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Speaker 1: Pushkin. Layvey's fast rise to fame is a pandemic success story. During Lockdown, the twenty four year old multi instrumentalist built a substantial following on social media, where she was known as Jazz Girl. Since then, the Icelandic Chinese singer songwriter has released two studio albums that blend classical pop and jazz perfectly, and while working in the style of artists like Elia Fitzgerald and Chet Baker may seem unlikely for a Gen Z artist, her music has proved to resonate deeply with young audiences. The first single from her most recent release, Bewitched, has been streamed over twenty million times globally since it's released a couple months back, and the album itself was the largest jazz debut on Spotify ever. Layvay's online performances first went viral in twenty twenty while she's attending Boston's prestigious Berkeley College of Music. Raised in Iceland, Layve started playing cello and classical piano when she was just four years old. By fifteen, she was performing with the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra as a cello soloist. The Chinese side of her family has been studying classical music for generations. LaVey's mom as a professional violinist and a maternal grandfather taught violin at China's Central Conservatory of Music, and while Lave's classical training runs deep, perhaps the most surprising thing about her sent to stardom is the fact that she's now known as a singer songwriter as much as a musician. On today's episode, I talked to Leave about how she started singing jazz standards online and what inspired her to write her own songs as well. She also talks about the great sacrifices her Chinese family made during the Cultural Revolution when there was a strict band on playing classical Western music, and she sings two original songs for us, including her single from the Start. This is broken record. I don't know it's for the digital age. I'm justin Mitchell. Before we jump into my interview with Levey, let's hear her sing an acoustic condition of her song from the Start live. Don't you knows how I get quiet when there's no one else surround me and you and awkward silence. Don't shut look at me that way? I don't need to remind herself how you don't feel the same. Oh the burdening pain listening to your heart bumbous news song made, She's so perfect, blah blah blah. How I wish you wake up one day? Fun to me confess your little bell yst Just let me say that when I talk to you, Oh cute b walks right through and shoots on the or through my herd and I sound like aloon. But don't you feel to confess I've learned from the start. I love that I sound like a loon line such a great play on word. Yeah, in such a little time, you've gotten so successful, I feel I can confidently say that I should mention you. I mean, your album was like the highest debuting jazz album, dare I say on Spotify? You know, if you admit it to jazz, it is so so so wild. It was very I you know, I I would have never expected that that could be the outcome for the kind of music that I make. You know, I really set out to just make the music that I loved and hope that people would listen. And the fact that they have is is very very special. I kind of can't believe it. I might go all over the places because you're a relatively new artist. I don't know a ton about you in your route to where is this place now? It's a cuitous. It's like you it's confusing, like where you came from before LA and where you you know, there's a lot of many stops stops. So how long have you been in LA now? A little over two years and you came to LA from It's kind of confusing. But d C kind of because my parents lived in DC while I went to Berkeley, and then because great parents, so they moved to the States. Yeah, you know, it just was coincidental actually, but because my dad worked in DC, like between Iceland and d C, so when my kids go to college, I'll also accidentally have some work to do. But it was so nice. It was so nice because then what happened is COVID struck, right, instead of going back to Iceland, where I would have, you know, otherwise gone, I went to d C. So I stayed in the States and you know, had employment authorization and stuff like that. So it was like actually quite integral to me being able to start this career during that time. I think, So how much Berkeley did you do remote? Like from d I mean after I did one and a half year in person and then and then the rest online. Wow, but I did graduate. Congratulations. That's it's no, it's just it's a rare one. It's not considered very cool to graduate. But wow, No, I know some cool people though that have graduated from Yeah, some of us make it all. Look at you, you're setting a new tone for Yeah. You know. The standard is that if you dropped out, you made it. If you if you if you graduated, you won't make it. I'm always curious about Berkeley experience because it's such a unique school with such unique, very driven students. For one, you know what I mean, I feel like students who very much want to they want it, they want it, and they want it like not. You know. I feel like if you go to a traditional four year institution where it's it's much more, where it's focused on academics, there's a sense of like, you know, it might take a while to get into your profession, you might take a detour through graduate school or whatever. And you know, I know, like with Berkeley kids, it's like, to your point, they want to make it before they even graduate. So that's a drive amount of pressure. It is and I think strangely I didn't put that pressure on myself because I came from such an academic background and my twin sister went to like a four year university in Scotland that was very much not like a music school, so I was almost on that path. I think I was different from a lot of kids at Berkeley in that I came there quite open minded and curious about what it was that I was able to do within the walls of Berkeley. Because I came in as a cellist, right like, I was on a scholarship to play cello. I didn't go as a singer or a writer or