With the release of his third CD, Addiction, saxophonist Jaared has taken control of his music and given us a sound that is the truest reflection of him to date. A featured performer with Peter White for years, Jaared is an accomplished solo artist, having won the Best New Artist of the Year (2002) award from the National Smooth Jazz Association and consistently touring across the U.S. and England. Jaared will soon expand his loyal fan base by performing in Italy, Greece, Croatia, and Austria this month. He spoke with me between shows during his whirlwind summer promoting Addiction.

SmoothViews: Thanks so much for talking with us today. For our readers who aren’t familiar with your background, how did you first pick up the sax?
Jaared: Actually, I started when I was six years of age. I was diagnosed within a year of me being born, I should say, with having chronic asthma by my asthma specialist in Washington, DC. It was actually prescribed by him to my family – at that time, my grandparents and my great-aunt – that to strengthen up my lung capacity over the years it would probably behoove me to pick up a wind instrument. He said he wasn’t quite sure whether I was going to be athletic or not, but definitely I needed to do something to build up my lung facility, so he suggested me taking up a wind instrument.

I remember when I was five years of age, I was raised by my great-aunt right outside of Roanoke, Virginia; it was just her and I. She just loved the Lawrence Welk Show; we used to watch it every Thursday evening. She used to sit in the chair and I used to sit down on the floor right between her feet watching the TV with her.  I can’t remember the song the Lawrence Welk Band was playing, but I remember the gentleman who stood up and took an alto saxophone solo in it, an old gentleman by the name of Skeets Herbert. I just remember hearing that saxophone and hearing how great it sounded, how pretty it was and turning around and saying “That’s what I want to play” to my great-aunt.  So a year later she saved up some money from her Social Security checks and of course she got some money from my grandparents, and they bought me my first student model alto saxophone and an instruction manual, and I taught myself how to play, and over the years, it just sort of stuck with me.

SV: I understand that you play several different instruments. What other instruments do you play?
Jaared: I can pretty much play all of the saxophone family, but mainly the instruments I play in shows are alto saxophone, soprano saxophone – I play a straight model and a curved model soprano saxophone – and I have an electronic wind instrument called an EWI. It’s by the Akai Corporation, that I play, and I do some singing. I also do play flute, clarinet, oboe, and bassoon and that kind of stuff, but I don’t play that out in public; I just play that for my own enjoyment.

SV: And how did you go from that child listening to Lawrence Welk to where you are today?
Jaared: When I was 14, I obtained my first professional gig, so to speak. I was performing for a retirement home every Saturday evening with a 17-piece big band. I was making $40 a night, which I thought was just the best thing in the world. All of my other friends, older people that were in high school, were working at McDonald’s and Burger King and that kind of stuff, and here I was making money on the weekends and making music. I was just blown away. That was my first professional stint, and I knew right away that that was pretty much what I wanted to do.

Up through the years, when I was 18, I was awarded a great honor by being chosen as one of the top 100 high school students in the nation to tour eight countries in Europe in a month, in 1985. I sat second chair in the United States Collegiate Wind Band back in 1985, and that was pretty nice. I really enjoyed that quite a bit. It taught me a lot about music and touring and kind of gave me an idea of what you have to go through when you’re on the road. That was a lot of fun and a great experience.

As soon as I got back from Europe, I immediately started working in smaller bands and the local club scene and some wedding bands and what have you, when I moved back up to Washington, DC at the end of 1985. I got to know some of the local musicians at that time who were pretty unknown, such as people like Gary Grainger. He was just a great bass player, but nobody really knew him. Some other people as well. I did my stint from 1985 to 1995 for ten years just playing the local scene, the local club scene, not doing much touring as it were, but I was working a lot. I was in demand and getting calls for a lot of studio work.

In 1995, my buddy Gary Grainger called me to play on his and his brother’s first CD, and I said sure. He asked me how much I wanted, and I said, “I’ll do it for free for you, just get me an audition with Maysa.” At that time, Maysa was the very popular lead vocalist for Incognito, and she was just coming out and doing a solo career.  Well, he did better than that. He talked to Maysa, and at that time, her saxophone player Gary Thomas was getting ready to leave, and just on Gary [Grainger]’s recommendation, I got the gig with her, even without an audition.

