Amanda Monaco shares her thoughts on Long Island City, the rise of the jazz scene and what's in store for the future of LIC Jazz Alliance with LICNotes.com. Interview by Barsha Khandker.
Barsha: How did you get into jazz?
Amanda: I’m pretty sure that the initial interest, if you can believe it, was from watching “The Muppet Show” as a kid. There was a jazz standard featured in every episode in the first season and a lot of creative musical improvisation going on, not to mention a great Muppet House Band: Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem. When I was in high school, I studied at the Educational Center for the Arts in New Haven, Connecticut, where I played in the jazz band. The teacher was incredible and I met several musicians with whom I still play to this day.
Barsha: Are you originally from New York? If not, what made you come to New York?
Amanda: I’m not, but it’s the place to go for jazz, which is how I ended up here.
Barsha: How did you get to Long Island City and what made you stay?
Amanda: A friend of mine knew of an apartment available in her building so we moved in. We’ve stayed because we love the neighborhood, the people we’ve met here and the small-town feeling that exists.
Barsha: How was the LIC Jazz Alliance formed?
Amanda: The Long Island City Jazz Alliance was inspired by other artist-run collectives in New York City, such as the Brooklyn Jazz Underground. There are many jazz musicians in LIC, and I thought that bringing them all together would be great for both the musicians and the neighborhood as a whole.
Barsha: Where do you find inspiration to make music?
Amanda: I don’t rely on inspiration to make music. Even when I’m feeling “stale” I can always think of something that gets me out of that rut and back to creating, whether I’m inspired or not. Most of the time it ends up being a matter of necessity - new music for an upcoming concert, for example - and I just get to it.
Barsha: How do you feel about the music scene in LIC? Do you feel that bands like yours get enough exposure?
Amanda: They don't, but people are working on it. Gus Rodriguez over at LIC Bar is working really hard and there's also a new venue in Sunnyside called Ra Cafe that he's working on as well. I think it's just a matter of time. I think it's going to get better and better, but it takes time. There's not a jazz club in the neighborhood, which is unfortunate, but hopefully at some point there will be... It would be really wonderful... It's something that I've thought about as well. I mean, the Jazz Alliance is so new that at this point it's very, very, sort of basic. We were supposed to have this gig on Sunday [June 20th], but now it's going to be August 24th.
In a sense, I think it worked out because now we have a little bit more time to get it together and maybe reach out to the community more, and that was actually my intention with the Jazz Alliance - to not only get more attention for jazz in the neighborhood, but also to bring the neighborhood together and have this thing for others who maybe aren't jazz musicians but are jazz fans or just want something like that.
It's a very diverse community, and also when you talk about mapping out the demographics, you have the waterfront, which is almost completely separate. I mean, there are some people in those apartments that are involved in the neighborhood, but most of them aren't. Like I said in another interview I did for The Q Note, which is an LIC website, I said you can tell if the neighborhood hasn't been integrated because there are still no lines for Sunday Brunch.
Barsha: What is it like working in such a big band? Is it difficult to keep the peace or do you guys find it easy to make music together as a family?
Amanda: Well, as of now, it's just individual musicians that have bands, and then there's a couple of people who aren't musicians at all, they're just big jazz fans. So that's what it is so far. We haven't figured out yet how we're going to do it, because I would like to open it up to the community in a way where the community can participate. So we have to kind of figure out how that's going to work. Right now there's about 17 of us - 13 jazz musicians and 4 non-jazz musicians.
Barsha: Where do you want to take the band in the future? How far do you want to go?
Amanda: I'm not really sure. I'm thinking I'd definitely like to have a regular concert series, almost like a festival, a two or three day festival every year. It would be nice if we could have a concert series at some point. It's so new, there's just so many options, which is kind of exciting. It's a bit overwhelming, but also very exciting because it could really go a lot of different ways, especially if you're talking about the community as a whole. Ultimately it would be cool if we could do outreach, like jazz for kids. That would be fun.
Barsha: What would be the perfect venue for you to play in? Where would you like to play?
Amanda: Oh, the Vanguard - I mean everybody aspires to play at the Village Vanguard. It's the only original jazz club that's left. It's a different time, it's been around forever. Coltrane played there, Miles played there... everybody played there and that's sort of THE place. They have the Vanguard Orchestra every Monday. If you've never been there, go!
Barsha: Do you tour around the country?
Amanda: I have - I haven't been touring lately, I haven't been on the road for a couple of years. I'm thinking more Europe now, maybe a west coast tour. Outside of the Jazz Alliance, I have two different projects. I have a band called Deathblow, which is an avant-garde quartet with saxophone, guitar, bass and drums, and then I have a more modern, straight ahead quintet called Playdate, with piano, saxophone, guitar, bass and drums. So that's sort of more traditional yet not completely traditional, and then [Deathblow is] the more far out kind of thing. So the more far out band, that's going to be the Europe thing. Playdate, we're talking about the West Coast, maybe. They book things so far in advance now, that if you don't get on it really early... you have to be REALLY on top of it, and I'm not really on top of it, but I will be. I'm learning the ropes with the touring thing. It's a different world now for touring, it's not like it used to be. It used to be a lot different. There aren't as many gigs anymore... for music in general.
Barsha: Do you think jazz gets enough representation?
Amanda: The PR for jazz has been screwed up for so long. I keep saying that I want to write an article called "How Jazz Shoots itself in the Foot" because jazz shoots itself in the foot all the time. I mean the one thing that brought me to jazz is I always thought it was one of those things that was very intimate and very warm and inviting, and something that could really bring about a sense of community. And it has that, but a lot of people just look at jazz and think you have to know a million things about it to listen to it, you have to be so educated... You don't. It's been drilled into people's heads for so long that it's this intellectual art form and it's so terrible that that's the case because it's like going on a roller coaster. You don't know what's going to happen. There are dips and drops and you might end up upside down, and jazz is kind of like that too. It's just a roller coaster ride, it's fun, you never know what to expect. It's like a ride, but people don't approach it that way. Even jazz musicians don't approach it that way - they get all serious and stuff. I just think it's really bad that the sense of humor has come out of jazz, that you can't really have a sense of humor and everybody is so serious all the time.
Barsha: Do you personally have any more performances this year aside from the Gantries?
Amanda: I'm playing in Brooklyn at the Tea Lounge on August 12th, I'm playing in New Haven, Connecticut, at the New Haven Jazz Festival on August 14th and then there is the LIC Jazz Alliance performance [Live at the Gantries] on August 24th.
Barsha: Does the LIC Jazz Alliance have anything else scheduled as of yet?
Amanda: Not as of yet, but we will! We will have more, and there are other musicians like J Walter Hawkes, who has a lot of gigs coming up.
Barsha: Finally, if you were to use one word to describe The LIC Jazz Alliance, what would it be?
Amanda: Enthusiastic, we are enthusiastic about bringing more jazz to the community.
Top photo by Scott Friedlander. Bottom photo by Daniel Kapovic.
