of the body, it's all a variable.

When I have a bass that's not mine, I will just play a set of scales to figure out where the notes are and how far it goes, you know, you just get oriented. I have a set thing that I'll do just to understand where the notes are. In some ways, it shows you some other there are different qualities in different instruments that you can exploit. The bass I played in Seattle had a really nice kind of growly low situation, and so that might influence where James and I go in an improvised direction. It gives you a different, slightly different palette to work with.

LP: How about that? Do you ever get bass envy? Do you have to give one back and you're like, "Oh, I want to, I'm coming back through town for that one."

Katie Ernst: Yeah. Or you just, you're like, "Oh, I didn't know that it could feel like that." Or, "Oh, this one is really," or even like an amp. "Oh, what is, what are your settings?" So you can get, definitely get inspiration for setup and stuff like that from our bass.

LP: As someone who performs and records with so many different configurations and ensembles, in your self-conception, is there one project that's like your main project and everything else is a side to that, or are all projects created equal?

Katie Ernst: I mean there are some long-standing projects that I feel great ownership of. I have a band called Twin Talk with a drummer Andrew Green and saxophonist Dustin Laurenzi. And we've been a band for like 12 years and we've made a bunch of records and that's a very meaningful project and something that's had a lot of, we've put a lot of miles on it and we keep evolving projects.

So that's a long-term one, but it also is really exciting to be a part of other people's orbit and bands and they have different shelf lives. Maybe it's just for a record and maybe it's for a longer thing, but yeah, I kind of like the varying levels of not commitment, but maybe like the lifespan of different bands. It's like visiting a friend or something like that.

LP: It's really interesting that some projects can be these sorts of ongoing collaborations that span space and time and others have or can be allowed to have a natural lifespan, especially in the instrumental or jazz world where people come together, make a record or do some dates and, and that may be it.

Katie Ernst: Yeah, and that's really how our Wayfaring band started was a pickup improvised duo set, a short set. So I think James and I both weren't, we didn't go into it thinking, let's start a long-term, like long-distance band, but yeah, sometimes the chemistry of an ensemble will make it more than just the casual meeting of improvisers.

LP: Before I ask you more about Wayfaring, I wanted to return to Twin Talk for a second. Those records that you have up on Bandcamp, it's really beautiful and unique music. Could you tell me a little bit about, if there's an answer to the question, is there a lineage that you see that band in? It seems so unique to me and I wonder if do you set it in any kind of a context or lineage?

Katie Ernst: I think when we first started playing we were all in our like early 20s and we had just moved to Chicago and were just making kind of modern jazz like the Fly trio is like a big influence. Then I think being in the place of Chicago, being around more of the improvised music scene started to have its seeping influence.

I also did this, it's called the Betty Carter Jazz Ahead Program at the Kennedy Center in DC. It's for young composer-performers. And so I got to be around Jason Moran and he had his band, The Bandwagon, as part of the faculty. And that had a big influence on me in watching how a trio could interact and be very much independent voices, be very flexible, have a lot of trust in how they were playing, and just, you know, talking to each other.

I brought that back very specifically to our band. And I remember sitting on the floor in rehearsal and being like, "Guys, I was just in DC, and like, I saw this vibe of a band and it's really free and they can go in any direction. And I feel like we should, we should go there." That kind of changed the question that we were asking as a band instead of like, "How do we play a good version of a composed song that we wrote?" to, like, "What can we do with that song to make things perpetually alive and risky and changing?" So, yeah, that was a big moment in the band's trajectory was when we made the rules of the game more about hinging open songs and finding places where things can happen, be surprising and unexpected.

LP: I love saxophone trios or saxophone-based trios. It's just, it's such an amazing vehicle. It's exciting when they get fiery, but there's also this ability to explore delicacy in that format that is really special.

Katie Ernst: I think so too. Yeah. There's a lot of textural possibilities in a cordless trio format. And Dustin is a real colorist then, Andrew is, he really has very specific cymbal sounds and toys and things to Yeah, it's a very sound-focused band. From most skronky to very delicate—it's all in play, yeah.

