College internships can run the gamut. They can lead you into a career or dissuade you from pursuing one altogether. In 2004, while still attending the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, singer Rachael Price, bassist Bridget Kearney, founding guitarist Mike “McDuck” Olson, and drummer Mike Calabrese joined forces to perform as what they dubbed a “free country band,” where they intended to play country music in an improvised, avant-garde style. As it goes with many college-years experiments, it didn’t stick, but the fervid foursome pushed forward in continuing to develop their own sound. They quickly graduated to a bona fide band cultivating a buzz with infectious concerts, creative covers, and complex, groovy originals. Through their mutual influences and complimentary counterpoints, their sound matured into a harmonious fusion, as if Berry Gordy produced the Beatles in Nashville’s RCA Studio.
If starting a band and shaping their sound was an internship and bachelor’s degree, self-releasing records and organizing U.S. tours would be their master’s and doctorate. They self-released 2007’s In This Episode... and 2008’s Promises, Promises before joining Signature Sounds, who put out 2010’s Lake Street Dive and 2014’s Bad Self Portraits. (The latter slotted them on the Billboard charts—No. 18 in the 200 and No. 5 in Top Rock Albums.) They then signed to Nonesuch, where they’ve dropped three more albums—most notably 2016’s Side Pony, which put them atop the Top Rock Albums chart, while 2021’s Obviously netted them their highest single, with “Hypotheticals” hitting No. 2 on the Adult Alternative Airplay chart.
And while the band has continued to evolve, experiment, and expand their signature sound, they have kept to their core identity—having fun. They seem never to miss a Halloween dress-up show, and still aren’t gun-shy about covering classics and making them their own. Setlists are often littered with audience requests and reinterpretations of the Beatles, Hall & Oates, George Michael, Bonnie Raitt, Elvis, Shania Twain, the Pointer Sisters, the Jackson Five, the Kinks, Steely Dan, Annie Lennox, Sly & the Family Stone, and countless others.
The afternoon before their second consecutive sellout at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, Lake Street Dive’s Bridget Kearney and touring guitarist James Cornelison welcomed PG’s Chris Kies on stage for a casual gear chat. Kearney explained how she uses a pair of octave pedals through her standup double bass, and what she’s doing with four tuners! Plus, she explains what restarted her slow-burn courtship with electric bass. Then, Cornelison walks us through his setup, which includes leftover pieces from retired guitarist Mike “McDuck” Olson and a ratty pickup bought off a former PG staffer. It both honors the band’s catalog and carves his own musical fingerprint.
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All About That Bass
Bridget Kearney is known for almost exclusively using a standup double bass on stage and in the studio with Lake Street Dive. (As you’ll see in a minute, she’s fostering her connection with electric bass.) She’s been thumping on this one since LSD took shape. She acquired the 50-year-old carved double bass (all solid-wood construction) from fellow bass player and friend Ben Davis. When she received it from Davis, he had already added a David Gage Realist LifeLine pickup, but she’s opted to add and amplify via a Fishman Full Circle Upright Bass Pickup (“the heart of the tone”) and a Pierre Josephs String Charger magnetic transducer (“helpful getting extra juice to cut through when playing with a full band”). The Fishman provides a pure, clean signal to FOH, while the String Charger handles all the effects Kearney puts on her instrument. It’s been years since she’s changed strings, but she thinks they’re D’Addario Helicore Orchestral bass strings.
Playing Paul
In Brooklyn for Halloween 2020, Lake Street Dive recreated the iconic Beatles rooftop concert. In doing so, the entire band doubled down to look the part (wigs, sideburns, and shaggy coats included). To be as authentic as possible, Kearney borrowed a friend’s Höfner for the performance. She enjoyed the playing experience and wanted to further investigate the electric bass, then bought this Höfner Limited Edition H500/2-RLC-O Club Bass. “Before this, I hadn’t played electric bass for nearly 20 years. It took me to the age of 35 to think, ‘I wonder if electric bass could be a cool thing?’ Höfner and that rooftop concert was my gateway drug back to solidbody electric basses.”
