(This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.)
Early Musical Life and Family Background
Lawrence Peryer: I've spent a bunch of time listening to the new record. It's really wonderful. But before we get there, I wonder if we could set the table a little bit for people who will listen to this. I'm so intrigued by your early life as a musician and your family dynamic that you came up in of musicians.
Marina Albero: The legend says that I was on stage with my mother and father, and they used to have several instruments that they wouldn't even play. They said that one day I just stood up and started playing the xylophone on stage. I was already playing the tunes that they were performing over and over, and they said, "Okay, we've got a new member." At that time, I always loved dancing, so I alternated dancing some traditional Spanish folk music and playing. I was dreaming of being a dancer, but apparently music was so easy to me that they were like, "No, no, stay and play." (laughter)
Lawrence: Was being a musician just always what you were going to do, or was there ever an alternative path?
Marina: That's a great question. I didn't feel like I had a choice. At some point when I was young, I had a big existential crisis. I loved psychology, pedagogy, writing—I used to write a lot. What really made me decide that's what I wanted to do was when I went to Cuba. I was there from age fifteen until I turned eighteen, and that is when I was really on my own and making connections independently.
That's when I realized that music was a really beautiful place for me to grow and express myself. After I came back from Cuba at eighteen, I didn't go back to my parents. I already started living by myself, teaching. I still worked with them and started playing my own music as well. So I would say when I was eighteen, that was a decision that I made very consciously. When I was twelve or thirteen, I wasn't really thinking, "Okay, that's what I'm doing." I had talent for that, but did I have talent for anything else? I had this little moment of doubt when I was very young, but definitely after I came back from Cuba, that was a decision made.
Lawrence: What led you to Cuba?
Marina: That's funny. I came to Seattle when I was twelve with my parents to rehearse for a theater play that we were going to perform at the Olympic Games—what they call the Cultural Olympics. It was with Wanderlust and a Japanese theater company. I loved it so much here, and someone said, "If you want to stay, you can stay here." They even took me to Roosevelt High School one day. I was begging my parents, "I want to go to Seattle. I want to live in Seattle. It looks so cool."
They suggested, "Your brother just went to Cuba last September, why don't you go and visit and see if you like it? At least you would have somebody there, and they speak the same language, and we have a couple friends you could stay with." That was the change of path. But as you can see, I'm very stubborn. I went to Cuba because my brother was there. I liked it when I went for a week. I thought, "Wow, this is music everywhere. People are really nice. I can dance every night."
So it worked for me, and I studied piano there, classical piano. But the idea of Seattle never abandoned me. I was always thinking one day I'll live in Seattle. So in a way, I did both. But my first idea was coming to Seattle and kind of leaving that family that I had that was beautiful, but I needed a break from working and living with them. They saw it. They realized, "Wow, Marina needs some time on her own." So they ended up sending me to Cuba. I had the best of times, and later on, twenty years later, I moved to Seattle.
Cuban Musical Education and Cultural Immersion
Lawrence: When you were in Cuba, you mentioned a moment ago about how there's music everywhere, and that was definitely my experience. I only spent about a week there, but of the handful of things that really struck me about the island, the culture around music and how music, at least in my experience, started in the evening and went all night was so beautiful that way. But I'm curious, while you were there, what did your studies look like? What traditions were you immersed in?
Marina: I was basically immersed in my classical studies because that's what I was doing in Spain. I was taking counterpoint and harmony lessons and classical percussion and classical piano mostly. All the traditional folk music and Afro-Cuban music that I learned was pretty much from hanging out with my friends, going dancing, and jamming with them.
I also transcribed a whole album of Cuban music from that time, from the '90s, on piano, because I didn't want to get there without knowing. I know they joke a lot about people from other places trying to play Cuban music. So I went there kind of ready to show them that I got it. I remember my brother having a percussion class when I just got there, and I went to visit him. The teacher said, "Marina, where do you think that the clave goes?" And he started playing guaguancó, and I just played whatever I felt was cool. And he said to my brother, "See, she's got it."
To me, it was kind of natural. Music has always been quite natural. Of course, I feel challenged by other musical traditions the first time I get immersed into them, but actually, it's just paying attention, being respectful, and listening and going for it—doing what you think is right. And this intuition still works because it happens similarly with Indian classical music, which I've never taken a lesson in, but I've been playing with the master violin player Ganesh Rajagopalan, who just this past year won a Grammy with John McLaughlin in Shakti 50.