LP: When I look across some of your other projects, it seems as though Dustin in particular is one of those characters that he can pick up almost any instrument and make it have sound. At least that's my impression from reading the credits. While I admire it so much, makes me infuriated. His synth work is beautiful though. And is it Edith Judith? Yeah, that again, like the, I think if there's a meta-theme that emerges for me, listening to all your different projects is just, there's such a sonic palette and that... "vibe" is the wrong word. It's not a great word, but there's a sensuousness, a really nice analog warmth to all your projects. So it's just that I'm picking up what you're putting down.

Katie Ernst: Yeah, especially for the Edith Judith band, we would refer to the different songs as what kind of sound world they would have to be overall. What's the sound world of this record? And it turned out to be a real combination of this acoustic real instrument sound, and then these, a very specific synth palette. So kind of like the real and the surreal were twined together in a pretty intentional way. They came out sound worlds a lot.

LP: What was the sound world you grew up with? What was young Katie listening to?

Katie Ernst: I'm smiling because I grew up with really supportive parents who weren't particularly into music. They didn't dislike it, but it just wasn't like they didn't have like a super deep collection of stuff or anything. So I remember being in the brown two-toned Aerostar minivan and listening to, this is true, a Kenny G cassette tape that they got at a gas station.

LP: Wow.

Katie Ernst: And it was fun, you know, I was like, I was vibing to it, whatever. But I also have all these fake memories of when I thought my music my parents liked. Like, I thought my dad really liked The Temptations, but I think maybe he just said he knew what that band was, or he knew a song, and in my mind he was like, "Oh, okay, my dad likes The Temptations." I like them too. So, I got into jazz music on a whim. I remember going to the library a lot and just checking out a bunch of CDs and putting them on my Walkman or whatever, you know? So I think I was just given a lot of space to go do whatever. I spent a lot of time blindly listening to a lot of different jazz music because that was what was in Disc Replay or in the jazz section of the library. I just took a lot in and then learned about it after the fact.

LP: Yeah. When you walk into the library and you're exploring the CDs, can you take yourself back? Well, let me preface this by saying, I remember very similar experiences. The format was different. They were LPs, but I can very explicitly remember going to the public library. I actually got scolded because I came home with a pile of records instead of a pile of books. I loved reading. I still do. It was never like, it was no statement of rebellion on my part, but records are records like that. I'm going to get sucked in. And so I very specifically remember two things, having some vague familiarity with an artist's name. So it's like, I'll grab that one. Enchanted by the world of the album art and the covers and being I don't know what's going on there, but I'm going to take a peek inside. Jazz isn't obvious though, right? Like, so what grabbed you?

Katie Ernst: I'm still not sure. I'll look back someday and be like, this was the moment. I think it was one of those weird kid things where I just like, heard the word or something, or at some point in my little brain, I decided I like jazz. And my parents were like, "Okay, here's a hit that like, go for it." I started playing the double bass when I was nine at a public music school program. I think I thought it was cool that the bass player played in the orchestra and the jazz band.

So I'm like, maybe that was what seemed, I liked how they were going from thing to thing. Once I heard it and a little bit of it, and I think it was reinforced of like, this is cool. I like to be in this sound world. I feel like I ended up with a lot of compilation CDs because that's what I did. That's what people give away at Disc Replay and places like that.

So I remember getting a nice sampler of, there was a Dizzy Gillespie recording of a song, it's like a shanty, an old shanty town or something. And it had this, guitar, Brazilian beat to it. And I was just obsessed. So I listened to it, that one song a lot. I just liked how that sounded. And I would listen to the intro a lot. And Billie Holiday singing "Solitude" on some like Women In Jazz voice compilation, you know, like thinking about it. Yeah. It's, I think I just liked this. I liked the sounds I was hearing. I didn't have a real deep guide of like, you should check this out and you should do this. And this is why this is cool. And I think I really appreciate that now that I had this kind of uninfluenced just absorption of different kinds of sound palettes.