anything like that, and I kind of was like, Okay, I want to do a little bit of everything and see what I can do. And part of me just felt like it was so unrealistic to become a singer that I just didn't even you know, dip too much into it. So sit your track with cello, but you also want to pursue sing and a writing or you're curious about that? Absolutely? Yeah. I mean I you know, I wanted to be a singer the most, but it just felt very unrealistic, which is funny because it wasn't well, yeah, I mean growing up in Iceland, it's not something you see that often, you know, you're not immersed in that, and like, yeah, I don't know. I think I also like to play it safe as a kid, right, And I didn't want to. I was a little bit scared of dreaming outside of the box, if you will. And I was like, who am I to think that I can do that? You know? I was also taught to like I've come from my mother's Chinese and you know, the Chinese kind of my Chinese culture, sure, and background has definitely taught me like you have to manage expectations, stay humble, work very hard. Like those are the three kind of pillars. Manage expectations, they work really hard, Yeah, exactly, Like obviously like dream strive for big things, but like in a very realistic way, in a way that you work your way up to it, you know, whereas like I think the American dream is like a little bit more delusional, but in a really good way, do you know what I mean? And now I've t but I've tapped into that delusion now, But I think you know that's that's you know, I mean, in many in many ways, whether it be a good thing or a bad thing. I think that's why a lot of Americans succeed in really fantastic ways again, whether it be good or bad, because also why we like fail spectacularly even after having succeeded. Yeah, I mean, you know, big, big wins and big losses come from big risks, and Americans and American kids are taught to take big risks. I think a lot of my not even my parents. I think I was just a very safe and calculated child, so I didn't dare to take big risks. But now I take really big risks. That's great, even doubt. What was your first encounter with American culture as a delusional As a delusional I mean I went to elementary school in the States from age of six to nine. That was like the first time I remember encountering American culture. Do you remember how you felt before you got here, like being told you're going to come here and just sort of your feel Yeah, I mean I think, you know, I was five years old, so I wasn't thinking too much about it. I think I was excited to get to move to a new country. I mean I didn't speak English very well or at all, so I remember Icelandic and Chinese Chinese. I remember just how encouraged we were to speak up, like public speaking. There was an emphasis on that, even from you know, age six. In my you know, public school in DC, it was a lot of like show and tell, sharing, you know, reading out loud, stuff like that. From a very early age that I didn't feel like there was as much of an emphasis on. And I think what resulted was like kids were quite open and they were which was great for me coming from a different country especially. I mean I lived in Washington, d C. And though it was like a public school, it was very international just because the nature of the neighborhood I lived in. There were a lot of like children who had parents who worked in you know, international service. So because these kids were very international and because they were very outspoken, I think they accepted kids quite easily. So that was actually really good. But I remember just always thinking, you know, Americans and American culture was quite extroverted compared to a more introverted Icelandic culture, and I knew that from a very young age. It seems like was it uncomfortable to start, No, not at all. And I think, you know, six to nine, which is the time that I lived in America as a kid, there's such formative years and they taught me to become very expressive. And I think when I took that expression, like that expressive nature back to Iceland when I was like nine, eight or nine, in the middle of the recession in two thousand and eight, I felt quite loud. I quite felt really larger than life, like really big, and that was kind of something that I dealt with for a while in Iceland. What about at home? Was it encouraged at home to be sort of living out loud? Yeah? Absolutely. My parents were super, super encouraging of me being an artist as well, like they from a very young age. But it was I had a very disciplined childhood, not in a bad way, but in that you know, I knew I came home from school and I practiced. I was, you know, treading a pre professional classical music path. And that's because your mom, my mom is a classical violinist. Yeah, So from age four I started playing classical piano and cello and it just kind of became a part of life, just as going to elementary school becomes a part of your life. You know, you go to math, you go to English, you go to science, it come home you have an hour piano, hour of cello, an hour of piano, hour of cello before even an hour of homework, yes, before homework. Yeah, but in Iceland there isn't much homework. That's nice, very nice. Yeah, yeah, you know, I I would say that the nature of schooling in Iceland is a lot more relaxed. And you know, there's no private school. Everyone goes to the public schools. There's no you know, the kind of hierarchy of schools that has been set up in the States that you know follows you all the way down to college. You know, like people thinking about how they can set themselves up to get to a good university from the age of like six or seven. That mentality just doesn't really exist in Iceland. There a big class dichotomy. They're like no, no, no, I would say, I mean, of course, like like everywhere, you know, there's but the wealth gap in Iceland is generally compared to other countries quite small. Wow. And it's a social democratic country, and it's you know, follows kind of Scandinavian principles and you know, you have free free health care and education or very very low low