He's a very well-known and respected classical musician in India. I was transcribing his music to put it in a jazz quartet because he asked me to. We had many rehearsals, and I would say, "Hey, is there something I need to know? Do you want to explain anything to me about the music and the ins and outs?" And he would look at me and say, "Keep listening. You're doing great."
It's flattering because apparently I get it and they like my interpretation, just different. So far so good. I'm blessed like that. I get this language, this channeling that comes all the way from my great-grandmother, and it's been passed on to my kids as well. I understand that it is a language and some people are just vessels for that. We understand it's like a mother tongue.
Lawrence: I don't want to over-intellectualize it, but do you have a theory of that? Do you feel like maybe it's something genetic? Is it cultural? Is it the environment you grew up in? That's not a common ability for people to tap into. I'd imagine it can be cultivated, but I'm curious what your theory of it is.
Marina: Well, I've seen all cases around me and professional musicians that never had any musical history in their families, and they sat at the piano when they were seven and already kind of knew what was going on. So I just think it's some sort of a language. It's like other people have this brain for math or for science—they just see it.
I think we do come with certain information. I believe that each person, each child comes with a talent. When we are little and we really love doing something and people say, "Oh, you're good at it," that means that you don't really have the talent because kids, when something doesn't really work that naturally, they usually go into another thing. And I think that's where the talent resides.
I think we all have some sort of talent. It could be cooking, it could be speaking, it could be being a good listener for a therapist. If you're lucky, depending on the environment, that talent is spotted and supported. But even when it's really there, I've seen people with no support and their family saying, "Oh, you're not going to be a musician. This is not a business. This is not a real job." And they end up being successful musicians.
Seattle Music Scene and Community
Lawrence: In your time here in Seattle, it feels like you've built and have been so much a part of a community. I see your name all the time in other people's ensembles, and you bringing people into your various different projects, teaching at Cornish, the awards through Earshot and other things. Beyond that initial impulse to come here as a young person, what do you think has made this city so fertile and productive for you?
Marina: It's a little bit of a mystery to me, too, because I don't see my music or myself as so great. I have a lot of flaws. I have a lot to work on. Music is always ahead of what I am as a musician. It's hard for me sometimes accepting that.
It all started because Hans Teuber trusted me as a musician. I got here not feeling that secure about my playing or my music at all. When I was at Teatro Zinzanni, Pietro Zinzanni—that was my first job because these are the same people, the same founders that founded One Reel, so they knew me since I was twelve. They said, "Oh, you want to come to Seattle? We're going to support you. We're going to give you your first job."
Hans was and still is the band director there. I was messing up a lot, I think, and he would look at me and say, "Keep doing what you do. You have a lot of music within you. I just want you to feel comfortable and go for it." And he would give me another song, another classical piece to work on for the show. I think that kind of support was key for me in Seattle to believe that I was worth something, that I was worthy of being part of that community.
Everybody I would meet through Hans would say, "Oh, what do you do in Seattle?" I'd say, "I'm a musician. I work with Hans Teuber." I would earn respect instantly. So I do call Hans my mentor, although he gets a little mad. He's like, "I'm not that old." I say, "I don't know. You're my mentor in town." He gave me a lot of credibility, both for myself and from others. I felt like, "Okay, yes. I am a musician in Seattle."
Also, he said things to me because I was very insecure about jazz and playing jazz. I'd never really gone so much into the jazz language. I did take like three or four years of piano jazz to understand the chords and being able to compose and name what I was composing, but I didn't devote my life to jazz language.
As soon as they started including me in the jazz scene, I was a little bit self-conscious about it. Hans would say to me, "Marina, don't try to play bebop the way the language of bebop is. We like your freshness. We like your take on it. We need that. We are craving some other improvisational language and you have it."
So he encouraged me to be myself and not try too hard to fit or change because of the dogma or the history. Although I listen to lots of jazz and I transcribe, I also transcribe Indian music and Afghan music and Cuban music. My musical taste is so broad that it's very hard focusing on one language. Everything you hear in my music is because I've been studying it for a few years. I've been playing that music with the people who are rooted in it.
I like to say that I'm a musician, and that's why I write standards, or play flamenco, or play Afro-Cuban music. All this music has nurtured my own music. I am very honored that they like my take on it, and they include me in their ensembles. But I don't think I would ever start a flamenco band, or an Afro-Cuban band, or a bebop band. This is the kind of thing that saves me—writing my music naturally without forcing it.
