Pablo Held Investigates

The day before our interview I had the big pleasure of playing with Kanoa Mendenhall for the first time. After a long time of admiring her from afar, I finally got to know her through making music and hanging out together, which was really special for me. We zoomed in on Kanoa’s creative process, we re-evaluated what happened during our concert and we even played some more. It was a beautiful conversation and I’m glad I get to share it with you now.

A few years ago I took inspiring composition lessons with pianist/composer/arranger Guillermo Klein, which still resonate with me to this day. Guillermo helped me to break free from habits and find new pathways to starting the compositional process. Now I finally got to interview on the podcast, which, in a way, turned out to be another incredible composition lesson – but this time I get to share it with you!
Listening to Guillermo’s unique music always uplifts and inspires me – the same thing happens when we talk.

Anders Jormin is one of my favorite bassists and composers. I got the chance to play with him in 2016, where we celebrated the music of my late teacher, the great John Taylor. Now, we continue where we left off and talk in-depth about his life in music.

It was so great to pick Anders’ brain about his view on composition, voice leading, interplay, how we deal with influences, memories of playing with drum masters Paul Motian, Elvin Jones and Billy Hart, writing a symphony, his bass heroes and… we also played a bit for each other!

Talking to singer, multi-instrumentalist, composer and interdisciplinary artist Jen Shyu was immensely inspiring and invigorating! After admiring Jen’s work for a long time from afar, getting to pick her brain for almost 3 hours was a big deal for me. As you know, I always love it when the artists bring there instruments and perform on the episode- Jen was all for that and brought a few traditional instruments like the moon lute and the gayageum and of course she sang quite a bit. You’ll see, this conversation went to all kinds of places. I’m very grateful to Jen for letting us into her unique world.

Talking to Joe Lovano was a dream come true. After so many years of listening to him I finally got to ask him about his process and get deeper insights into his musical journey. When our conversation ended I felt totally inspired and eager to dive into music– that’s exactly like we feel after we’ve taken a lesson with a great teacher, right? I’m glad we can all learn from maestro Joe together now. 

Many thanks to the great Joe Lovano for taking the time to talk to me and to all of you for listening to our conversation. 

The great John Scofield returns to the podcast – and this time he brought his guitar!
I absolutely love talking with Sco. To get ask him about his time with Paul Bley, Miles Davis, Elvin Jones and Jaco still is like a dream come true for me. And when he then takes out his guitar to demonstrate things from the music we talk about, like Carla Bley’s classic ‘Ida Lupino’ or a couple of my favorite Sco tunes, I’m in total fan-boy mode!

I’m glad I get to share these moments with you. Thanks for watching & listening!

Savannah Harris is an incredible drummer & great person. I not only admire her musicality & playing, but also her honesty and her rare no-BS-mentality, which is so apparent both in her playing and when you talk to her.

We bonded right away when we first played and hung out in 2023. (Both of us were on the jury & the accompanying band for the GJC auditions in Mainz) Plans were made to do an interview then and it finally happened a month ago. Now I’ll get to share it with you and we can all learn collectively from one of the great drummers of our time!

Heartfelt thanks to my Patreon community for their support & enthusiasm for this podcast! We’ve come a long way since I started this podcast in 2018: Now, I’m on my way to fully fund this podcast through Patreon subscriptions!

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What an absolute joy to nerd-out with saxophonist & composer Mark Turner about music after all these years of listening to him! As I tell Mark during this episode, his tune “Jacky’s Place” was my ring-tone for a while in the early 2000s I think we hit it off right away and covered a lot of ground in our conversation. I’m happy to share it now with all of you!

This my conversation with recording engineer & multi-instrumentalist Joseph Branciforte. I had been a fan of his work on albums by Ben Monder, Caroline Davis, Matt Mitchell, Jen Shyu & Kate Gentile and loved his duo work with Theo Bleckmann. So naturally I was excited when Joseph reached out to me and said that he had been listening to the podcast and would love to come on to talk about his process. We had an inspiring conversation which seemed to flow effortlessly right away. I’m grateful that I got to nerd-out with Joseph and that I now get to share it with you.

Talking to master bassist Robert Hurst was a big highlight for me. My earliest memory of listening to him goes back to my childhood where I often picked out the ‘Mo Better Blues‘ soundtrack from of my parent’s record collection. While listening to the record I stared at the pictures of the musicians in the booklet in awe. To finally get to talk to him was a dream come true for me.

I feel very grateful to Robert for his generosity and the inspiring conversation we had. Let’s all learn from him together now!