(upbeat music) - [Announcer] This is a production of South Dakota Public Broadcasting.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - Welcome to "Music Matters."

I am your host, Apolonia Davalos.

We ride into part two of our Innoskate edition featuring the performing artists and honored guests of Innoskate Sioux Falls.

Levitt at the Falls partnered with the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

Together we define how skateboarding and music builds, relates, and characterizes our shared cultural identity.

We begin with jazz, America's national treasure, joined by artistic director and conductor Charlie Young, and executive producer and drummer, Ken Kimery.

"Music Matters" presents the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra.

(jazz music crescendos) - There's a reason why we like what we like, musically.

You have to almost go look for jazz, look for this thing that you know very little about and educate yourself.

But very oftentimes, once you educate yourself about jazz, and it might be just a function just being sitting still and listening and try not to put anything else on it except just listening and be willing to repeat that.

You'll find that sooner or later things start to, because of the spiritual nature of it and the the emotional component that's inherent in all jazz, it grabs you.

It has the potential to grab you.

And then you, once it does, that investigation really becomes kind of pronounceable for individuals.

But it is a constant challenge, but that does not diminish our efforts to continue to give on, get on the band stand at every opportunity to get together and engage with other musicians and give it off a thousand percent.

- But I may add to that also, since I also work at the National Museum of American History and we have three to 4,000 visitors come to the museum on an annual basis there, that a good majority of them have not encountered and experienced jazz.

I have a unique environment or setting there where I can once again use that platform to provide that access point there and bringing it to life, animating it through the jazz masterworks orchestra.

- Jazz, because of its historical relevance and because of the dynamic nature of the music itself.

It's going to last, it's going to be here very much like Bach and Beethoven will be here.

To see some of those young students, young kids, little babies standing up at that gate in the front, just standing there.

They left there with something, even though we might not be engaging in a conversation, they left there with something different.

They were changed as a result of that.

And oftentimes we get an opportunity to see those, to hear those changes realize and see those changes over the period of years, seeing some students from when we first got started, turn into adults who now are able to potentially play with our orchestra.

You know.

Lives are being changed.

- There's a lot of basic foundation that you have in any area of interest that you have to acquire a language, a knowledge, that gives you that foundation to be able to then express yourself.

Skateboarding and jazz is no different in that way.

That you learn from those who come before you, their way of expressing themself, be it on the skateboard, be it on an instrument.

So there's a language that's developed and then you take that language and you continue to evolve the language and develop the language.

There's a level of exploration, of experimentation, of improvisation.

And I can see that both in jazz and skateboarding.

- It was kind of cool, also, Ken, with that, I was talking with with one skateboarder in particular when we were on the other town, talking about, I asked the question, well, when you're not in events like this, what are you actually practicing?

What do you actually do when you're by yourself with those skateboard?

And he talked about having a particular routine or particular thing that he's working on that he repeats over and over and over and over.

And in jazz music, as much as it looks like we are just making it up when we actually in the process of playing music, we're not making it up, very little is being made up except the spontaneity of the moment.

But we're utilizing, to Ken's point, tool sets that we have gained some expertise with as a result of lots and lots of repetition that comes together in a spontaneous creativity.

- The Jazz Masterworks Orchestra is an interesting in-residence ensemble at the National Museum of American History.

And it's really, its core performances are in Washington DC and we use that as a springboard then for touring.

We're telling the story of America through the jazz program.

And in looking at that, we will then determine where our energy and efforts will go.

And it doesn't necessarily mean that we're on the road every year.

A lot of it really stems from what we do in Washington and then we see like we are here, in Sioux Falls, that this is an opportunity to take what we do and extend it beyond.

- We have an opportunity to come here to South Dakota to go to the couple towns that we've been to.

It's been kinda life changing to have gone out to the reservation and work with the young students there.

And to see all these amazing skaters and engage in things that I'm really not so familiar with.

I was not so familiar before being invited to be a part of this inner skate.

I mean, I've been on skateboards, but I didn't know very much about this.

So they have the opportunity once again, this symbiotic relationship between, I mean, everybody has something they do, you know what I mean?

We know what we know, but everybody knows some stuff, you know, so it's always educational for myself and jazz allows me to have the opportunity to have done all these cool things.