Classical Training and Jazz Influences
Lawrence: Before we move ahead to the new album, I wanted to ask a little bit about the world where classical music and jazz meet. I've talked to a lot of artists who have come up either through conservatory or being classically trained, and they were very actively—and I think maybe it's a generational thing—but there was a lot of active discouragement from improvising or even listening to jazz or bringing it into their musical practice. I'm curious about how your teachers and mentors early on felt about your interest in other musics, whether it's jazz or other traditions. Were you encouraged to have a holistic approach?
Marina: No. (laughter) The problem that classical music has is that they had to write it down. They had to leave that testimony on paper. So we don't have recordings of Chopin playing his own music. I am convinced that Chopin was a great improviser. I doubt very much that he would play the same nocturne exactly the same. Just looking at the scales up and down, the ornamentations are so much of an improvisation. I think he just wrote one version of the many he would sit at the piano and play that melody and play that theme.
But again, they didn't have records. So what they did is write it down. And what we do is look back and think that this is the Bible. This is exactly what he wanted. If you are speaking about the big ensemble, it's more like that. But even big band doesn't have so much space for improvisation. The solos happen in certain spots, but there is arrangement from note one to the last one. The same with a big orchestra. But even in the big orchestra is what we call the cadenzas. They used to be completely improvised, and who knows how many more spaces they would open for that.
Mozart, we all know all these theme and variations that we have from Beethoven, from Mozart, from all of them. These were improvisations on a theme, and that's what we do in jazz. I don't think jazz invented improvisation. Jazz is the first improvised music we have records of, and it's a style of its own, and we know where it comes from. We can see the birth of jazz because we have the recordings, the first recordings of King Oliver with Louis Armstrong on trumpet.
We humans think that we know everything when we have a piece of paper that tells us something, and we don't question how many other stories were not told, or what was left out of the paper. So to me, I never really enjoyed the way that classical teachers, especially in Spain, would hold on to the dogma and tell you, "This is how it's played." I was very skeptical. I'm still very skeptical. I would ask myself, "How do you know?" Well, somebody told me that and somebody told them that.
I feel like improvisation was always in my expression. I always needed to improvise and compose. For a few years, I even thought that to me, you're not a real artist if you don't create. It's okay being a purist and keeping certain music in a way, but nobody should think that that's the only truth. I think that's almost impossible. It's kind of a fallacy.
Lawrence: Is there a particular classical composer that you return to often or that is for you is the one?
Marina: Bach.
Lawrence: Bach, yeah.
Marina: I think Bach is the most. I also go back a lot to Debussy. These two are probably my go-to when I have little time and I don't feel inspired. I sit and play. I would go and take a look at the Preludes and Fugues or the Inventions, or the Goldberg Variations and just play for a little bit.
It's so hard to memorize, and look, it's all diatonic. It's all very much like a theory book. But what he can do with the same scale and just modulating to neighbor keys—he doesn't go to any far-away keys. It's almost like bebop or like Brazilian music, you know, all these choros. It's very diatonic, but they can be improvising and telling these stories with the same notes with such creativity, it's really astonishing to me.
I think it's easier when you have all this freedom in the 21st century, all these weird chords that you can play. But what Bach did, that's a little bit of a Bible in music theory. It's amazing. And then another one that I love and it's all over my compositions is Mompou. Frederic Mompou was a composer from Barcelona from the whole 20th century because he passed away in the '80s when he was eighty-three.
He went to France and studied there with Fauré and with other people. So he was really in touch with Expressionism. But he also took all the Catalan melodies and other melodies from the Iberian Peninsula and put them in a very delicate and intellectual, but also very sentimental way. So I love Mompou because I feel very identified with him.
The New Orleans Journey
Lawrence: So, tell me about New Orleans. If Cuba's one source, New Orleans is certainly the other. Why New Orleans? Why now?
Marina: Well, New Orleans was always on my musical bucket list. I also have Brazil, a few cities in Brazil, and then I would like jumping across the ocean into West Africa, and then keep going east towards India. These are places that have always called me in a very powerful way because of their music and because of how much of a source they are.
India, they've been making music the same way for at least five thousand years. That's something huge. Africa is where all the rhythms come from. We talk about Cuba and we talk about New Orleans, even Europe. The basic rhythmic cells are from Africa, and I would like going there and learning the drumming. It's kind of trying to learn the ancient words a little bit.
