Trumpeter John Raymond on Shadowlands, Formative Twin Cities Experiences, and More

As proud advocates of all things Upper-Midwestern music, we get pretty excited about stellar collaborations between musicians from the region. Falling squarely in that category is Shadowlands, the beautiful album from singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist S. Carey and forward-thinking jazz trumpeter John Raymond.

Recorded primarily in Eau Claire, where the two met in college many years ago, Shadowlands includes contributions from fellow Upper Midwesterners (Jeremy Boettcher, Jeremy Ylvisaker) as well as heavy hitters from outside the region (Aaron Parks, Gordi).

At its best, this record is a sublime melding of the pair’s strengths and sounds. Expansive and stylistically borderless, Shadowlands evokes the warmly textured indie and rock music often associated with S. Carey (whose current projects also include Bon Iver and Bizhiki), and harnesses elements of the jazz world Raymond has inhabited for most of his career. Big, swelling numbers like “New Meaning” blend perfectly with more contemplative and meditative tunes like “Transient” and “Morning Prayer.”

On Wednesday night, the two will appear with several other musicians under the moniker of Shadowlands in two intimate shows at Berlin, the great North Loop club. The shows will offer fans an opportunity to connect with the music in a different context that promises to be special. In our conversation below, Raymond discussed what fans can expect from the live shows, as well as the role that improvisation plays in them. Given the cross-genre nature of the collaboration and the skill of the musicians involved, the shows promise to be compelling.

The following interview with John Raymond has been edited for length and clarity.

Music in Minnesota: You are from the Twin Cities originally. What were some of your formative musical experiences growing up and playing in Minnesota? Were there any particular scenes or players that inspired you at that point in your journey?

John Raymond: I lived in Golden Valley and went through the Hopkins school system. I was very fortunate to have some amazing band directors who really gave me and a handful of other students a lot of extracurricular opportunities outside of school, to grow and feed the fire of our passion for music and wanting to play. Dr. Liz Jackson, Brian Fleming, and then Bill Bell at Hopkins High. I think I owe a lot to all of them for the way they kept the flame going.

Outside of that, I had some really great experiences at the Minnesota Institute for Talented Youth jazz ensemble summer camps with Scott Carter, and Chris Thompson, who is still a dear friend to this day. It’s kind of wild for me to think back all those years and how he was a really formative teacher for me, but also just a presence. He was somebody who was a mature musician but approached music in this very humble way.

I guess beyond that, in the music scene in the Twin Cities at large, I was really fortunate to play at Brilliant Corners, a Jazz Club in Saint Paul. Jeremy and Marshall Walker headed that up and put together this “Jazz is Now!” orchestra which was like a small jazz ensemble that was committed to writing and commissioning music. I was sort of the student chair of the band. They asked me to be a part of that, and that was one of my first opportunities to play with some jazz legends in the Twin Cities, like Pete Whitman, JT and Chris Bates, and many others.

I would go to shows at the artists’ quarter from time to time, but I never got into the local music scene or appreciated everything that was going on until I left the Twin Cities. When I would come back, I started to realize there was all of this great music happening, with great musicians that I had slept on for years. Of course, Happy Apple, Fat Kit Wednesdays, there were so many different bands and musicians.

Now I feel like I have a deeper appreciation for the Minneapolis music scene than ever, even though ironically, I don’t live there any more.

MIM: You spoke to the importance of your teachers and their encouragement. I know you are an educator as well. Do you feel like they inspired you in that direction?

JR: I don’t know specifically to be honest. I’m sure it has something to do with it, but I don’t ever remember being conscious of it. I know I’ve always had a desire to teach and a love for teaching. I think the model probably came from those people that I mentioned. I didn’t know the kind of influence they would have on me until years later. In that sense, they probably did have a huge impact on me, I just didn’t realize it. It was a process of unearthing that over the years, and tracing it back to those roots.

MIM: I want to flash forward a little bit. You and Sean (Carey) met in college at Eau Claire. Can you speak to your musical relationship with him? Did you guys always have a musical camaraderie?

JR: We played a lot together in college, just a lot of different jazz gigs and different performance opportunities around Eau Claire and beyond. We hung out a little bit, but I wouldn’t say in college that we were like connected at the hip.