LP: Yeah, I love the idea of the lack of context around this music discovery that way. I can remember the radio played a big role in that, like everything from the weird stations down at the left end of the dial all the way up through classic rock and public radio. Just listening to so much stuff and not really understanding and never caring about a difference between high and low art or avant-garde and mainstream and it was just all, it was just all sound and music and voices coming from somewhere else. I cherish that so much to think back on it. Certainly don't fetishize it, but just so grateful to have had that.

But the other thing that's really interesting is you talked about all those compilations, all those CD compilations, and as you were talking about it, the thought that popped in my head was, that was somebody's job. Like, now everybody, we all get to make compilations, we're these playlist auteurs, and I guess we had it with mixtapes, but the idea that like somebody got up in the morning, took a shower, ate breakfast, had coffee, went to the office and was like, "I have to make the Ultimate Women in Jazz compilation from our catalog, what do we have?" That's a great gig. I dig that. Unless they didn't care. Unless they weren't into Women In Jazz. (laughter)

Katie Ernst: I wonder if it was less romantic and more functional, but let's say it was, somebody really was into it.

LP: It was the dream. (laughter) So at nine, standing there next to the double bass, I'm not totally familiar with Eastman. I mean, I know of Eastman, but I don't know a lot about what the pathway is or the curriculum is. Did you have to study the classical canon as well as jazz or was it more conservatory Western classical tradition?

Katie Ernst: Eastman is historically a classical music conservatory. When I was going there, I was accepted as a jazz double bass major, but for the first few years, they have you study with the classical professor and do classical music. I think at the time it was like, so that you could then prove that you could play music and then you could go play jazz. You know, it was like kind of a holdover from a different time, I think. But it since has flipped so that jazz majors study jazz for four years. But for me, that was awesome because I didn't have super intense classical bass training.

I played in an orchestra, and I took bass lessons to get ready for my classical audition for college, but I was pretty green on the facility and that style of playing with a bow and playing like super shreddy melodies. I feel bad for the very established double bass professor who had to have me in his studio, but I got a lot out of it. So that was cool. The jazz department was very jazz-focused after that, but it's cool. It was really intense. It is a really intense place to learn about music. I think it was really a good place for me because I just needed to get good at the bass. I did.

LP: Man, Rochester's cold. The last time I was there was decades ago, but it was like the end of June and it was freezing.

Katie Ernst: Oh no. Funny because when I was going to go to Rochester for school, everyone here said, "Oh, it's cold, look out." And then when I came to Rochester, I said, I was from Chicago and all the Rochester people were like, "Oh, Chicago's so cold. Look out!" From one to the other. It was a wash.

LP: I love Chicago. I feel like if it can still be underrated, I feel as though it is, it's such a wonderful place. But I do sort of have this policy of like there's very narrow windows of the calendar year when I'll go there because it gets so cold and we're sort of nearing the end of when I'll go. The next four to six weeks might be the end of when I would be willing to visit. It's such a beautiful city though.

Katie Ernst: It is and it feels so like I grew up in a suburb of Chicago. And my parents are both Chicagoans and I didn't think I would be here forever because I wanted to play jazz. And so I was going to go to one of the coasts and that was the idea. So I moved to Chicago after school just for a year-long internship at the Jazz Institute of Chicago.

And I figured then I would go do something. But when you're 18, you don't know what the jazz scene is like in a city because you can't even go to the places where it exists, you know? Like, once I was here and I started looking around and like educating myself about this place that I'm in, it was like, "Oh, this is the kind of music I'm interested in."

And I like the way that people are talking about music and the values that people have here and the way that they're approaching music feels really resonant with me. I was sheepish about how I was gonna just Here is the rest of the edited transcript:

be here and bounce and now it's, I'm 100 percent here forever now. This is a really special place that fits really beautifully with how I think about music and community and stuff like that.

LP: Could we explore that a little more? I'd love to know what some of those resonances are, I'm so fascinated about the idea of place as it relates to artists and where they work and the choices they make and the choices that become available to them, but because of place, especially you mentioned the word values, like what's resonant there for you?