That was my first major experience with touring with a much bigger artist. We toured a little bit, and I was in her band for about three and a half, four years, and then Kim Waters, who was friends with Maysa, pulled me aside one time after hearing me play with her and said, “You know, Jaared, you’re doing yourself a disservice by playing with somebody. You’re really, really good, and you should really entertain the idea of doing your own solo career. People just love you whenever you play. You should really think about that.” And that’s what really got me thinking.

Once I left Maysa’s band, I endeavored to start my own career, and I did what it took. I got on, at that time, BET on Jazz Discovery series back in, I think it was 1998, 1997, and I won that competition that year, and Marcus Johnson saw me on TV, saw that series on TV, so he found a way to get in touch with me. Then I signed a contract with him. I did my first two CDs, Foreward and Hangtime, on his record label.

I left that record label after my contract had pretty much expired. I wasn’t quite happy with the way it was going and the direction he wanted me to go. I was label-less for about five years until right around 2006 when I signed a record deal with Trippin N Rhythm Records. They have a U.S. branch, and they’re British-based. So I met with them in New York and they signed me. They’d never even heard me, but once again, on recommendation from Oli Silk’s older brother, Simon Russell, who’d heard me playing with Peter White, and then they signed me to a 3-CD record contract, and everything’s been great with them.

For me, the biggest turn for me was catching on with Peter White back in 2002. From 2002 all the way up to today, he’s at the top of the food chain when it comes to smooth jazz guitarists. I mean, he’s like the Godfather, so to speak. He’s a close friend; I talk with him on the phone pretty much every other day. He always supports me. He says, “Sell your CDs on my shows, I’ll feature you and one of your songs on my shows, I’m going to help you get out there.” And he did, he really helped me quite a bit.

That’s pretty much it. Now here I am today. I finished my third CD; I’m working on my new CD, which hopefully will be out by the fall of 2009. I’m going to have some guest producers on there. I’m looking to acquire Paul Brown to produce some of the songs, also I’ll have Oli Silk producing some. I’m going to try to get some different flavors this time. Instead of having one producer, I’m going to have numerous producers and see what that sounds like.

SV: Tell us about the new CD, Addiction. What were your inspirations and goals for this CD?
Jaared: I think really the inspiration was pretty self-evident with me no longer being with Three Keys Music. I felt free to be really creative and create my own music. To be able to collaborate with somebody who shared my vision, that was the biggest influence right there for me - just having the freedom and the enjoyment. You know, I look back on making the Addiction CD, and all I have are fond thoughts. Every song takes me back to when I was recording that song and having such a great time doing it. I’d never had that experience before with my first two CDs, never. For me, that was the biggest influence. Then, secondly, I think it shows in the music. I think the music is pretty self-explanatory, and on that CD, you really get to hear me. Before, on my other two previous CDs, you heard somebody else’s version of me. Frankly, I love the freedom of what I did on this CD. I was able to stretch out and just do more with what I have, with the talent that I have, I was able to stretch out a little more and express myself the way I truly wanted to.

SV: You co-wrote seven songs on the CD. What is your songwriting process?
Jaared: I’m a fan of collaboration. I always believe that two sets of ears are better than one. One person just can’t hear it all, unless you’re someone like Stevie Wonder or somebody of that nature who’s just unbelievable, on a totally different plane. It’s always good to have a couple of different sets of ears listening, because they may hear something you don’t, and of course vice versa, I might hear something that they don’t. So I like the collaborative effort.

The process I had with Oli Silk - when I first heard his material I was recording a song for his CD back in 2004 and it went so well, just the chemistry that he and I had in the studio, I was expecting, OK, it’s going to take a long time to do this, but it took a little bit over an hour, and it just flowed so effortlessly. We had some extra time, so I listened to some of his material. It was just exactly what I’d been hearing in my head. I told him, “You know, I had this other producer who wants to take me down a fusion, retro 70s, Sanborn-ish type of feel, and I really don’t want to do that. That’s not where my heart is. I think I’m just going to scrub that idea, and would you be interested in producing my new CD?” And he said, of course. So that’s how it happened with him and me.

But I like the collaborative effort. I like the collaborative mentality to really figure out different versions of songs. In the technological age of today, people can do stuff over email, and that’s what happened. He would send me a vibe track of a rhythm and a bass line, and of course, I would adjust it here in the States and send it back to him. Then once we finally got the song and the arrangement of the song down, I would fly over to England to record all of my sax parts, because that’s where his studio was. I would go over there for five or six days at a time and record, three, four or five songs at a time, because we’d done all the prep work for it before, much before.