cost, which is you know nice, It's great that you got to bounce between. Yeah, I definitely experienced both. And you know, I spent every summer in China as while growing up, so so I have extreme Yeah, I was Actually I was in China just a couple of days ago. I was there for ten days, playing a bit. But it was my first time back since COVID, and it was nice to revisit that as the adult that I've become since. How was it? What was that? And do you saw family there? Yes, my grandmother lives there. She she's a professor, was a professor at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, and my grandfather was as well, who's who's now passed. So the classical music routs run run quite deep. But yeah, she was there, and I played with a China Philharmonic in Beijing, and I think it was very special for her to see that. Actually, my grandfather was a violin professor and a lot of his students were in the workstrane. It was, it was it was a fun full circle moment. When did your grandfather pass? Two thousand and nine? So you were young quite a while ago. They were quite young. He should get to talk to his former students about him at all. Yes, absolutely, and I remember him very vividly. He was like a larger than life person. I've actually been told that that I resemble him in many ways, which is, you know, such an honor. And you know, he really loved music so much, and he loved jazz music as well, and loved like musical theaters, so I kind of, you know, his idea of music was it was just such a musical thing, right, you know, I feel like you can split music into two kind of things. In my head at least, it's like you have the technique and you have the musicality. If you have both your stellar I definitely lean musical like I I mean I've I've definitely you know, worked up a foundation of technic, but I was never that good at practicing. And I definitely leaned in onto the fact that I onto the musicality that you had like an ear and yeah that and feel for things exactly kind of the stuff that you don't need to practice as much to a metron to a literal metronome. But I was always my failing. I could never I never practice. I hated practicing to a metronome as I was always told my time, Oh my god. To this day, the sound of a metronome like triggers me, Like I get like a physical reaction to a metronome, which is great now because you know, I sing to click sometimes, which I didn't even know was a thing until two years ago. Maybe when I started working in music. It like bewildered me so much that like on stage there would be like a constant metronome in my ear. It's funny. Do you do it in studio two when you're recording? Rarely? Sometimes, but I try. I always try without click before I do it with click. Yeah, I would imagine if it triggers you that much. Yeah, well, I think you know, I've earned it that I can. I can kind of just let the music live. But yeah, of course sometimes I need to be, you know, pushed into place by a click. Yeah, sure enough. We have to take a quick break and then we'll come back with more of my interview with Lave. We're back with more from lay. May you know, certainly mid century Russia for instance, would have and you know, Cuba rock and roll would have been outlawed. I don't know if jazz was the same, but it certainly would have been hard to get a hold of jazz records and things. I'd imagine, right, like h yeah, I mean, well in the sixties and seventies and in China, you know, there was a cultural revolution, so Mao and the and the Communist Party, they basically, you know, outlawed any type of foreign influence and Western influence, and there was just kind of like a grand scale focus on all things just Chinese like looking within. So my grandparents, who who were professors at the Central Conservatory of Western Classical Music that was considered you know, the bourgeoisies. So they actually went to re education camp and lived in the countryside for a while and were like rice farmers and whatnot. And my mom grew up in a boarding school because of that, and they couldn't play any Western classical music, no Western music at all, and it like it goes so far. I've heard the craziest stories from that time. But yeah, my mother kind of grew up in that world, and my grandparents also went through that. I mean, my mother even like down to the clothes that you wore, you like couldn't wear any you couldn't wear bell bottom jeans or anything, which was you know, in style at that time in the Western world. My grandmother naturally has curly hair, which is very very rare in China, and the Communists thought that she had permed her hair, which was you know, Western influence, so she had to put her hair up in a silk scarf every day for years. Really well, and none of them played music for the longest time, or at least the you know, the classical music that they were trained in. How does your mom end up back playing well, I mean she always she played violin. She just couldn't play you know, it had to be Chinese music, got it. I think, you know, my mother was just so in that world that she, you know, that that was the only path she could tread. And I think that's why my mother so emphasized kind of me and my sister's freedom to do whatever we wanted and become whatever kind of artists we wanted. And because it was sort of so because it was so strict as she was growing up and she didn't really have that freedom of choice, and so she she just kind of let us do whatever we want, and like that an hour of practice immediately after school is it's much more lenient than whatever Oh, my god, definitely. I mean the way that my I'm so thankful for that because I'm still running off of that technique. Do you still try to day? No, not nearly as much as I did as a kid, But you know, the hard work that I put in as a kid is still paying off today because when I'm like on strenuous touring schedules or recording for hours on end, you know, the stamina that I've gotten from all of those years of practicing and kind of the focus that I've gotten, those skills still are lasting me at this age, which is which is really really great. But you know, I think