EMILY ASHER PERFORMS THURSDAY MARCH 30 AT MAKEDA

 

NBJP: What living musician has influenced you most?

EA: it’s a three-way tie, Nancy Wilson, Nicholas Payton and Wycliffe Gordon.

NBJP: What would you want to be if you weren’t a jazz musician?

EA: a fitness and nutrition coach or a 7th grade math teacher.  

NBJP: What is your greatest fear?

EA: Being attacked by a shark.  I still get nervous jumping in swimming pools in the dark!!

NBJP: What’s your favorite guilty pleasure?

EA: Popcorn and wine for dinner.

NBJP: Dogs, cats or other?

EA:  I love animals in general but I have two cats.  They’re sweet but kind of neurotic.  My geriatric orange cat, Simon, tends to get all worked up when I practice high-range singing and bite my leg or try to climb me like a tree.

NBJP: Who’s your favorite non-jazz composer?

EA: I love Chopin and Wagner mostly because I heard a lot of them as a child.  I often fell asleep as my dad played Chopin Nocturnes on the piano beneath my bedroom.   

NBJP: What instrument would you  like to be able to play?

EA: I’m currently working on tuba and enjoying it immensely.  Maybe in my next lifetime I’ll be a great pianist.  

PLUS ONE: When did you know you wanted to be a jazz musician?

EA: I had a crush on a senior, Tim Shimotakahara, at my high school when I was a freshman.  When I asked him what music he listened to and he said jazz, I decided right then and there that I was a jazz musician.  I think he went into finance…