VALENTINE’S INTERVIEW
HITOMI OBA & NICK DEPINNA

February 14, 2016 | by Erin Putnam

High School All-Stars Alumnus Hitomi Oba

Many of you may be familiar with All-Stars alumnus Hitomi Oba, who played the SFJAZZ Center last November; what many of you may not know is that the tenor sax player is married to another former All-Star, trombonist Nick DePinna. And so, in honor of Valentine's Day, we’d like to shine a light not only on how jazz can bring people together, but also how relationships between artists can buoy creativity. Here’s to love!

Tell us about how you met and the role that music played.

Hitomi: We met at the very first rehearsal of the very first SFJAZZ High-School All-Stars ensemble, and after that became more closely acquainted through participation in the band as well as various other music education programs, including the Grammy High School Jazz Ensembles. We became closer friends and musical allies at UCLA, eventually becoming a couple. Since then we've embarked upon many musical projects together, including founding and leading big bands, recording our electro-acoustic pop album, writing and producing a jazz opera, and co-founding a new music composer/performance collective. Understanding and supporting each other musically has been an enormously valuable part of our relationship as a couple - but it has also been important that we have aspects of our musical and professional lives that remain separate. We also both understand that we each need to make a conscious effort to support each other's creative efforts and maintain balance between our musical and personal relationships.

Hitomi Oba & Nick DePinna in rehearsal

Nick, among your many other projects, you tour with the Brian Setzer Orchestra. There are so few big bands that tour the popular music scene; what would you tell us about that experience?

Nick: Brian is a force of nature and his band is world-class. It is an honor and a blast to play with him and all of the guys in the orchestra. I think that although the recording industry is in a weird and generally bad place at the moment, the current state and future prospects of live performance are looking pretty good. Live music - good live music - moves people in a way that tracks cannot come close to. Big band is indeed a rarity in the mainstream market, but people who experience it truly love it, as I know SFJAZZ audiences are well aware of. I can't imagine the demand for big band or related mediums increasing dramatically anytime soon, but it's not going anywhere. If for no other reason than that it's hard to get the trombone players to go home.

Nick DePinna

You two are members of a small, but growing group of musicians who have composed jazz operas. Hitomi, what would you tell those coming to the Center to see Terence Blanchard's jazz opera, "Champion," this month about this fusion style?

Hitomi: We co-composed the music for a collaborative jazz opera, "Strange Fellowe," with a libretto by playwright, Jerome A. Parker. We did a workshop staging the first act in Los Angeles, under the direction of Andrew Russell, currently the artistic director of the Intiman Theater in Seattle, and it was an absolutely amazing experience. The second and third acts are in various stages of progress. I am truly excited for Terence Blanchard’s jazz opera and really hope that I get to experience it. The terms “jazz" and "opera” can imply so many logistical, artistic, and genre-based aspects; I think that is why the medium is so exciting for creative artists. As musicians are becoming increasingly disciplined in a wide variety of genres, it has become more matter-of-fact for new musical works to be stylistic hybrids. How these various influences manifest from work to work, however, will be wildly different, and I think that is what is going to be so exciting for audiences.

Learn more about Nick and Hitomi’s musical collective, L.A. Signal Lab.