that's another reason I really love the fact that I live in a time where I can mix so many genres together. You know, like they couldn't do anything of the sort, and I'm just like, oh, I'm going to mix jazz and pop and classical together and present it however I want. And the fact that we have that freedom now is wild. I mean, it wasn't so long ago that my grandparents and my mother couldn't play even classical music. I am so glad that you're doing it too. You know. It feels like we go back to an American culture. In Western culture, we do go back a lot, but I feel like an era we haven't revisited in a long time is sort of that mid century jazz, right, that musical world that existed then, and it's so ripe for reimagining because it's so expressive, so emotional, and so musically sound, and even the opening of your record that sounds both like modern production and like old production simultaneously. And I think that's kind of like the brilliance of certain people your age, some of your cohorts. I guess we would say, who are sort of doing that, you know, mixing these things up? Yeah, thank you so much. I mean, that's kind of that's definitely the goal to kind of hark back to that time. And I think that's the music I've just always loved so much. And when I started singing, I immediately started singing jazz standards and like Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday and Chat Baker where And then also on top of that, like the songs from Golden Age films were the only music I really listened to, Like there's no other music I could make, Like that's the music I wanted to make so much that you know, whether it worked out or not, I was going to continue doing it, you know. But I also did find there was especially when I started out and I was just posting like little videos of me singing jazz standards online, I found that there was such a gap for this generation. No one was really doing it, but nobody seemed to really dislike the music that much. Like it's the bones of the music is so good, right, these jazz standards. There's just good songs that have lasted for so long and have been honestly like have been sampled so many times. And jazz is kind of like the root of all modern music, right. It's something that is so prevalent in pop music and hip hop and R and B. So actually like down to and to your point of it being the backbone, because I think most of them, like the blues is being the back but really coming out of the big band era, like bebop groups taking it down to like the bare essentials of it. Might be a trio or might be a quartete. I mean that's rock and roll. It's like three or four hund's all. It's all connected. And so I think, you know, I tend to think the gen z ear is actually really trained well for jazz music and we've been like subconsciously fed it for many, many years. So I also think that the timing of music now is like this new audience of music listeners. They don't really care what the music, you know, what era resembles, if anything, if it resembles another era, Like you're hearing these huge resurgences in like nineties rock sound, punk rock. Honestly like every seventies music like Fleetwood Mac had a big moment and talk recently during the exactly it's like all music is coming back. I think what gen Z cares about is connecting to the artists, connecting to the lyrics, connecting to the story. And jazz is really good storytelling, I think, really so Yeah, it's fun that we live in a time where we can mix so many genres together and kind of make it our own. How did it come to be that standards ended up being the first thing that you were singing, like, did you and counted them through film or through radio? No, Well, my father loved jazz music, so we played a lot of jazz music in the house. And you know, as a kid, I listened to pretty much only classical music, and then I really liked, you know, obviously, like the other kids of that time when I was like seven or eight, I loved like Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus and whatever, but I couldn't hear any of myself in those singers. I've always had quite a deep voice, and when I started singing, I just immediately started. I think the first song I remember like learning and like performing at a like a singing show was Singing in the Rain, So and then I just naturally, you know, I just listened to so much Ella Fitzgerald that I just kind of like, you know, started singing all the songs that she had in our repertoire, which kind of ended up being just the Great American songbook. Ella talk about the sort of the spectrum of technique and feel, Yeah, I mean she has it all. When you both stellar and she is the epitome of that. Yeah, It's like a few people like her. Stevie Wonder's another who exactly you hear it less, but with Ell it's more obviously she has the technique exactly. Yeah, it's true musicianship, and I think coming from a classical music background, I recognize that within her performing and and also just growing up a cellist. Like she sounds like a cello. She sings like a cello in her voice, like the tombre of it and the vibrato, the approach, the legato. It's very cellistic. Interesting. I have to listen for that. Yeah, it's like so obvious once you think about it. I've been on an Ella kick recently and you're just trying. Yeah, just because just because she's so good. I haven't listened in a while. And honestly, we named my youngest daughter, we named her after Ella Fitzgerald, Peter Ella, and she's just starting to get into music, so I think good. I say it just randomly, but it's probably because I'm trying to like subconsciously get her and stuff, you know, because she around the piano and sing and stuff. So I'm like, I'm hoping she goes that direction. But yeah, just you know, I'm not a great pians by any measure, but I love just messing around. And it's like you can learn a lot just mess around so much. You can learn so much by messing around. I mean nothing I do within the jazz world aside from the singing portion. But I came from a classical piano background, right, so I was very I was conditioned to do what the page