Musically, I appreciated that he always felt like a very natural musician. He never really forced anything that he played. I admired and still admire that. I was always kind of aware of him being into these different records and different musicians that I had never heard of or checked out, so that was a lot of new exposure for me.

It’s interesting; we played a lot together and I always appreciated him as a musician, but it wasn’t until we kind of drifted apart that I had more of a respect and admiration for him and felt a connection to the music he made. That developed over time.

MIM: You mentioned that you guys drifted apart for a period. What was the beginning of Shadowlands as a project? How did you guys come back together?

JR: It would have been 2018, Sean had released one of his albums, I think Hundred Acres. He was playing a show and invited me to sit in and play with his band. I just remember thinking about how good it felt. It happened another time as well in L.A. in the summer of 2018 when he was promoting that record. That just kind of got some conversation going about maybe making some music together.

It was in the early months of 2019 that we started getting some sketches together musically, bouncing some ideas off each other. Then we had six days in the studio, I think in May of 2019. We really just went through some of those sketches and ideas, kind of feeling our way through the whole time. Out of those sessions, we had a lot of music that came out of it that we felt there was something there. Then it was just a process over the next several years of honing that in, writing some more, involving some other musicians in the project, and eventually culminating in the record.

MIM: One thing you mentioned that I want to ask about is the other musicians who played on the record. There are a lot of distinct musical voices that blend well together. Obviously you and Sean, but also Gordi, Jeremy (Boettcher) and so many more. Was the idea always to bring in others, and did you have specific individuals in mind? Or did that unfold over time?

JR: There’s a little of both actually. When we started in 2019, it was really just a matter of using some local musicians who both Sean and I know really well. Jeremy Boettcher who you mentioned, Chris Thompson, Jeremy Ylvisaker played guitar. Ben Lester played pedal steel and synth. Really, it was just tapping into who was around, and they added so much.

As we started to hone in the music some more, we brought another producer on board, Sun Chung, who produced for ECM for a number of years. With Sun’s help, we recruited another batch of musicians from all around the country. We hand-picked a few who we thought would bring, like you said, a unique musical voice into this music and would give it life in a special way. Aaron Parks played piano. Chris Morrisey played bass, and then Dave Devine came in and played guitar.

MIM: The record has very unique synthesis. There’s rock elements, indie elements, jazz, folk and some more atmospheric sounds in there as well. You and Sean have both always blurred genre lines with music that doesn’t fit within rigid boundaries. I’m interested to hear your thoughts on working outside of specific confines.

JR: At the front end of writing the music and throughout the process of recording it, I don’t think we were trying to consciously blur any lines, I think it was just a natural result of Sean and I and what the rest of the musicians brought to the table. There’s kind of this foundation of improvisation in the music and at the same time, I think texturally and harmonically, it fits in a little more with stuff that would be in Sean’s vein. Certainly, there are jazz elements to it, but there are a lot of elements that align with the kind of music that he makes.

Again, I don’t think that was forced in any way, I feel I share a lot of those same integral ideals that Sean has and represents in his own music. I haven’t really had an outlet like this record to be able to tap into that up until this point. That’s why it was such a great time working with him and the other musicians. It felt like, for me, personally, it was years in the making.

MIM: I know you’ll be playing with a bit of a different group in these upcoming shows than you did on the record. What can fans expect from the shows? I’m also curious what role improvisation plays in the live setting.

JR: Hopefully what we do live is keep the essence of each song intact and honor it in a way, and simultaneously we’re playing these songs different from night to night, like a jazz musician would. The intros or outros to songs might be different. We might stretch some things out in the middle if it feels right. Even on a smaller scale, the way each musician plays night to night won’t be the exact material. This is not like a major pop production (laughs). We’re not gonna roll out a click track, play the exact same parts and try to be perfect. There’s a lot of spontaneous creation that happens within the song and the fabric of that little musical world. In that sense, it’s been really fun, and made the music come alive in a new way even more than it is on the record.

You mentioned there will be a few different people. Romain Collin will be playing piano, he’s an amazing piano player out of New York. And then Katie Ernst, an amazing bassist and vocalist from Chicago, and Dave Devine will be on guitar. Sean will be playing drums, and I’ll be playing horns and some synths as well.