And being here in South Dakota has really been a wonderful, wonderful opportunity to learn about a way of life, an amazing artistic art form as well as some amazing people that I've had a chance to meet.

It's been just absolutely magical.

And if jazz can provide that for me, I can imagine doing this until the last days.

So it's been wonderful.

- Jazz for me is it's been a, like Charlie, it's been a journey, a lifelong journey, and will continue until that last breath.

It's given me the opportunity to play music in a way that has fed my soul.

It's helped me to grow as a person.

The opportunities that have been afforded to me is working with Charlie, being here in Sioux Falls, traveling the globe, meeting some of those icons that I've listened to on records, in person and talking to, helping spread the gospel of jazz and hopefully bringing more people into this community in a way that we can have even greater dialogue and share in a way that we all grow and become more familiar, not just about the music, but of each other.

'Cause I think that's really what it's about is, is that community of coming together and learning about each other.

That feeds into us in our expression of who we are, be it through jazz, be it through whatever medium that you're looking for.

We're fortunate to have jazz as that vehicle, but that really is a food for us to continue to grow as human beings.

- My man, y'all would absolutely agree.

I mean, jazz is really just a tool that helps to perform, helps to create, provide an opportunity to create these relationships that once again speaks to living a life.

And it's absolutely wonderful, magical.

It really is.

(jazz music) - Thank you Charlie and Ken for the invitation to just listen and investigate the emotional component inherent in jazz and understand its symbiotic relationship with skateboarding.

Perhaps you who are watching are the next member and future of the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra.

Explore more at the link on the screen.

Next, a contributor to the number one album, the Hamilton mixtape and ranked among the top 200 entries on the Billboard charts.

Renaissance Woman Dessa is a hip hop star who is deeply human.

Let's get deep with Dessa.

♪ Make Dixie look like Khartoum ♪ ♪ That Lady Justice ain't blind yet ♪ ♪ Lens cap on the body cam, missed again, damn ♪ ♪ Make you wait ♪ ♪ While they run your name and ♪ ♪ St. Peter at the gate ♪ ♪ Says, tuck your chain in ♪ ♪ When in Rome ♪ ♪ You live by Roman code ♪ - Singing helped, was a really big part of like my first human relationship, my relationship with my mother, and she had this excellent voice like effortless Whitney Houston runs up and down the scale.

So for me, the sound of a woman's voice and song was very much part of my childhood terrain.

♪ Everybody knew you ♪ I think one of the surprises for good or ill about being like a mid-career artist is that you really have to go and deliberately refill the well from which you're drawing your ideas.

So like when you write that first record, let's say you're 19, or let's say you're 16, or let's say you're 25, you've had your whole life until that first record comes out to write that record, essentially.

You draw from all of those experiences.

Then you're sort of expected to write a record every couple of years until you're dead, right?

And so very often you find, oh, I kind of mined the topics that meant most, that were most urgent to me in the beginning.

I don't wanna write another song about this guy, or I don't wanna write another song about this particular childhood experience.

So having a life outside your musical practice is where the music comes from.

Indulging your fascinations is a really big responsibility of the artist to make sure that you have the raw clay from which to fashion new ideas.

I will say that at the beginning of my career, there were relatively few women.

It was unusual enough that a woman was rapping that like if you were at a club and you were performing when my voice would go over the PA, you know, for a moment anyway, like the cats drinking at the bar would go because it was weird.

And in some ways that serves you, right?

Like you're trying to get attention.

It does help to have that moment of hang on what's happening.

And in all the ways that you might imagine that also sucked, you know?

But I will say that at the beginning, I was really cautious about singing because I didn't want to be written off.

You know, in that point, in hip hop culture, which now feels like a million years ago, very often there was like a collective of dudes who would rap and then there were female voices who would be brought on to do the hooks, which were sung beautifully.

But it felt like there was this division, right?

They weren't part of the crew in the same way.

There were this guest voice, right, to add the beauty, to add the softness.

And I didn't wanna do the beauty and the softness.

I wanted to be like a rugged member of the clique.

That's why I like the clique.

And so I was reluctant to sing too much at the beginning.

I dressed like in huge pants with boxers, like folded over the top and these really oversized, you know, double XL or whatever, hoodies.