SV: How are the songs picked from the new CD that will become the singles?
Jaared: This is kind of what happened with me with my first single, and I think we’ve learned our lesson. Simon Russell, who’s Oli Silk’s older half-brother and also his manager, Oli Silk, and myself all pretty much picked five songs that we really liked off the CD that we thought were radio-friendly. Then we gave those to other people outside of the record label and they picked what they liked. We went with what they liked and it didn’t work. So from now on, we’re keeping the single decisions in-house.

SV: What will your next single be?
Jaared: My next single that’s being released, as a matter of fact right now as we speak it’s already out there and it’s doing OK, is “Jamaican Winds.” It’s a cover of Earl Klugh’s song back in I think it was like in the late 80s or early 90s off of his Midnight in San Juan album. This will be the second single released. I think I may release “Piccadilly Circus,” but at this point I don’t know whether I’m going to pick another single or not. I’ve really pretty much made up my mind that I’m just going to start working on the new CD, and then I’ll tackle it for 2009. That’s pretty much my idea that I have right now.

SV: You sing on the song “You Like Me Don’t You.” How would you compare how you feel about singing to performing on sax?
Jaared: Oh, wow. [Laughs] Let me first off by saying that I’ve never, ever really considered myself as a vocalist, never. Peter White was the one who really got me into singing. I was goofing off years ago during a sound check and he was doing something like adjusting the strings or something on his nylon string guitar and the soundman wanted to get a mic test on his speaking mic, so I got up there and I started speaking and I started singing. Then I started singing either “Sarah Smile” or “I’ll Be Around” by the Spinners, and he just looked at me, and I immediately stopped, and he said, “Brother, I didn’t know you could sing.” I said, “I really can’t,” and he said, “No, you can sing.” He says, “You know, that singing part? David Sparkman’s not here that usually sings, so why don’t you sing his part?” So I got kind of thrown into it by Peter. He kind of put me on the spot, and you know, it’s very hard to say no to Peter.

So I immediately started singing and the crowd responded better as my confidence built up, and I felt like, OK, maybe I can sing a little bit. The record label was the one who said, “Jaared, you’ve got to sing. You know, you sing so good with Peter over in England, you’ve got to do at least one song.” So I said OK. I said “I don’t know what to pick.” The song “You Like Me Don’t You” was picked by Simon Russell.  I’m like, “Jermaine Jackson? I can’t sing like Jermaine Jackson. I’m not that soulful.” He said, “Well just listen to it. Live with it for a while, try it out.” So I did, and it came together. It took me about 3-1/2 hours to do it in the studio from start to finish, with all the back-ups and everything. After hearing the end result, I was thrilled. I couldn’t believe that it sounded as good as it did, so I’m very happy with it.

SV: Will you be singing any more on future CDs?
Jaared: I tell you, I’ve gotten a lot of good critique and a lot of good write-ups on that song. A lot of people have blogged on the internet that I sounded really, really good and everything, so I think so. In this day and age with smooth jazz, you can’t just rely on one talent. Anything that you have in your arsenal, you’ve got to throw out there, because of the state that smooth jazz is in right now. Yeah, I’ll definitely be doing that, and I might even play a little bit of flute, and I’m going to play some wind synth on my new CD. I’m going to do everything that I possibly can to get out there and show versatility.

SV: You’ve just touched on the state of smooth jazz today. As you’re aware, being based in DC, DC’s smooth jazz radio station recently changed formats, leaving DC without a jazz station. This seems to be happening in markets across the country. How do you compensate for this trend when trying to reach new audiences and get the word out about your music?
Jaared: Well, the first thing is for the musicians just to be true. Just to be true and be honest with what they play, how they play, and the whole bit. And then try to just keep moving forward and keep your eye on the prize. That’s what I’m trying to do, because I freaked out when I first found out about Smooth Jazz 105.9 here in DC going, and of course Baltimore went, New York went, Denver went. I mean, there are so many that just already this year, in the first six months, just completely fell off the map.

But I think a lot of that has to do with the corporations buying the all of the smooth jazz stations. You’ve got all these companies out here where the bottom line is just the dollar. It’s just the dollar signs and how much they’re pulling in. You know, they want to have bigger advertisers, and the only way that you can do that, it seems like, is having a classic rock station or something familiar that people are used to hearing. It’s that same old corporate mentality of, let’s just do what we want to do and not give the people what they really want to hear.

