Get To Know Bay Area Trumpeter Will Magid

September 15, 2017 | by Erin Putnam

If you live in the Bay Area and have not yet heard Will Magid play, your live music commitment may be lacking. A native of the Bay, Will played in the SFJAZZ High School All-Stars Big Band before heading to UCLA for a degree in ethnomusicology. After graduating, Will returned and was a founding member of the SFJAZZ Monday Night Band, SFJAZZ’s all-ages big band, all the while cultivating his multiple personal music projects and touring with the likes of Pretty Lights and Erykah Badu.

His latest project, Alligator Spacewalk, features Monday Night Band director Adam Theis, along with other members of the mega music consortium, Jazz Mafia. The group is playing SFJAZZ’s Joe Henderson Lab on September 22nd – this album release dance party will spotlight their newest double album, The Lunar Conquest Suite/Resistance Rising. Read on to learn more about this musical chameleon, and get excited for a night of NASA sound samples and dance grooves.

The All-Stars Big Band has been directed by Paul Contos since 2010; can you tell us what it was like under the director of the program's founder, Dee Spencer?

Participating in the All-Stars Big Band under the direction of Dee Spencer was pure magic. Seriously - to this day I think about those experiences often. Dr. Spencer was a great band leader. She understood that our peers were our greatest influences and pushed the music out of us while encouraging us all to check out the styles of our bandmates. We had some incredible opportunities - by the time I was seventeen we had opened up for Herbie Hancock and performed at Lincoln Center in New York, but, at the end of the day the most inspirational thing was hearing what other 17 year old musicians were up to. Big shout out to Paul Contos as well - he was the also the director for Next Generation Jazz Orchestra, which I was in.

A lot of our alumni are getting their degrees in ethnomusicology vs. performance these days - can you tell us about your studies and specialization?

There were a lot of SFJAZZ alumni in the UCLA Ethnomusicology department with me - I know folks were in the department for lots of different reasons, but for me it came down to this - a music performance major asks “how,” and an Ethnomusicologist asks “why.” For me, “why” is a much more interesting question to study academically.

If you think about what music does to people, it’s a pretty far out concept. For example, going to a concert is essentially you blocking out time to be in a room where humans are on stage manipulating the oscillations of airwaves and making your ears and body vibrate in a certain way. It’s this weird, primal, psychedelic thing that we enjoy, and we enjoy it in every corner of the globe. This way of thinking helps my composition and performance. It connects me to a deep musical spirit that is in our DNA as humans.

You've been diving more deeply into the electronic music/digital music production pool over the past few years. What can you tell us about that arm of your work?

For me, the coolest part of “electronic” music is sampling. I sample myself, I sample Ravel, JFK, the ducks around Lake Merritt where I live, I don’t really care - if it’s a cool sound that evokes a certain emotion, I like to incorporate it into my music. Music production allows me to slow down the musical process and, much like a painter, create whatever my imagination manifests.

I have a strong background in producing electronic music, but recently my music has been more composed for live ensembles. As an example, Alligator Spacewalk is an eleven-piece group with Cello, Violin, Viola, Trumpet, Woodwinds, Trombone, Synths, Drums, Percussion, and guest vocalists. In this context, electronic sounds are more for atmospheric and spatial effects.

Anything you're looking forward to most at your September 22nd show here at SFJAZZ? What high points should the audience look out for?

We are celebrating the record release of a double album - fourteen new pieces of music! It’s two bodies of work which are thematically connected. Here’s a little background on the double album:

Side A) The Lunar Conquest Suite - a five piece suite composed by Teddy Raven (commissioned by Yerba Buena Gardens Festival) that explores the Space Race through orchestration and samples from NASA Archives. It culminates with the Moon Landing in 1969 which is a musically a very fun moment!

Side B) Resistance Rising - in a certain way, The Lunar Conquest Suite celebrates elements of US history, specifically our technological advances; but at what cost do we make these "advances"? How does “progress” impact us socially, how does it exacerbate inequalities? How does “progress” affect the climate? Resistance rising strives to answer those questions through music.”

> Catch Will, and his ensemble, Alligator Spacewalk, September 22nd in the JHL.

Will Magid trumpet, electronics
Adam Theis, trombone
Teddy Raven, reeds
Shaina Evoniuk, violin
Keith Lawrence, viola
Lewis Patzner, cello
Kevin Wong, keyboards
Paul Oliphant, drums
Brandon Lee, percussion
Deuce Eclipse, vocals
Fresh is life, vocals