New Friend
Kearney landed this brown beauty just a few months ago while instrument-shopping in Seattle. She had saw this 1975 Fender P bass on a store’s online inventory, but Bridget realized after arriving that she had went to the wrong store. However, the “wrong” store had a 1969 P she couldn’t pass up. Even after buying a vintage gem, months later, the above ’75 was still haunting her. So, the next time she visited Seattle, Kearney went to the “right” store and made the purchase. She hasn’t used it in the studio yet, but during this run of shows, she brought it for the band’s cover of “Love Doctor” from her 2017 solo record Won’t Let You Down. (The Cookin’ Outlaws stickers were put on prior to the score, and Bridget notes they are a part of the instrument’s charm.)
Bridget Kearney’s Pedalboard
“My pedalboard is a little bit ridiculous. It’s composed of four Boss tuners [laughs],” concedes Kearney. Unraveling the 4-tuner conundrum, she explains that she uses a pair of TU-3s for each pickup on her standup bass. The ingenious silver plate allows her to mute both signals with one kick. A passive TU-2 stays on all the time to help her play the fretless standup as close to in tune as possible. And the fourth Boss tuner is for her electric basses. Her duo of Electro-Harmonix Micro POGs each have a specific duty—one goes low (for “Good Kisser”), and one goes high (for solos and melodic lines). An Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer adds some sting to the double bass for “Bobby Tanqueray” and other parts. A couple of Radial Firefly Tube Direct Boxes send all her bass signals to FOH.
Gather ’Round This Gibson
For this batch of shows under the Gather Round Sounds Tour umbrella, LSD revamped their catalog for stripped-down, alternative arrangements. This is how they described the tour on social media: “Join us for these easy going, semi-acoustic evenings full of the fan favs, some deep cuts, and maybe even some works in progress in our most relaxed, basement couch setting yet.” Accommodating those cozy cabin vibes, guitarist James Cornelison brought along this 2010s Gibson J-35 reissue.
Cowboy Chords
When the band reaches maximum campfire camaraderie, they perform as a guitar trio. In that arrangement, drummer/percussionist Mike Calabrase uses this Gibson Songwriter Standard EC Rosewood acoustic-electric.
This late-’60s Harmony H165 is singing better than ever, thanks to the facelift handed out by Old Style Guitar Shop in L.A. Aside from bracing upgrades and a proper setup, it’s been given two pickups (a piezo) and what looks like (but is unconfirmed) a variation of Seymour Duncan’s Hot Rails. When asked during the Rundown, James was unsure but did note that Old Style uses this pickup on all their acoustic overhauls. You’ll also notice a rubber bridge giving this storyteller even more vibe.
Roommate Robbery
Cornelison’s roommate received this Excel SS from D’Angelico, but James gravitated more towards the instrument, so it unofficially became his. (What a friend!) Since adopting the 6-string, he’s designated it as his “Frankenstein project” as he’s tried several experiments on it—using flatwounds, playing in open tunings, and replacing the stock neck humbucker with an old Teisco gold-foil pickup. It currently is the slide guitar for LSD material and stays in high-tension F-tuning for “Hush Money” off 2021’s Obviously.
We’re Not Worthy!
Single-coil sweetness is provided by this ’90s Squier Wayne’s WorldStratocaster. (As you would assume, “Stairway” is not allowed on this Strat—denied!)
Big Ups to Big Thief
“I’m a big fan of Adrianne Lenker and I always enjoyed that she played semi-hollow guitars with P-90s in it. I thought it was cool to have the reversal of the hollowbody archetype with P-90s instead of humbuckers,” admits Cornelison. This D’Angelico Deluxe DC features a set of Seymour Duncan STK-P1 Stacked P-90s and is serial #3.
Grandfathered Gibson
Original guitarist and cofounding member Mike “McDuck” Olson left this ’50s Les Paul Standard (finished in Heritage Cherry Sunburst) for Cornelison to use in his absence. James remarks that this electric does the bulk of the work when the full band is represented.
Twinkly Twilighter
On this subdued set, Cornelison plugged all his electrics into the above Magnatone Twilighter 112 combo.
James Cornelison's Pedalboard
This dialed-in setup was designed and built by longtime Jason Isbell tech Michael Bethancourt. Cornelison has onstage control of everything via the RJM Mastermind GT. Also, out front is a Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuner and an Ernie Ball VP Jr volume pedal. His two-drawer rack holds the following pedals: a Source Audio EQ2 Programmable Equalizer, a JHS SuperBolt V2, a Behringer US600 Ultra Shifter/Harmonist, a JHS Colour Box V2, a Keeley Katana Clean Boost, JHS Morning Glory, and a Strymon Flint & Deco. Everything is powered by a pair of Strymon Zuma units. Additionally, an RJM Mini Effect Gizmo MIDI controller helps organize the signal paths.