New Orleans, of course, when I came to the U.S., I always thought that at some point I wanted to go there. I didn't know for how long, but it's not something I want to do for two weeks. Same with Brazil and same with India. I want to live there and be with them and hang out with them to understand why it really sounds that way.
So, New Orleans, of course, coming to the U.S. and wanting to learn more about jazz and rock and blues and soul—it was always a place that I knew I was going to end up going. Now, why now and not before? It's because I was raising my kids. I was a very young mom. I had my kids when I was twenty and twenty-three. Although I was boiling inside, I had to gather the patience that it takes being a parent and do the right things for them and give them the best education I could.
When we moved to the U.S., they were getting a new language, a new culture, which is good for them, too, because now they have two different visions, at least two of the world, and they understand that there's no place better than another one. There are good things and bad things everywhere. Seattle always seemed more aligned with my sensitivity, politically, socially, the nature, education, healthcare. I came here because I thought it was going to be the best spot for my kids to get their education and raise them.
Then my daughter moved to New York to attend the New School, then the pandemic happened. At this point today, my son and my daughter are living mostly in Spain. But we are all American citizens, which is a beautiful privilege because they can work and live in Europe or the U.S. without having to apply for a visa. So my son is in college and he's the youngest, in Barcelona.
When he left a year and a half ago, that's when I said, let me scout. So I went to New Orleans and I went to L.A. in May 2023 and July 2023, just to see where I wanted to spend the next winter. Because now that my life doesn't affect anybody else, my decisions don't affect my kids directly, I felt free to take a chance, take a kind of leap of faith.
I took a break, went ten days to New Orleans, and then ten days to L.A., and New Orleans won like a hundred to zero. It was so much easier getting into the community, finding the right spots. Music was happening everywhere all the time. Second time they see you, they call you by your name. I thought, "Okay, I'm going to spend winter 2024 in New Orleans."
So I saved up some money, raised a little money for the recording right before I left, and I went to New Orleans for four months in 2024, between January and May, just to write music and maybe make an EP. I booked the recording studio without knowing who were going to be the musicians in the recording. I was like, let New Orleans tell you. And it was a big success. I didn't expect having a full-length album. I didn't expect having my dream musicians.
Amina Scott was always in my head. She's a great musician, composer, beautiful soul and smile. But I wasn't meeting her. I was a month before the recording and I still hadn't met her. One day I was playing with my friend Yusa, whom I met there in New Orleans. She invited me to play at the Snug Harbor, and I played piano and keytar. Amina was there and I didn't know. Then I crossed the street and at The Spotted Cat, they saw me with my keytar and said, "Are you not going in? Sit in."
Amina was there on the street. When I took a break and went back out, she said, "Who are you? I love your music. What are you doing here?" And I said, "Well, I'm trying to make a little recording. I'm making a self-made residency here." She said, "I want to be in your record." I almost cried. I thought, "Amina, I can't believe this is happening at 2 a.m. on the street in New Orleans that you are asking to be on my record." Because I didn't know how to approach you. I don't have money enough to hire you. It needs to be a personal connection. It was pretty magical.
Lawrence: Tell me about playing Ellis Marsalis's piano, and what does that mean? I can't imagine it's just an object.
Marina: No, and what it is, it's also not only a place. There is this new project there, it's fairly new, and it's called the Ellis Marsalis Center, and it's a school, a music school, mostly for underprivileged kids. They give them instruments, best teachers. They have a nice-sized concert hall where the piano lives, Ellis Marsalis's piano.
When I was there, actually when I recorded there, the week before, Branford Marsalis just moved back to New Orleans to be the director of that center. So the week before I recorded, Branford Marsalis recorded in the same hall. But they told me that nobody has recorded an album with Ellis Marsalis's piano yet. That was the first one, because that album apparently had no piano.
It's an honor for many reasons. Also, I love the project. The person who took me there, funny enough, is a Seattleite. His name is Justin Armstrong. He's a top-notch sound engineer. Another common friend that now is in Pensacola, Charlie Akeley, drove all the way from Pensacola and said, "Marina, I want you to meet Justin." Justin was an amazing soul. He took me to several recording studios to see what I wanted to make the album. When he took me to the Ellis Marsalis Center where he is a teacher for the kids, behind the stage, there is a sound booth. They have the best mics, it's ready. He teaches the kids sound and production.