Katie Ernst: I heard an interview one time with a friend and mentor of mine, Mike Reed. He was talking about Chicago as being a place where it's not a place that you, and I'm gonna paraphrase quote, this is what I remember it being, Chicago not being a place that you go to be famous, or it's not a place if you're seeking like jazz fame, that's very conducive to that.

Like you said, Chicago's underrated. I think it might be under radar-ed. In some ways it's like, it gives you the space to be left alone and to work on the things that you are interested in, in an environment that is able to hold it. Like if I dreamt up a new band, I could certainly put it together and present that music in a few different places without concern. You know what I mean? Like, there's enough space here where it doesn't feel, feel like there's a ton of different scenes that you could be a part of within the scene.

There's a kind of value in collaboration. There's a value in having a lot of freedom within the music. I have generally been welcomed into the improvised world in a really warm and encouraging way. I feel like I play with people that aren't just my age and there's enough of these little like smaller pockets or orbits of music making that you can be in a few of them without it being hostile. Yeah. For me, it has felt really open-handed. I don't feel pressured to sound a certain way. I like it.

LP: You talked about if you had an idea or if you fired up a project, you'd have and there'd be some stages to go play on. I assume that also means there are places, there are players, but there's also an audience. Like you find that there's appetite.

Katie Ernst: I think so. I mean, I feel like there's a really beautiful crew of people that love the music. And I learn a lot from them too. You know, like there's a whole scene of like photographers that come and take pictures at shows and it feels. It feels sustainable.

LP: It's certainly not lacking in tradition. I mean, there's such a legacy of whether it's avant-garde or just it's a, it's a study in 20th century and beyond music. It's an incredible place. How did you and James meet?

Katie Ernst: I think we first played when I subbed for his church music band. It was kind of like a funny context for two improvisers to be playing because it was a very specific style of music. I think James was just playing keyboards. So, we met, I played a bass, and then I think our first playtime was a trio thing.

James had been commissioned to write something for the Archibald Motley Art Exhibit that was happening at the Cultural Center, and we played some music there, and then our first band moment. There was a nine duos night and at in Chicago. Yeah, it was kitschy and so I was asked to pick a duo partner and play a short improvised thing.

That was pretty soon after James and I had done the church thing and we had played a little bit. I was like, "Oh! Should I ask James?" 'Cause he's a little bit older than I am, and he's more of a cat on the scene. And I was like, I don't know. Is that weird? I felt like I was like asking him to prom or something. You know what I mean? I was like, maybe you want to play a duo with me? And he was like, "Yeah, whatever. That's fine."

LP: It's like, it's what I do. (laughter)

Katie Ernst: I was like, "Oh, thanks!" And then I think when he saw who else was playing and it was like his peers, he was like, "Oh, we should rehearse. Let's get together." And so this doesn't sound bad.

So we both brought in, I think we brought in a song or two and we improvised and talked about how we imagined it sounding and it went well. It was cool. It was a pretty immediate blend of two distinct personalities. And I think the encouragement of it being a presentation for a lot of other improvisers, it was kind of like, "Hey, that was cool."

So then we played again and we, I think were invited to play at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival and that's how we got our band name because we needed to put a band name down.

LP: Something on the poster.

Katie Ernst: Yeah. And we were doing a version of "Wayfaring Stranger" and that seemed like a good kind of metaphor for the band. And then we were off and then we're like, "Well, if we're going to play a gig, we should make a record." And now if we have a record, we should play more shows and then many years later, here we are.

LP: Tell me this, given all the different traditions that you both have functional experience in and knowledge of and facility with, how did the folk element present itself or rear its head? Like that seems like those spooky, crazy melodies and how did that become the focal point?

Katie Ernst: The focal point... (thinking deeply)

LP: You know, after you did the nine duos thing, I feel like it's free range! (laughter)

Katie Ernst: Yeah, I think between James's Irish Celtic whistles and things and coming from like the hymn tradition, maybe that like the hymn folk song thing kind of emerged.