Any band that hammers along for 43 years should be praised. But for a hardcore outfit that first seethed “I don’t wanna live / To be thirty-four / I don’t wanna die / In a nuclear war” 42 years ago on their 1980 debut Group Sex, pushing on for over four decades is a bit of a miracle. The Circle Jerks should be honored with a skanking statue in their hometown of Hermosa Beach, California.
“If you would’ve told me in my 20s that I’d be in a seminal hardcore-punk band in my 60s, I would’ve said ‘you’re fucking crazy, dude! I’m going to be dead by that time,’” jokes longtime Circle Jerks bassist Zander Schloss. “Now I say, live slow, die old!”
The Circle Jerks were formed in 1979 by former Black Flag vocalist Keith Morris and ex-Redd Kross guitarist Greg Hetson. (Hetson has also been a member of another seminal SoCal punk rock band, Bad Religion, from 1984-2013.) They were joined by bassist Roger Rogerson and drummer Lucky Lehrer. Group Sex is one of the most important albums in the first swell of hardcore. It’s worth noting that the 14-song collection was crammed into less than 16 minutes of tape. Tasmanian devil Morris raged his commentary on sex, drugs, politics, the rich, and even self-reflection. His bandmates redlined to keep up. Hetson’s swift, stabbing guitar parts pierced and slit through the slamming, double-time rhythmic pistons that were Lehrer and Rogerson.
Their 1982 follow-up, Wild in the Streets, contained five songs over two minutes long and three covers (“Wild in the Streets,” “Just Like Me,” and “Put a Little Love in Your Heart”), but all 15 tunes were still laced together with the same frenetic guitar bursts and rambunctious rhythms of Group Sex. The last of their most-influential works was 1983’s Golden Shower of Hits, which alternated between short, melodic mayhem and slower-but-still-acerbic stompers. The next year saw the arrival of Schloss, who contributed heavily to the band’s final three studio releases: Wonderful (1985), VI (1987), and Oddities, Abnormalities and Curiosities (1995). While out in support of the latter, their major-label debut, the Circle Jerks imploded.
In subsequent years, Hetson focused on Bad Religion, started Punk Rock Karaoke, formed Black President, and built out his Hetson Sound studio. Schloss played guitar for Joe Strummer, drove the bass for the Weirdos, and even entertained on the silver screen, starting with the role of Kevin in Repo Man. While Morris battled health issues (he fell into diabetic comas in 2008 and 2013), he was able to get several projects off the ground and revisit old ones including Midget Handjob, Off!, and FLAG. The latter’s a Black Flag byproduct featuring former members bassist Chuck Dukowski, guitarist/vocalist Dez Cadena, and Bill Stevenson—who produced most of their 1980s catalog—on drums, plus Stevenson’s Descendents bandmate Stephen Egerton on guitar.
Before the current celebratory run marking the band’s first live shows in 11 years (and first full U.S. tour in 15), they announced drummer Joey Castillo (Queens of the Stone Age, Danzig, Eagles of Death Metal) would be propelling the Circle Jerks’ runaway train. And since the band’s core members are now all in their 60s, and the resolution of the ripping “Live Fast, Die Young” is yelled out at each show (“I don’t wanna live / To be fifty-seven / I’m living in hell / Is there a heaven?”), they’re well aware that according to their own canon they shouldn’t be here and certainly not having this much fun.
“I never thought the Circle Jerks would tour again, but you know what? Dreams do come true, and in some weird way, we’re doing better than ever and this world tour proves it,” remarks Schloss.
But is the grind too much?
“As a younger man, I used to resent breaking my arm off to play this music because it’s so fast, so hard, and so intense, but as a 60-year-old I’m finding it really exhilarating,” he admits.
Well, sir, then let’s have a bash!
Hours before the Circle Jerks’ July 21 headlining show at Nashville’s Brooklyn Bowl (a Covid-delayed celebration of 40 years since Group Sex), PG’s Perry Bean took to the stage and talked gear (a conversation longer than most Circle Jerks’ albums) with Schloss and Hetson.