And as time has marched on, the world has changed for the better.

I have hopefully changed for the more reflective that in some ways I realize shaping your entire career based on industry trends, even if you're compensatory, is still being inappropriately swayed by industry trends.

So I like singing, I'm good at singing, I wanna sing.

So I would say that over the course of my career, I do a lot more melody.

I would also say I was like, in some ways I was a quick study with language, but it was a real development with performance.

Like I'm a much better singer now I think than I was five and 10 years, which delights me because I didn't know, does your voice get better?

Am I gonna overuse it?

Am I gonna blow it out?

And it feels so good to be able to sing more confidently the notes that I wanna hit.

♪ Don't be shy ♪ ♪ I already like you ♪ ♪ Don't care what you drive ♪ ♪ I'm attracted to the IQ ♪ ♪ Not my style to make the first move ♪ ♪ Haven't felt this type of way since maybe high school ♪ So when I'm not on stage, I'm very often involved in writing for either broadcast or the page, meaning I like language in all its forms, as song lyrics or as a little play or as an essay, which is how I first started to cut my teeth in the language arts in a lot of ways.

And for the past couple of years I've worked with the BBC on this podcast called "Deeply Human".

And it dives into a lot of human behavior with a scientific lens.

So it asks questions like, why do we get deja vu?

Or, why do our bodies respond to rhythm?

And I had the opportunity to interview dance therapists and neuroscientists who are studying the ways that when our bodies, when we hear music, our bodies synch systemically.

Meaning like it seems to be the fact that when we hear a regular rhythm, even the neurons in our brains start to synch and fire in step with that rhythm.

And so music in a lot of ways helps coordinate effortlessly motion and maybe also like social interactions between people.

And that it provides us with this kind of regular metric grid that we all align to.

So you may have seen like studies where there's somebody playing a drum or something and everyone's asked to walk around in a circle and everybody almost immediately begins to walk in step to the rhythm that's created.

So like even patients who are suffering with Parkinson's disease, which is a movement disorder, if you play a metronome, meaning just a (clicking) just a regular rhythm, very often that will help smooth and expedite their gait.

They can walk more easily just with that little bit of external stimulation, a regular rhythm in an earbud essentially.

So it's elemental, would be an understatement.

And I think we're still learning why it is that we respond so dramatically to rhythm of music.

♪ This city can feel like a little town ♪ ♪ Think a marathon's on ♪ ♪ Way they're running all their mouths ♪ ♪ But let 'em talk ♪ ♪ Let 'em wear their selves out ♪ ♪ My book stays open ♪ ♪ I know 'cause I wrote it ♪ (upbeat music) - Thank you Dessa for sharing the significance of having a life outside one's musical practice to refill the creative well.

Search dessawonder.com to be a continued recipient of her wit, wisdom and music.

No w it's time to ride down memory lane and visualize the synthesis of jazz, skateboarding and improvisation.

(upbeat jazz music) Stereo skateboard co-founders Jason Lee and Chris Pastras are legends in skateboarding and media creation.

Their short film, "A Visual Sound" is one of the first introductions of experimental art, film and music in skateboarding videos.

Going against the grain with the use of eight millimeter film, black and white still photography, and a pure jazz score, "A Visual Sound" is now revered as a classic within the skateboard community and was inducted into the Smithsonian American History Museum's Permanent Sports history collection at Innoskate at Sioux Falls.

"Music Matters" is excited to explore a visual sound with Chris Pastras and Jason Lee.

- You know, first of all, jazz being an American invention, the improvisation that you see from skateboarding, you know, it's like the best skateboarders in the world don't plan everything.

Just like Monk didn't plan everything he played on piano.

They were, unbeknownst to most people, jazz musicians were classically trained, really, really classically trained.

So you listen to "Mingus Plays Piano" if you want to know if Charles Mingus was classically trained, it's a beautiful album.

And they got their chops down, but that enabled them to just go off in these tangents like skateboarders.

Like once you get the floor model down, you get the basics down with the ollie, the kick flip the tail slide, you can make infinite combinations and no two runs, no two skaters are the same.

And also the collaboration that happens with a jazz band is the same thing, same type of collaboration that happens at a skateboard contest or a skateboard jam with your friends.

You're feeding.