When I saw the hall and I saw a concert there, I said, "That's what I want to do it. I want everybody on stage recording at the same time in the same space." He said, "Okay, let's ask them. We just need for them to approve it." And so we did. Playing that piano, that by the way, is in perfect shape—they have it super well balanced, sounds beautiful, they tuned it for me—it was very inspiring. It was easy. It's an instrument that's like if somebody gives you a Porsche when you're driving your little Prius, and then they give you a really good car, really well tuned. It's enjoyable. You play a C major there and it sounds like heaven.
And of course it is meaningful to me having the honor of playing an instrument that has so much history, for the piano and for New Orleans. That was a little bit of a big deal. But also it felt very easy, it felt beautiful. The people there who were listening, people who were managing, they came to me at the end of the day and thanked me for playing such beautiful music on the maestro's piano. They were really happy with me. They made me feel like, "Oh, I can't believe it." I actually want to approach them to see if we can present the album there because I think it would be the perfect spot for us to premiere the album in New Orleans. It was a gift from the universe and I couldn't be more thankful.
Family and Musical Legacy
Lawrence: Tell me about your daughter and her place on the record.
Marina: My daughter—she is one of the best musicians I've ever met, although she's only twenty-five. (laughter)
Now, a little bit of what I was telling you about myself, I saw it with my daughter. She started singing when she was nine months old. Before she could speak, she was singing, singing straight up. I remember we were playing a gig—she's from September, so that was a Christmas gig that we had every year. Ten days, it's like a kids' celebration that we did in Girona. We had the stage for ourselves, for my family, my mom, my dad, my siblings and I. We had a mix between some children's songs and jazz. We played several sets throughout the day, very flexible.
Serena, my daughter, was playing around one of the games—there were areas for toddlers, areas for older kids. And she comes over and says, "Mom, can I sing a song?" Because at three years old, she was speaking perfectly. The pronunciation was right. I said, "Yeah, sure, come on over." She jumps on stage—she's two years and three months old—and she started singing one song. Then she said, "Let's do another one." Because that was our game in the car, she would never stop singing.
So she started singing one, and another one, and another one, all the children's songs. Everybody—and it's like a convention center—everybody started gathering around the stage. Everybody would stop what they were doing and gather around the stage, like hundreds and hundreds of people. I started crying. I couldn't believe it. I thought, "Oh, my gosh, we have another musician in the band now."
A year later, around three years old, she comes down to the recording studio. At that time, it was still a garage, but that's where we recorded with my ex. That's actually where my son is working now in the recording studio in Barcelona. She comes down and says, puts headphones on and says, "Mom, I want to make a record." I said, "Yeah, cool, cool." She said, "No, I want to make a record."
So I translated a bunch of children's stories from around the world. Then I composed a little song after each story in Spanish, original of mine, so that the little kids could understand quickly the key of the story. She would learn all the songs and then we would record all the songs and that's her first record when she was three years old. I even founded a record label to release that one and we sold quite a lot. It's still on iTunes.
In the meantime, she was doing all the drawings. So all the artwork was also made by her. We're speaking about when she's three years old, and you already see what's going on. She started asking me to go to castings, you know, Disney Channel and musical theater. I said, "If you want to be a musician and you want to be a performer, you have to go to school first."
She said, "Oh, perfect. That's what I want. I want more music." So I found this school in Barcelona, it's elementary, middle and high school that has the music conservatory integrated in it. The kids go from math to choir, solfège four times a week, private instruction twice a week. So Serena, when she was twelve, she was transcribing all sorts of things—pop and rock and classical—and making the music for the software. And it sounded like the original version. She was playing Leo Brouwer on guitar. She was playing Bach. She was playing Pachelbel's Theme when she was twelve.
So we took it seriously. Then my other kid, my son, kind of got dragged into that school as well and played saxophone. Now he's a musician. He's much more of a producer and a sound engineer, but he's a beautiful musician.
Serena was always there. I always said, I don't want to force music on my kids. I do want them to speak music. But if they ask me, "I want lessons" or "I want to play," then I'm going to take it very seriously. That's what we did. She's been always a hard worker and also a very talented person, but I made a point for her to understand the hard work that you have to put into it.
Right now, she's doing great in Spain. She's singing in big festivals, and she has a beautiful jazz project with Xavier Lecouturier and Dylan Hayes and Martin Budde. They just recorded an album in Spain at my old studio with my son as an engineer. Whatever she goes and sings, she's instantly respected.
So when I saw that I had the record really coming up, like, "Oh, I'm going to make a record here in New Orleans," I called her and said, "Serena, I need you. There are at least two of the tunes that—one of them, you already put lyrics on and I want you to sing a few more." She only had five days available. She flew all the way from Spain for five days.