And because I sing in the band and it's a pretty specific instrumentation, like these folk melodies that have like a drone underneath. I wonder if the instrumentation also was like, "Oh, this works well as a vehicle for these kinds of epic ballads of things." I think a lot of those really old melodies can handle being just the melody. They could be sung a cappella. I feel like folk music has, you know, been a persistent addition to a lot of the bands that I've been involved in, maybe because I sang in it.

I think we also found a cool way of treating these kinds of longer-form songs. I'm thinking of our new record, we have a song that's an ancient Irish murder ballad called "Who Put the Blood."

LP: The showstopper.

Katie Ernst: I mean, it's just like, "Whoo!"

LP: That floored me. When you performed that in Seattle, I was like, this is, I'm going on tour with these guys. (laughter)

Katie Ernst: I mean, it's like, it's high, high drama. It really plays with the amount of density and space in relation to the story that's being told. And that's my wheelhouse, I think. It's just being very word-focused, I don't use a ton of vibrato or ornament in my voice in those kinds of songs. It's really classy. And then what happens around it being a thing that can be different from night to night? Yeah, it's a cool structure. I think we both feel good about that being a big part of our band.

LP: When James and I spoke, we talked a bit about that. So the murder ballad as a form is so fascinating. I still am not sure I fully understand like why it exists as a form, like what the social purpose was that it was fulfilling. If it was a way to talk about scary things, or if it was entertainment, or if there were lessons being communicated, like do you have any sense of like what that's about? Like why does that song exist?

Katie Ernst: Well, it's preserving the memory of it. Is it the CSI of its time?

LP: Yeah, was it news?

Katie Ernst: It could be news. It's dramatic. It's high drama. There's a version of that song in, like, all the countries of the world. You know what I mean? Or is maybe the most extreme thing, like, that is, you shouldn't murder generally across the humanity.

And then, so then what? In "Who Put the Blood," it ends with, "I'll just beg for mercy at the end of my life." And we've since added a different murder ballad to our set which is the song, "Two Sisters," or "Oh the Wind and the Rain." And that one ends with an unrepentant murdering sister. So there are two different versions where there's one who is remorseful at the end and one that has no remorse and just benefits greatly from a terrible sistericide or whatever it's called. (laughter)

Katie Ernst: Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I think it seems to be a universal theme that you like to think that you wouldn't do that or be around that, but it also is such a human thing to sing about. Intense.

LP: Yeah. When I first heard the song, that was the first time I heard it was when you performed it. And then when I went back and explored the record, cause by the way, I went to the show pretty much unaware. It's a music series up here that's sort of like, I trust what they're curating, so I'm just gonna go. It was one of the better choices I've made so far this year.

When I went back and listened to the song, the narrator is this element of, I just did it because I could. Or I was curious about what it would feel like or something you know, those were the kinds of things that were coming up. It was like there was no, it was a pointless murder.

Katie Ernst: Yeah.

LP: Chilling. (shudders) It's one thing if it's like a crime of passion or like, you know, you stole my cow or you're like whatever it was, but it just.

Katie Ernst: Which evokes a lot of, say, sexist murder. It evokes a certain feeling. It might be good to feel that thing.

LP: Unrelated but not, my significant other and I went away over the weekend to this very rural part of Washington, near a couple of hours from where we live, and we went to an old pioneer cemetery. Nobody had been buried there in quite a while. One of the tombstones was a husband and wife. It had the husband, his name, his date of birth, the wife, her name, and date of birth.

And then it said they were both murdered on the date. I had never seen a tombstone like that. That was, you know, sort of two people commemorating that incident. It was just... It was one of those things. It was like, there's a song there.

Katie Ernst: Which maybe is leading towards an answer to that question of why do we have these songs is because there is such a visceral reaction to that. It feels that shouldn't be forgotten or like, how could you do that? What are you going to do now that you've committed this crime? Like some group processing that it happens from hearing those songs or singing those songs or remembering those things. Kind of memorializing the grosser parts of people.

LP: Yeah, it's really interesting to hear that perspective because it does give me a different context of the gravestone, of the grave marker, because just the fact that exists, that's the most important thing about those people's lives that any of us in the 21st century now know, that they died in this horrible act on the same day, at the same time.