So the improvisation, the other thing that's very similar to jazz music is a collaboration that happens in skateboarding.

And you know, the skaters feed off each other, whether it's at a contest or a session.

The skateboarders are really, really like feeding off.

You know, even Naja Houston is feeding off Roelly Angelou who's from France.

If one skater makes one move, a skater does the same move but adds a twist to it and goes 180.

And that's the same sort of collaboration that happens on a jazz stage, you know, they delineate and vibe off each other.

So those are two huge, huge comparisons to skateboarding and I think that's part of the big message for us being here and given this panel.

- This was years ago, but a fellow pro skater probably around our age had seen the video when we premiered it in San Francisco in 1994.

And years later said, "Hey, I just wanted to let you know I didn't get the video when it came out.

I thought it was kind of weird and artsy, but now that I'm older I really, really appreciate it and understand what you guys were trying to do."

So that's a great compliment because in a way you kind of want, we wanted a little bit of people maybe not understanding because it was challenging.

Here's the way everybody's used to seeing everything and let's kind of throw a wrench into the gears and stop the machine for a second and give you a different look at how skateboarding videos can be made.

And like Chris said, you got it or you didn't get it.

But I thought that was cool that he said, "years later as I got older, looking back watching it again, I got what you guys were trying to do."

I thought that was really cool.

- And skaters to this day are like, you know what, I would've never ever listened to jazz music if it wasn't for Stereo.

So I pride myself or I pride, you know, us in sort of bringing that to the culture.

You find that there's like-minded people like Bryce Wettstein, who's an Olympian who rides for us.

She's 18 years old, she completely embodies the Stereo momentum.

- [Jason] She brought her ukulele and her art supplies and she's out there making art with- - I call her the Pied Piper.

She's got like all the kids following her around playing music, drawing for them, skateboarding.

And she had never even heard of Stereo when I approached her.

I'd been doing sideline interviews with her for five years and watched her grow up and she was like, "Oh, let me see."

And I sent her a package and she was like, "Oh my lord."

You know, stumbled on, you know, played jazz music.

Her parents really embraced it and she's a perfect example.

Like there is those artistic kids in that group.

You just have to search a little deeper sometimes.

A lot more athleticism these days.

- I would say that, you know, all the creative things that I would go on to do, acting, photography, I don't think are possible without skateboarding and certainly without this guy, I would like to acknowledge that.

- Same with him, for me.

- Skateboarding really does that.

If you do your research right and, you know, you are open to all of its possibilities, you're gonna just have a broader view.

And because of skateboarding, I'm here at 52 years old ultimately celebrating something we created 28 years ago with "A Visual Sound" and just extremely honored and really proud actually.

- Yes, 100%.

And, I'd like to say like the family thing that happens in skateboarding, like it's a brotherhood, it's a sisterhood, it's a bond.

I mean I met this guy like 34 years ago.

- 34 years.

- 34 years ago.

I was like a little 17 year old kid tugging at his pants.

- [Jason] You were 15.

You were 15, yeah.

- 15?

Oh my god.

- Yeah, you were 15.

- Even younger.

Pulling on his pant leg like, "Hey Jason, how you doing?

I'm from New Jersey."

But fortunately I was embraced by guys like Jason, Mark Gonzalez let me room with him for $300 a month.

You know, Rodney Smith, my godbrother, who founded Shut Skateboards in New York.

I came from a broken home and skateboarding was my extended family.

And ultimately that's what it is.

Like you can go anywhere in the world and have the communication of skateboarding with locals.

You don't even have to speak the language.

You can go to Italy, they're gonna look at your skateboard and they're gonna show you spots.

Likely one of 'em is gonna let you crash on their couch and bring you to their restaurants and all that.

So it's one big family and I think that's something that really stands out from other sports is the inclusion and the family, the extended family of skateboarding.

(upbeat music) - The Stereo heritage is timeless, classic and original.

Thank you Chris and Jason for inviting us to become an extended member of your Stereo family.

Get your very own Stereo Skateboard today by visiting stereosoundagency.com.

Innoskate wrapped with an explosion of energy by Power Pop punk trio, Meet me at the Altar.

Tea, Ada and Edith produce head banging anthems of positivity with the launch of their EP, "Model Citizen".

