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…