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The Industry Standard
“I’ve always thought the Fender P bass was the industry workhorse,” allows Schloss. His beastly battle axe is an American Professional II Precision bass that has a ’63 P neck profile, the company’s new V-Mod II Precision Bass split-coil pickup, and a Hi-Mass Vintage bridge. Schloss used to play roundwound strings, but he would constantly break them and do some serious damage to his hands. He made the switch to flatwounds in the ’90s. The string snaps significantly reduced and he found their sound sits better in the mix, making it more distinct and outside the guitar’s lane.
During the Rundown, he offers up two vintage tidbits: After the band’s last show in 2011, he sold his 1964 P bass to the Hard Rock International, and the second is that he loaned a black 1964 Fender Stratocaster to producer Guy Seyffert, who’s on the road with Roger Waters and has been using it onstage. Schloss says it was a gift from Joe Strummer and once belonged to Sid Vicious, and then Steve Jones.
Slice ’n’ Dice
Schloss swears by Fender Classic Celluloid triangle picks (355 shape). As he shreds off a tip, he rotates the pick around for another angle. As he says, “It has a lot more click for the buck.”
Close Enough for Jazz
For backup purposes, he totes along this American Professional II Jazz bass that also has flatwounds. Schloss acknowledges that the thinner neck isn’t his favorite and wishes he’d brought out a pair of Ps.
No Take Backs!
Probably as collateral on that ’64 Strat, Guy Seyffert loaned Schloss an early ’70s blue-line Ampeg SVT that hits a slant-back Ampeg SVT-810E that belongs to one of the tour’s openers. It’s up for debate who has the better end of the deal.
Solid Greg, Solid Guitar
If you’ve seen Greg Hetson thrashing onstage with any of his numerous bands, you’ve seen him rocking a Gibson SG. For the Circle Jerks’ world tour, he brought out this recent SG Standard ’61 Maestro Vibrola reissue with a mahogany body, a SlimTaper mahogany neck paired with a rosewood fretboard, and an ABR-1 Tune-o-matic bridge. It originally came with a set of BurstBucker 61s, but Hetson removed the T pickup (bridge) and dropped in an uncovered Seymour Duncan Alnico II Pro humbucker.
Moshing With Marshall
Hetson loaded up a pair of 1980s Marshall JCM800s for this run. On the left is an early-’80s 2203 model, while the other is a late-’80s 2555. Both run into their own Mesa/Boogie Rectifier Traditional slant 4x12 loaded with rear-mounted Celestion Vintage 30s. On the floor, you’ll notice Hetson’s lone “effect”: a TC Electronic PolyTune.
We’ve Seen This Before
The 2203 was overhauled with the venerable “crunch” mod by L.A. Sound Design’s late Martin Golub. If that tone tweak sounds familiar, then this will surely ring a bell, as the “crunch” mod is also referred to as the “Dookie” mod—widely known for residing in Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong’s “Pete” Marshall 100-watt 1959 SLP reissue head. (The much-revered Golub passed away in 2021.)
Although he’s playing a Fender Mustang bass in this photo, Crumbly’s current main instrument is a well-worn 2012 Fender American Special Precision he got off the wall at Chicago Music Exchange.
The inventive bassist was born and raised in Los Angeles and attended the prestigious Juilliard School in New York City. When we spoke, he was in Dallas, Texas, co-producing and writing an album for Brandon Marcel. Crumbly and Marcel both tour in R&B singer Leon Bridges’ band. Marcel is one of the background vocalists.
“We were engaged in writing for three or four days last week,” says Crumbly. “And then yesterday we had to do a streaming show with Leon Bridges.” Apparently, the guys in Bridges’ band have been making fun of Crumbly because he’s always bouncing between New York and Los Angeles and can’t decide where to put down some roots. “I keep telling them, ‘I’m finally going to officially move back to L.A. permanently.’ So, they’re like, ‘Yeah, right.’ And now I’ve been in Dallas for a couple of weeks and I’m like, ‘Oh man, I’m loving Dallas.’ I’ll figure it out. The grass is always greener, right?”
Joshua Crumbly - The See (Official Music Video)
Crumbly’s debut 2020 release Rise, embraced that concept wholeheartedly. “I’m initially coming from different jazz settings, and I’ve gotten to play with some brilliant people over the past 11 years or so,” he explains. “But [with jazz] I just got to a point where I was like, ‘Man, we have all these brilliant minds, and everybody’s writing songs with the same exact form, and every song has the same experience for the musicians as well as the audience.’ So I was like, ‘I want to see if there’s a way to create songs that have a different journey to them.’”