Brighter days are before us and we all feel a thing.

Now or never, let's be merry with Meet Me at the Altar.

(upbeat pop punk music) ♪ It might be all the stress ♪ - We're super, super stoked to be playing Innoskate because we love skateboarding culture and it's everything that it represents too and it's so awesome that the Olympics finally added skateboarding.

That is amazing.

It took, yeah, why, why?

♪ Much left to offer ♪ ♪ Not sur5 if the medicine ♪ ♪ Can fix what's broken in m5 ♪ - "Model Citizen" is all about becoming an adult and growing up and kind of figuring out your place in the world and who you want to be.

And everyone has these kind of, this idea of what a model citizen is, what the perfect person is, the ideal standards.

And it's not always the best to try to live up to that because oftentimes it's impossible.

So yeah, it's just about, you know, figuring out who you are and navigating those standards.

- I feel like it's very important to make hopeful and positive music, especially in the rock scene because you know, we grew up loving pop punk but all the pop punk songs were so negative all the time.

People were like whining about, yeah, like it was always a very negative undertone within the lyrics and we were like, we love Pop punk, but we don't really love that that so much all the time.

Everyone loves a sad song once in a while, you know, but all the time, I think it's like a little bit too much.

So we were like, let's just make pop punk music but have really positive lyrics and that's what we decided to do.

♪ Brighter days are before us ♪ ♪ Brighter days are before us ♪ - The most influential song on our EP "Model Citizen" is probably "Brighter Days are Before Us".

It's everything you need when you're feeling down is in that song.

It's about, you know, we all have bad days, bad times, bad months, bad years, but at the end of the day we know that it'll get better and we're hoping it'll get better and people are there for you that'll help you make it better in your life.

So yeah, that's one of my favorites.

- And because we put out this EP kind of in the middle of the pandemic, there was just a lot of negativity in the world and we wanted to put something positive out there to get people distracted from all the bad that's out there.

- People really needed a hug.

- Yeah.

Seriously.

- Yeah.

Big old hug.

♪ Yeah, yeah ♪ - [Tea] Where I see us in 10 years.

If we're not as big as Green Day in 10 years, we're not doing something right.

- We don't even have our first album out yet.

Like what?

That is crazy.

What I would tell a young person trying to pursue music as a career is that there's literally no rules.

And I know this sounds stupid, but life is literally a game and you can play it however you want and there's a way to like break through what society has told you what you can do, but it's totally blocking them out 'cause a lot of people have really low expectations for what they can do in their life.

And that's really not, as long as you have the outlook in your brain that you can go way beyond that, you'll go way beyond that.

- And if you have the passion for music or literally anything, it could be anything, don't let anyone tell you that that passion isn't worth, you know, chasing your dreams for, because who knows, you can end up playing Innoskate in a couple years.

You never know.

(laughs) - That's true.

Literally don't ever give up.

Like if you tell yourself I'm going to be the best whatever in the world, you literally will be.

At that point, what's stopping you?

You just have to do it at that point.

Honestly, - If you went from like playing to maybe 10 kids a night in 2017 to like last month playing to 11,000 people with Green Day.

- You just gotta do it.

(upbeat punk pop music) - Thank you.

(upbeat music) - Gratitude Tea, Ada and Edith again for producing good music for bad days and bringing positivity to punk culture.

2023 tour dates have been announced on Meetmeathealtar.com.

Check them out.

Innoskate was made possible by the Wokini initiative, Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation, Ray and Vera Conniff Foundation, Tess Kirby, South Dakota Humanities Foundation, and the Horowitz Music Fund.

We are grateful for Innoskate's Community Partners.

Let's Skate, Ground Control, Rock the Rez, Downtown Sioux Falls, Rehfeld's Gallery, and the Sioux Falls Arts Council.

Innoskate at Sioux Falls was a collaboration between the Smithsonian Institution's, Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation, the United States Skateboarding Federation and Levitt at the Falls.

Thank you to our show sponsor, Let's Skate.

Their mission is to build community through skateboarding.

Learn more at lets-skate.com.

Thank you to our series sponsor, the Mortimer and Mimi Levitt Foundation.

And thank you for watching "Music Matters".

I am your host app, Apolonia Davalos.

I love you.

Mwah!