We not only made the record, but also premiered a new band that instantly got the residency that we're going to start in January in New Orleans. The venue was like, "We want you every week." I said, "Well, I'm leaving next week. I've been here for four months, and Serena is also leaving." So we have a residency with Yusa, Serena and myself.
Whatever she goes and opens her mouth or takes the guitar and plays, people get captivated right away. She's got that. So I'm very lucky just to know at her age, like we can share a stage and studio and she gives me this moral support that I didn't have in New Orleans. She's family. She knows me. She knew I was stressed. She would come and calm me down and then she would take the mic. The first day was boom, right there. Everybody was like, "Oh, wait, and she can scat like an instrument."
So she's a natural and a hard worker. I couldn't be more proud. I'm so happy that she's with me in this adventure and that she's a big part of the album. Makes me really, really happy.
Musical Influences and Future Plans
Lawrence: I asked you the question about classical composers. I'm curious, I think I know the answer, but I want to ask you a similar question about jazz composers.
Marina: What do you think? (laughter)
Lawrence: I think Chick Corea.
Marina: See, that's a funny one. Chick Corea, I always liked him a lot as a composer. There is also something in his piano that is always very high, the EQ. Somebody told me that it's because he was losing some hearing, so his piano was very bright. For some reason it was a little hard for me listening too much to him in a row.
I've been always more of a Herbie Hancock fan. From that generation—Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea—again, I love his composition. I enjoyed the Children's Songs on vibes and his duets with Gary Burton. That's like top, top, top for me. People keep comparing me to him. I think because he had this love story with Spanish music and Latin music, and I feel very much the same way.
I transcribed a lot of Bill Evans. I mean, if you're a piano player, you know. But I also love going a little back and there's Tommy Flanagan, Red Garland, Kenny Kirkland, and of course, McCoy Tyner. And this is mostly as players. If we talk about composers, like jazz composers, Chick Corea for sure, Herbie Hancock. Yes, yes, yes, Benny Golson, of course, Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn. These four or five are like, not only great players, but super special and delicate composers to me, opening new ground.
Lawrence: I really appreciate your embrace of the electric instruments and the way you integrate them in a very natural way, to bring in the tones and bring in the other colors in the palette without them dominating. They have their role. I don't know, I think it's a very difficult thing to pull off and I enjoy that about your music.
Marina: Yeah, on that record, the only track that's not recorded at the Ellis Marsalis Center is the Brass Band. It's because the acoustics are so much of a concert hall that the Brass Band would have been hard to mix and take the sound. So we went to a much drier room at Marigny Studios. The piano there wasn't that good, and I didn't want to record on the beautiful piano and then have a song that had—and I thought, "No, wait a second. They have a beautiful Wurlitzer."
My friend Charlie, the one that came from Pensacola, he used to work at the Rhodes factory when he was sixteen. So he's the one fixing my Wurlitzers. He came all the way from Pensacola, put the Wurli in perfect shape. In New Orleans, I was known for playing keytar. I played with the New Breed Brass Band twice, playing keytar. They loved it. They were like, "You're taking the brass band to a new level."
I decided to do the brass band tune with Wurli because at the end of the day, the brass band doesn't really have piano either. That was the perfect segue for me to include these two instruments. The Wurlitzer is like a smaller Rhodes electric piano—not digital, electric, like a little xylophone inside. I'm known in Seattle because I don't want to play fake digital pianos. I don't even own one. When there is a concert and they don't have piano, I bring my Wurlitzer.
I've been known for many years for being a weirdo and not playing digital pianos. I've been playing the Wurlitzer even with big bands, and they love it. So I thought, perfect, I need to include the Wurli. And of course the keytar that's been my New Orleans staple. I think it worked really nicely because it's like me with these keyboards and the brass band. To me it works better than with the piano. So yeah, I'm very happy that I included these two. They mean a lot in my life.
Lawrence: Well, make sure you buy a round-trip ticket when you go because we want you back here in Seattle. (laughter)
Marina: Actually my flight is round trip. I bought it from Seattle and I'm coming back May eighth, because I'm playing with the Federal Way Big Band, my music on May tenth, and I'm already scheduling all my concerts—North City Bistro with the Island Jazz Quintet, at The Gallery, the Fellowship—it's all going to be happening in May and June. I'm going to be here for two months for sure.