They could have been buried side by side like any other grave with their own headstones and whatever it did to their community at that time, because it was probably a very small community. It was very rural. It was on the coast. It was at best a fishing town. Like it was, it's a place that even now is barely developed. So it must have just run through their community.

Katie Ernst: That it's like, we cannot, yeah, we can't make that, this just a normal grave moment. Yeah. It feels important to remember that or to deal with that.

LP: Something else about the new Wayfaring record that is special to me as a listener is that it's one of those albums that every time I listen to it, I walk away and I'm like, "Oh, that's my favorite track now this time."

Today, my favorite track was "They Say There Wasn't Always Smoke." And yeah, you can never sort of necessarily articulate fully why anything will stand out at any given point in time, but the interplay, which I guess I spoke of earlier, seems to be the hallmark of that band. It's just the weaving that the two of you do with the instruments and with your voice. It's very special.

Katie Ernst: Yeah, thanks. It's an incredibly flexible unit to be two people because everything's inherently related to each other. Things are happening, but there's an interesting amount of structure versus freedom in the songs that we have. And like, in that song that you're talking about, there wasn't, oh, "They Say There Wasn't Always Smoke."

There is a set of pitch material that we will eventually arrive at, but it can be at different rates. There's a part where I'm kind of chasing the clarinet line with the bass part, and then we meet up. There's some kind of cool built-in choreography that feels different from show to show, but you'll probably hear those pitches.

If you came to another show, you'd be like, "Oh yeah, yeah," but the way that we would get to it would be different. So, there's more structure to it than one might initially hear, but then when you listen to it again, or you hear it live and you hear the same components, it's like, "Oh, there's more of a skeleton than just nebulous things."

So, I think James is really great at providing that really clear structure upon which we improvise in a really specific way.

LP: How long do you two need in order to fire it back up to be performance-ready? Or is it like you land in the same city and you just go on stage? I can't figure that part of it out.

Katie Ernst: After our classic hiatus, we'll get together for like an afternoon of rehearsing before.

LP: Wow.

Katie Ernst: But we had just done that run of things in the Pacific Northwest, and then a few weeks later or something, we played a show in Chicago, and we didn't really have to rehearse for that one as much. Whatever. Doesn't matter.

But, you know, as long as we both refresh our own roles. It's the familiarity you have with someone that doesn't go away just because you haven't seen them in a little while. Kind of like how you could feel close to family that doesn't live in your immediate city but when you go see them the relationship is family and you can be at a certain comfort level.

LP: It's so fascinating to talk to artists about topics like this because what is so second nature and in air quotes simple or obvious to them is sort of miraculous to the listener, right? Like the level of technique and the years of work that go into being able to not play with someone for weeks, nevermind months, with such intricate arrangement and repertoire and adventurousness to just be able to get together after an afternoon and do that, it seems so simple to you or to a way you say it is so like, "Well, yeah, and we had an afternoon, we had a whole afternoon."

Katie Ernst: Yeah. Yeah. (laughter)

LP: But to be the avatar of the audience, it's like, that's, that's incredible to be able to fire it back up that way. If you had said to me, how long do you think it takes? I'd say, "I don't know, you spent a week together? Like five days of four or five hours a day?" I don't know. That would have seemed right to me.

Katie Ernst: Yeah. Well, I'm impressed with like how you can have a podcast conversation with people. Random people immediately. We didn't even prepare for this. Here we are.

LP: Well, you didn't. (laughter)

Katie Ernst: And I get my stuff together and James gets his.

LP: That's fair. I wanted to ask you a little bit about these other set of themes that come up when I read about you and read other interviews with you, I guess broadly under the role of education, it seems to be an important part of what you do, being involved in arts education and thinking about sharing the tradition or the knowledge. Could you tell me a little bit about like, how you stumble into that as being a value and how you fit that into your life as an artist?

Katie Ernst: It's been really great to find that there are ways to be involved very deeply in arts education without being a full-time teacher. And I feel really grateful that I haven't had to like, make the choice of like, I can either work with young people or I can go be making my own music and they're separate.