The one good thing, though, is with the advent of satellite radio and high definition radio, there are still options out there. About a month and a half after 105.9 went off the air, they came right back on the air with high definition on the high definition channel 2, and they got their Smooth Jazz 105.9. You’ve got internet radio, you have satellite radio, you have high definition radio. That’s the new technology, the new formats, that’s what the wave of the future is. So, for what I’m doing, I’m focusing mainly now on satellite radio, internet radio, and I haven’t tackled high def radio yet, but I am tackling those other two pretty strongly.

SV: You have several different bands that you perform with, depending on whether you’re on the West Coast, East Coast, or England. What are the challenges and the benefits in utilizing that many different musicians on a regular basis?
Jaared: Well, I’ll take the benefits first. The benefit is that each musician ends up making more money, and the reason being is that there’s not so much overhead in the form of flying them everywhere, which would lessen the pay for everybody. I use four bands, like you said, in the United States and one over in England. I have them strategically placed in the United States specifically for that, because it saves the promoter money. That’s why I have different bands. It lessens the money the promoter has to dish out, it lessens the money for me to have to dish out, and I can actually end up paying the musicians more money, which obviously makes them happy. So that’s the benefit.

The disadvantage – which I actually don’t look at as a disadvantage, I look at it as a challenge – is that I have to remember each band, how they play, how they approach my music, especially if I haven’t played with one in a while. Then I have to remember, OK, they tend to groove a little bit heavier, or they tend to lay back a little bit more. Every musician has a different approach to music. Each band has a different approach to the music. For me, that’s the biggest challenge.

SV: Does playing with the different musicians in the various versions of your band spark more creativity?
Jaared: Absolutely. What it does for me is get me thinking, OK, well this is how the band approaches this. Well, I’ve never thought of that before, so let’s give it a shot, let’s see what it’s like. Of course, certain bands have just incredible musicians, so they automatically just drive your level of play up, I mean automatically. You rise to the occasion, because, you know, you’re the headline artist and you need to rise to the occasion, and they need to see that the person they’re backing up is on the caliber that they are, at least. So that, to me, is the greatest challenge, but I like it. I really enjoy it. I get excited when I haven’t played with one of my bands for a long time. I’ll go out there, and I will have a rehearsal with them like a day before and incorporate that into the show. But still, I love it. It’s like getting to know them again. It’s fresh, there’s a certain freshness with it that I love.

SV: You suffered a pretty serious back injury earlier this year. How are you doing, and has that affected your playing at all?
Jaared: I fell on my pergola out in the back of my house. I bought a new house, and I fell and slipped on it – it was wet that day – and I ended up breaking my L1 and my L2 transverse process lumbar. There was nothing much I could do the first ten days to two weeks, so I had to miss a bunch of shows, but over the time – that was back at the beginning of April and now here it is, mid-July – and I feel pretty normal. There’s not much back ache at all, very little at all. I notice it only if I move something extremely heavy, having to watch how I get in and out of my car so that I don’t torque my back so much, and I’m also having to watch what I lift. For the most part, I’d say I’m at about 98%. I feel pretty good.

SV: That’s good to hear. You mentioned working on the new CD. What else are you working on?
Jaared: I just solidified performing in Bregenz, Austria, for their first annual, first ever smooth jazz festival that they’re having over there. I’ll be doing a show over there with Peter White. I’ll be playing with him – and Candy Dulfer will be there and Alex Bugnon and Chieli Minucci will be there. I’m thrilled to even be invited to do something like that overseas. I’m working on that; that will be August 30th when we perform over there. One of their local bands, the Pat Appleton Band, from Germany, will be backing us up, so that’ll be good.

It’s nice to be invited to this; I’m very honored to be invited to their first annual jazz festival. And then I’m working on a show coming up towards the end of the year, it’s not solidified yet, but I’m working on a show in St. Petersburg, Russia. I’m trying to get over there and solidify that. Right now, negotiations are going very well, it looks very positive, and as soon as I find out something about that, I’ll put that up on my website, which is www.jaared.com. I’m working on that and, of course, working on the new CD, and I’m playing with Peter White as much as I can when he has his own solo shows, and I’m just enjoying life – you know, playing a lot and really loving it.