told me to do, what the music told me to do. And then when I started singing jazz and I wanted to accompany myself, I started just like slowly learning the chords. And I'm by no means a jazz pianist, so like what I do is not maybe based in the most of technique, it's more based on feel, which took me a really long time to kind of allow myself to do. Like in my I think in my first recordings, I was like a little bit embarrassed to play because I was like, I'm not a jazz pianist. Like, but when the first jazz pianists came about, they weren't jazz pianists either. They were just messing around as well they were. And so many, so many of the greats who even became like great in terms of technique and a revered for technique, they came from playing other styles, you know exactly, and just by circumstances they had to record in jazz or play with the jazz group or something, and then they picked it up and learned it over. Well that's how yeah, I was reading a Bill Evans biography the other day actually, and like he started out as a classical pianist and then just like kind of started newdling his way in and learning about it. And I was very inspired. I was like, I should do that. But I'm a huge Bill Evans found and it made a lot of sense because I can hear a lot of like classical technique and ideas. You know, it's very based and technique. But yeah, it's so cool. I mean, my life as a musician and my musicianship got a whole lot better when I allowed myself to mess around and make mistakes. It's pretty obvious how like the Bill Evans and the Al FitzGeralds of the world like influence your your sound and your music and your feel for things. Less obvious is, I guess, like the Taylor Swift side of things, which I guess you grew up listening to as well. Absolute, But I'm wonder if that's more in the approach to yourself as an artist. I think so, yeah. I think you know the way that her artist's trajectory, just the way that she's kind of been able to stay true to herself whilst climbing over different genres and every time she moves and changes a bit, you know, she retains her fans and gains new ones, and people respect her as an artist as a person, so they follow the music that she puts out. And I also think for Taylor, for me, it's the storytelling aspect as well, Like she had me believing in these stories when I was like nine years old and I had never even talked to a boy before. And there's such there's such power in that being able to convince someone of a story because they've just told it so well and so beautifully. So so yeah, I think's been someone of the dynamics of something. You know, it's like exactly of how it will be when you finally Yeah. Well, there's so many songwriters that, like my music doesn't really you know, come close to resemble, but I'm just so inspired by like their lyricism and their approach. You know. It's like I love Carol King as well, and like the Carpenters and down to like Sarah Brellas. Like, my inspirations are kind of all over the place, but they're all like very potent songwriters. Yeah, have you gotten into Jonny Mitchell yet? I was gonna mention Joni Mitchell as well. Yeah, but yeah, I mean, and some of her stuff, She's done some really cool string stuff as well, like orchestral sounding stuff, which I obviously really admire. I imagine you probably want to start doing something like that, Yeah, yeah, or dabbling with that. I loved, speaking of the orchestral side of things. I loved your song California and me, oh, thank you my favorite song on the I mean show, ittle change, But over the last week and a half or so, that's been like dialed in is my favorite. Thank you so beautiful. I love that one. Yeah. I obviously having a classical music background, I always wanted to find ways of bringing that into a new audience of listeners who maybe have never gotten to experience and listening to a symphony orchestra or the sound world that a symphony orchestra lives in. And I'm so aware of how that world is, you know, kind of unapproachable and unaccessible for a pop music audience, for a young audience, for people that didn't grow up within the world like me, and I just kind of want to find a way always to bring it down, to bring it down to earth a little bit, and bring it to bring it to the people again, like this classical music, jazz music was meant for people. The fact that it's seems like something that's only for the educated now exactly, it's really how highbrow exactly is so disappointing to me because because I understand those worlds so well, Like I went to classical conservatory and then I went to jazz conservatory. I know how those worlds are, and I've made an angled approach to not kind of end up in those worlds, like taking those worlds and bring it to people who like don't typically listen to jazz or typically listen to classical music. Like My hope, of course is that you know, the people within those educated worlds are okay with what I'm doing, but at the end of the day, at the end of the day, I'm making it for the people who don't have access to that music. So well, Okay, to that point, overall, what was your Berkeley College of Music experience? My Berkeley College and Music experience, it was It was good. I mean, the school invested a lot in me, and they gave me one of their presidential scholarships, so it covered everything, and so I you know, I didn't have to worry about that component of it while I was at Berkeley, which I know is you know, it's it's not an inexpensive school by any means, and I think having that looming over you can definitely change the experience. So I was very lucky to have kind of like a stress pre experience in that sense. So I got to kind of go in with a very clear mind. I was very privileged to get to go in with a clear mind and think, just Okay, what can I do here? How can I make music? And make music twenty four to seven. Are there as many people there as open to what music can be as you because my sense of things is that people can be very narrow about what jazz is defined as and narrow about what they do instrumentalist, And this is absolutely I mean I remember even