This songwriting journey continues on ForEver. Stylistically, like Rise, the tunes on ForEver aren’t necessarily jazz. They run the gamut from indie rock (“THREE”) to ambient (“ForEver”) to the Motown-infused thump of his playing on “C.S.C.” Crumbly mostly eschews the traditional jazz arrangements that primarily defined his formative years as a bass player and sideman. Take a song like “Reflection.” Grounded by a hypnotic bass ostinato, it upends jazz norms by introducing the melody at the end of the tune, as opposed to playing the melody first, then a bunch of solos, and then the melody out, as in a conventional post-bop arrangement. If Crumbly’s ambition was to construct songs in such a way as to give everyone involved a new experience, on ForEver he unequivocally succeeds.
“Shout out to Universal Audio for changing my life. And believe it or not, I use GarageBand.”
Born in 1991, Crumbly began to study music at an early age, at the behest of his father, saxophonist Ronnie Crumbly. He started out playing classical piano before picking up the bass at age 9. He learned to play by ear in church, and then dove into heavy metal at the local music store, where he subsequently took lessons, before binging on the jazz records at home that would become his muse. Though Crumbly studied with such venerable jazz stalwarts as Ron Carter and Reggie Hamilton, there’s a pop element to his songwriting that makes his recordings eminently welcoming for the average listener. His fascination with pop songs, as a writer, can be attributed to what he calls “commercial sentiment.”
“What I think is actually cool about popular music, is the power of a song is still prevalent, and it doesn’t always hinge on a million solos and that sort of thing—just a melody and a vibe, with no solos or anything like that.”French playwright Antonin Artaud once made the provocative assertion, in his seminal 1938 theatrical treatise, The Theatre and Its Double, that the actor is “an athlete of the emotions.” Likewise, Crumbly doesn’t knock you out with chops on ForEver. Instead, he tugs at your heart with an empathic vibe that comes across in his songwriting as well as his bass playing. Instead of rapid-fire slapping or lightning-fast finger tapping, Crumbly’s virtuosity on ForEver lies within his ability to convey qualities like fragility and tenderness. His performances often affirm the age-old adage that it’s not always about what you play, but how you play it.
TIDBIT: Crumbly’s latest release was started at Brooklyn’s Figure 8 Recording studio, but he finished the album at home on GarageBand, using hardware and plug-ins from Universal Audio and Arturia.
“I’ll give you some insight to the song ‘Reflection,’” he offers. “I wrote it during the time when the tremendously sad George Floyd incident occurred, and that was coinciding with rising Covid cases. The news would go between speaking about George Floyd and then reporting on all these deaths around the world from Covid. So, I started accompanying the news with the ostinato that the song is based on, and just reflecting on what the feeling of the time was. But then, the more I played it, I started becoming more hopeful. That’s how that song came about—just regarding what I might have been thinking about at the time.”
The catalyst for recording ForEver was an unexpected call from Figure 8 Recording’s Shahzad Ismaily. “I didn’t have his number saved in my phone,” recalls Crumbly, “so I had no idea who it was. And he said, ‘Josh, you need to record a solo bass album.’ And I was like, ‘Uh, okay.’ He generously offered me some time at his beautiful studio, Figure 8, in Brooklyn. I started ‘THREE’ there, and then also ‘We’ll Be (Good).’ But then I just got super busy with putting out Rise, and constantly being on the road, so ForEver had to get shelved. And then, when the pandemic happened, I got a bunch of recording gear and was able to devote time at home to finishing ForEver. So, shout out to Universal Audio for changing my life. And believe it or not, I use GarageBand.”
Joshua Crumbly’s Gear
Crumbly, always in search of unfamiliar sounds, plays flatwounds on his Michael Tobias Design Kingston bass. He also enjoyed “testing the limits of what a P bass could do” while making ForEver.