I feel very much a product of a really beautiful, supportive arts education. The public school music program that I came up with was awesome and encouraging. And they had like a summer music camp scholarship that they'd give out to like a junior high kid. And so I got to go to Jazzy String Camp when I was 12. There was support for young people to go and get better at music.

I spent all four years of my high school summers going to a two-week intensive jazz camp called Birch Creek Music Performance Center. And I've taught there now for many years. It really was a very performance-based education model where the faculty makes up a professional big band and they play concerts for the public and then the students get to watch that.

So they get to watch real gigs and they get to play a lot. And so I think I came up with this idea that like professional musicians teach you how to be a professional musician and you pass on what you know, you know, like, it was a clear message to me as a young person that, like, mentoring and bringing up and supporting is, like, just what we do here.

I have worked with, like, the Jazz Institute of Chicago's education programs. I'm, like, on their education committee. It feels so clear to me that I would not be the musician I am or be in the places that I am in without that huge support, overwhelming support from a community of people older that didn't need to be supportive but chose to be, that it feels just like a natural component of my life and practice.

When I can, I, it's great to fuse those two things. Twin Talk is doing a residency at a college in Wisconsin next week, and we're going to be working with students and playing our music, and that's like a happy marriage of being an inspiring artist that's doing creative work and also being an educator that says, "You can get better at music or you can follow your own ideas."

And it just feels quite essential to have that as a component of my practice is to also be like, "You should too." You should go start a weird band in a time where it can really feel like you have to self-promote and self-manifest all of your things.

LP: Yeah.

Katie Ernst: It is very important to remember that it's generally the people around you that lift you up or push you in a good direction or push you in a bad direction and then you have to...

LP: Yeah, there's learning there too.

Katie Ernst: You know what I mean? Like, yeah, I feel very strongly about how the environment that you're in can impact the quality of your life or your trajectory. So finding ways to make more people have a good environment is very important to me.

LP: What are you seeing with the next generation of players? Are you seeing a lot of young women? Are you seeing diversity in other forms? Does it give you encouragement? I realize we'll never reach the summit of the work that needs to be done, but how do you feel?

Katie Ernst: I'll say I have done a lot of guest artist-type things, like guest clinicians at jazz festivals. And so I've seen a lot of high school big bands. When I was in high school, there were far fewer women per band, and there definitely weren't any women that were in the role that I am in now being the clinician. I'm glad to be a part of it, and I understand the importance of just me being there, in the body that I have, to connect with people is great.

It feels like there's more, I see more girls playing the bass, and seems like we're going in a good direction. If anything, I view my role as like representative as just to be, just to like the fact that I exist in my realm is like, "There you go. There's you—be inspired." I'm going to make this music over here. You know what I mean? Like we're still working towards the summit, like you said. But I definitely feel at least there are some questions being asked now like, "Oh, well, maybe we should have a woman be a clinician sometimes too." I feel like there's a lot of really exciting young artists making things. My general message is to follow you—the things that light you up or the things that you're curious about. And if your music doesn't sound like other people's, that's awesome. And you should make it. Girl or boy. Follow your curiosities. Make your own adventure.

LP: Yeah. Well, that's a, that's a great note to leave on. Thank you so much. It's great to connect with you.

Katie Ernst: Thank you. This was super fun.

LP: And you have a gig tonight?

Katie Ernst: Yes, I'm playing with some French improvisers through this thing called The Bridge Project. So it's a Chicago and France exchange. We're playing a set of improvised music. Two great Chicago musicians. Nick Mazzarella and Tim Stein. And then two really great French musicians. And it'll be super fun.

LP: Wow. So, yeah, I noticed on your calendar, that The Bridge is in there quite a bit. So that's something you do with some regularity or you will be doing?

Katie Ernst: Yeah, it's basically a tour that's local. It's a tour for the French musicians and it's kind of just a bunch of local things for us in Chicago. We'll then go to France.

LP: And there you go.

Katie Ernst: Yeah,

LP: Excellent. That sounds fun. Well, break a leg.

Katie Ernst: Thank you so much.