at Berkeley, like I would make a point out of telling people I was a cello player and not a singer and not a jazz singer, because you know, the people who took jazz very seriously didn't think that jazz singing was a real thing, you know, or like that didn't wasn't considered real jazz, And so yeah, I definitely got in touch with that world and saw how that can be, and I had experienced a lot of that within classical music as well, and the classical educated world, I know, even better than the kind of jazz educated world, much more time spent there. Yeah, absolutely, I would say ninety eight percent of Berkeley, like ninety five to ninety eight percent of Berkeley was super open, and you know, all kinds of genres and people from all over the world, and everyone kind of with a shared passion of wanting to do something within music. Of course, you know, wherever you go, there's going to be that group of people that are very focused on, you know, the purity of jazz music and the purity of the art, just as you have that in the classical world or you know, any other discipline. I respect those musicians so much because, honestly, those were the most talented musicians in school. I would say, But I've you know, I never wanted to become a musician like that. I wanted to create my own world of music that was a mix of a couple of different disciplines. So I've been thinking a lot about it recently because you know, I always want to really respect and honor the roots that I'm coming from. You know, I'm highly aware that jazz music, for example, is black music. You know, I know that comes from and I know, like I studied the history of it at Berkeley, I know where classical music comes from as well. I always want to honor my roots. Same with Bosonova music. I have a lot of Bosonova references. That's Brazilian music. You know, I'm not Brazilian. I'm also not black, so you know, I think it's really important that I learn a lot about where these influences are coming from, what the history behind it is, and make sure I honor it in my music. So that's definitely something I've been thinking a lot about recently. I think mixing up styles of music, mixing and matching is is totally fine. I think that's how music evolves. I think it's just important to know where it's coming from. Yeah, And just like you can't ignore that jazz music is black music from the America's or whatever, that, you can't ignore your own innate sort of history, right, which is that you're not that and exactly whatever new you can bring to that I think is probably really cool. I mean, and that is how things might hope. My hope is that I just my hope is that people in those educated communities know that I'm not, like, you know, painting over or slandering the history. And I've I've done my duty learning about it, but I still think those worlds are a little bit gay kept now. Yeah, and you could come in and follow it to a tea, and there's people that do that, like there's actually I got turned on recently. I was reading a biography of I want to say Erl Garner, but that's just because I've been listening to Misty I love your record. It's not Errol Garner. It's Hampton Hawes, who is like a pianist from here in La. In his book, he's writing about this Japanese woman whose name escapes me now. And she played like bebop like a mother. Was it, Hiromi? Thank you? Yeah, that's it. You went to Berkeley, did she? Yeah? Oh my god. Those Japanese musicians rip, and they're so talented and they do it like they do bebop, like bebo be done and not. I don't want to take away from that, but if that's not what you want to do when you're doing it, there's an element of you also just not being like, if that's what she wants to do her, that's great, she's being true to herself. But if you also, in the process of wanting to participate in this music, want to bring your own history to it, and that's what feels the most comfortable, Like you'd be a fraud if you didn't. Yeah, I mean, I'm having so much fun that you know that we live in a day and age where you can mix all these styles of music together and you can kind of be whoever you want to be and kind of create your own genre as well. Yeah, because you would have penalized, I think in the day for that, because it wouldn't have been easily marketable. Oh definitely. I mean even two three years ago, I think I was just you know, people artists and people make fun of the Internet and TikTok and Instagram or whatever, but I have a hard time doing that because I think the reason I get to make the music I make today is because I had the freedom to do that and you got the Internet, miss, Yeah, you could bypass the traditional. I passed the traditional by proving myself and with my fan base that I could do whatever music I want. And now I kind of gotten to the point where I think people in the industry trust me to make my own decisions about the music. But yeah, I mean back in the day you were either a pop singer or a jazz singer or a classical singer. It was very boxed up, and the people who got past it by the grace of God, like a Stevie Wonder exactly whatever. But there are very few and even Joan Mitchell is celebrated as she is. Yes, I would argue she's I don't want to say underrated, but in terms of the general public consumption and understanding of her music right, probably because it wasn't It was because it was too it was too confusing. What it was confusing? Yeah, it should be as heralded as you know, the Beatles and all that stuff. It's not. It's just crazy. I think now being unique is actually quite quite celebrated. And you know, when I was younger, all these things that made me so confused, like being a like a cellist or or you know, being you know, mixed race and being loud. These things I used to that I used to feel like were my limits are actually the things that have made me who I am and given me a career so cool, very very Obviously, we have to pause for another quick break and then we'll come back with the rest of my interview with Lave. We're back with the rest of my conversation with Lave. What was the social media trajectory in terms of putting