Photo by Ronnie Crumbly
Basses
- Fender American Special Precision Bass
- Michael Tobias Design Kingston (4-string)
- Moon Guitars J Bass
Amps
- Ampeg SVT (with 4x10, 6x10, or 8x10 SVT cab)
Strings & Picks
- La Bella Deep Talkin’ Bass flatwounds (.049–.105)
- Labella Custom Nickel (.050–.105)
- Fender Classic Celluloid medium picks
Effects
- Aguilar Octamizer
- Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi
- MXR Phase 90 M101
- Universal Audio Golden Reverberator
- Universal Audio Starlight Echo Station Delay
Recording Gear
- Arturia interfaces and plug-ins
- GarageBand for Mac
- Universal Audio hardware and plug-ins
Most of the effects heard on ForEver are delay modulators. “I messed with a lot of the Universal Audio plug-ins, and I’m really happy that they came out with physical renditions of those plug-ins in the form of actual pedals,” admits Crumbly. “I’ve been able to recreate some of the sounds live. I did use some pedals at Shahzad’s studio that I don’t even remember the names of, but I would say 80 percent of it is different delay modulators from UA, and the song ‘To Morrow’ is a combination of modulators and fuzz pedals. That was the one song on the record that I had to work on for a few days. I was searching for this particular sound in my head, for that melody line.”
There’s a cinematic quality to the music on ForEver that Crumbly’s tasteful use of effects enhances, each song characterized by a distinct mood or atmosphere. “When I had an idea, and then found the effects that were speaking to me for that song, I think it definitely took me somewhere, gave me this experience, and brought meaning to the song. It amplified the whole experience.”
As a jazz-based musician, Joshua Crumbly takes a road less traveled, through pop, rock, and ambient music, to get to his signature approach.
Photo by Giraffe Studios
As for instruments, Crumbly says there’s “a lot of 4-string P bass” on ForEver. “I bought a 2012 Fender American Special Precision Bass that I found, all beat up, at Chicago Music Exchange,” he remembers. “When I brought it to soundcheck, everyone was like, ‘Oh my God, it sounds amazing.’ So, I put away all the other 5-string basses that I had. It was fun, testing the limits of what a P bass could do on this record.” On the ambient title track, however, Crumbly went back to what he considers his first real instrument: an MTD Kingston bass. “It’s actually a passive instrument,” he clarifies. “I switched things up a little bit. I hadn’t ever seen anyone using flatwounds on an MTD. So that’s what’s on there now.”
“‘I want to see if there’s a way to create songs that have a different journey to them.”
Songs like “Reflection” and “We’ll Be (Good)” are crafted around chords and double-stops for the central bass line, and Crumbly says his technique for that kind of approach is “the thumb, and then my index and middle finger.” However, he is not a fingerstyle purist, as demonstrated in the video for “The See,” in which he plays an astronaut. “I’m playing with the pick, and I have to shout out a mentor of mine named Reggie Hamilton. I would not be playing upright bass if it weren’t for him, nor would I be playing with the pick. I owe a lot to him for broadening my horizons. People are sleeping on how cool playing with a pick is on the bass, but I’m okay with that. I’ll be like, ‘All right, I’ll be one of the few, I guess.’”
Space is the place: Joshua Crumbly donned an astronaut costume for the video for “The See," from his new album.
Photo by Ronnie Crumbly
As for his time at Juilliard, Crumbly says “keeping a vision” was one of the most important things he learned at the school. “I think keeping a vision helps you get through a lot of things that may be tough at the time,” he explains. “College was a bittersweet experience, because I was juggling being on the road with [trumpeter] Terence Blanchard and being in school full time. And a lot of the administration wasn’t cool with that, but I had a dream job that I couldn’t say no to, and it was a dream for my parents that I went to college and finished. They weren’t so sure that I was able to do both, but when you have a vision, though, you’re looking ahead. It also makes the present moment sweeter at the same time. I also learned how to be more disciplined, studying with Ron Carter, getting to see how on point he is, and what a master he is, and the level that he expects of his students. He just believes in you infinitely. I think we should all believe in ourselves in that way, too.”
Ultimately, Crumbly says that making ForEver was a “crazy adventure” that allowed him to explore the bass in a new way. “I feel like I’m on a path that I can explore infinitely by way of the bass and by way of emotion as well,” he explains. “I just hope that my music is very inviting to whatever people may like. You don’t have to be a jazz head or a rock head or whatever. I just want it to be a super-inviting, welcoming sound.”
Listen to Joshua Crumbly and his ensemble—saxist Josh Johnson, pianist Ruslan Sirota, and drummer Jason Burger—shape jazz in their own free-ranging, ambient image while performing “Noah,” from 2020’s Rise, at the now-shuttered Los Angeles jazz mecca the Blue Whale.