your music on? I mean, were you ever using YouTube early on, like to put music out even as a kid, like where you docu my? Oh? Of course I posted some covers on YouTube when I was twelve, just like everyone else know. They aren't up, but them, I have them. They're privated, they're quite cute. But yeah, the story starts twenty twenty. The pandemic had just started and I came back home and I was like, okay, I have this empty space of time now. I'd recorded one song, which ended up being the first song I ever put out. It just so happened that that was like the first semester that I was working on writing and recording, and that was a song called Street by Street. But anyways, I got back home, the song wasn't out yet, and I thought it was a two week break. I was like, you know, I'm gonna write as much as I possibly can, and I'm going to post videos of myself playing jazz standards on the internet just as a form of practice, and we'll just see what happens. Never in a million years would I've thought that what happened would happen, which was, you know, the videos got some attention on the internet. I guess there were a lot of people board at home on their phones right right, and they just started getting shared and my following started to grow really fast, and we're doing more. And even in those early videos, it was kind of, to be honest, with more just straight up straight jazz, like straight jazz, yeah, like covers of Louis and Ella or whatever. It wasn't even like your own material, at least that I've seen, right. Yeah, there were a couple like maybe once a week or once every two weeks, I'd post a song that you know, resembled a jazz standard, which is kind of how I started writing also in that style. I didn't really realize that you could do that, that you could write like a jazz standard sounding song in twenty twenty. So it sounds intimidating, I'm going to write a standard, right, I mean, yeah, it's basically proclaiming that you want to write a song that lasts forever exactly, that's exactly, that's the idea. But yeah, I wrote one song called like the Movies, just like on my guitar, and it was it was very cute. See like now I look back and I'm like, that was a very innocent song, but it was in kind of like an old style, and I posted it on TikTok. It was my first TikTok, and it kind of like went viral, and there were all these comments were coming in being like, oh, this sounds like something I've heard in a movie or something like my Grandma loves and and I slowly started to realize that, you know, there's kind of like a space missing for gen Z to indulge in this kind of music. So I kind of just continued doing that, writing songs in that style, posting them online, and also posting videos of myself singing and playing cello and guitar and piano to singing these jazz standards that had you know, to me, they're old songs, but to gen Z. So when seeing it on their TikTok, you know, for the first time, that's a new song, that's a new sound, And I thought that was really, really cool, and so it kind of just snowballed from there. Yeah, it became jazz girl on Instagram and TikTok. I did it feel overwhelming? Did you necessarily know where to go from there? I had one song that's Street by Street that I put out like three weeks into the pandemic, just like on Destroy Kage, I just like threw it out there and no clue what I was doing, and it just luckily, somehow, I think I grew. I was growing an audience at the same time, and it just got thrown into you know, the algorithm, if you will. I don't even know if that's the right word, but it was just really good, good timing, and on Spotify got tip like it hit some Discover week lease or something like that, so people started listening and the music was like almost like a derivative of jazz and that it had a lot of jazz principles, but was you know, a modern story and something new and didn't seem too different from what I was, you know, posting online. So it kind of, yeah, it just grew and it became almost like I kind of harnessed social media, like I knew I'd built a community on there, that was so great for me and my creative process. Like that first year of COVID, I really spent figuring out who I was as an artist. And you know, I could turn on a live stream at the flip of a switch and sing a song that I'd written that day and get immediate feedback. And then I got to know my fans and they got to know me, and they were from all over the world, and we'd talk about the state of COVID and we'd be like, Oh, what's happening, and like, you know Peru, Yeah, exactly, and it was it was so special. And I'd have these like Sunday lullaby live streams, So every Sunday I turn on a lullaby live stream and I'd just sing and we'd talk. It's great. I wish I had found that somehow. It definitely saved me from a very bleak time in history, I would say, yea. And I think that's another part of why the timing of the project worked, because I think nobody wanted to be reminded of the bleak times, and the music I was offering up sounded like it was of a different time. Everything was so online and getting something that felt less online, like jazz music or z. I also went back to like some of those like old musicals, Oklahoma or whatever. I just love Oklahoma very cool, It's very cool. I'm a huge Rogers in Hammerstein fan. So the songs from those films are like my favorite. Sorry with the fringe on top, like are you kidding me? Chicks and ducks and geese, they will scurry. That's wrapping right there, it is, and with that beautiful melody. Dude, I don't know how they came up with that. Stuff's incredible. No, I know it's it's it's wild. Would you mind there's a guitar right there? Would you mind sort of playing that the first song? Sure? Yeah? Street by Street just a bit of it. Yeah. So I was almost in like more of a R and B kind of swing of jazz back then, like lo fi cool. So yeah, it's interesting how it's evolved. But anyways, it's Street by Street. This food a small to my face lally, it's some nothing bad. Remind me the way the jeused to give me. Butterfly took me twenty one days to carf paradise Paradise by stop by stop, break by break. I'm reclaim me wor smart the cities ware you too small to give way to just one god, Street by street, breath by breath, from the back bit to the sky. I'm taking back my shity. I'm taking back my Your voice is so incredible, it's like live. Hearing it in this room is insane. Oh thank you. Yeah, I think I got a great voice. But that was it was, honestly in the rooms incredible. Thank you very much. That's a cool song. Yeah, it's a cute one. It was like the one of the first songs I ever wrote, and it really it really healed me. It really. I remember I had my light bulb moment after writing that song. I was like, oh my god. I was like, in the middle of writing it, my heart was racing. I was like, I think I have it. I think I got something. Was there was there any music that particularly inspired you while writing that, anything you were referencing in your mind or I don't know. There's like, you know, there's a lot of Sam Cook that I was listening to, so it was like a Sam Cook lick kind of that I threw in there. You know, there was jazz music. I was also listening to, like a lot of Bruno major at the time, Who's I went to a concert with him and it was the first time I really saw jazz and and like kind of songwriting being presented alongside each other, and it really inspired me. So yeah, as you were playing that, it occurred to me that, I mean, in a way, you're a jazz singer or just a singer with some jazz influence and a player, but also like a singer songwriter. I mean, it's not many people did that in jazz. I guess you know a couple of times, right right, No, it's a very rare thing to be a songwriter of a singer and a songwriter of jazz and jazz. Historically, jazz singers sing songs by sing songs by people who don't sing, and then you know, aside from obviously like Ella and a couple of examples like didn't didn't improvise either, so they weren't of course they had their own takes on songs, but it wasn't creating in that sense. So yeah, wear many hats. Well. I presume much of your songwriting is about your own experiences, is it? Yeah, most of them are personal personal stories. Is it weird? Then to follow like the people like Taylor Swift down to Carol King that you mentioned and kind of putting your life out for your fans and that sort of. You know, I don't think too much about it. People ask me a lot like, oh, aren't you embarrassed to put it out? Or isn't it exposing? And I think in a way like when I bottle up an experience or an emotion in a song and let it free, it's no longer completely mine, and then it doesn't feel as daunting. That being said, the thought of someone listening to a song I wrote about them is terrifying. But I just don't think about that. I think, in my delusional mind, I'm like, yeah, they're not listening. That's the American in the delusion. Yeah exactly. And I'm like, if they listen, I just hope they don't tell me. Unless it's like a really really nice thing, then maybe they can tell you. But it's also worth it when someone's like, oh, I've experienced that before, I can relate. So the album cover too, I should say it's very cool, Oh thank you. Yeah. It was me and my twin sister, who's my creative director. She kind of, you know, the whole visual world behind leve is her kind of thought creation. Is that what she studied in college? No? No, she studied international relations and music. She's a smart cookie. But the idea kind of came from the music itself on this album is more mature and my last record, Yeah, and and I kind of wanted to shock my audience a little bit. I think my first album was so innocent that I wanted this second one to be a little bit more like otherworldly. So yeah, it's very kind of like glossy silvery. I almost wanted to appear more other worldly somehow it is. And it's such a striking cover strike, Thank You, Thank You. Is there anything you want to try in the future in terms of, like you've had some strings on this, you know, orchestra. I definitely want to do more orchestra stuff. I want to write film music. I really want to write something. I'd love to hear you do a soundtracks. A couple of songs on here that I feel I could be, yeah, theme for a movie. I definitely. Every song to me is like a little movie, like every story from start to finish, and then the way that it's painted musically is very I I like to think everyone is like a little movie. But yeah, I'd love to do more orchestra stuff as well. On the other side of things, I'd love to like just like show up with like a random folk album or like country album, like lean really into the storytelling. And and then of course, like I want to do like some like a standards album at some point and something more you know, straight forward jazz in that sense. But I think for now, I'm my work isn't completely done in doing it the way that I am right now. Would you ever get a group, like a band together, like oh, absolutely, yeah, that you kind of just do all like tour with and make records with, And sure, yeah I have. I have a band that I tour with right now who are really great, and the records so far have just been made. Besides an orchestra and a couple of musicians here and there, it's been mostly just me and my producer Spencer, playing all the instruments and I having quite a lot of fun doing that. That's cool. How did you meet Spencer? I was just doing my session rounds and you know, going to different producers and kind of hoping and praying that i'd find somebody who understood my vision and understood the jazz part and the classical part and the part and like the songwriting part. And I happened upon Spencer and he just immediately understood it. I remember I was so worried that it would be hard to find, and it was quite hard to find. But when I found Spencer, I was like, oh my god, like, this is it. Like I found my musical soulmate. That's great. Well, hey, thank you so much for oh, thank you making the drive up of course, yeah, my pleasure. Thanks to Leave for singing some of her gorgeous songs for us. Speakin Hear a collection of all of our favorite Leave songs on the playlist at broken record podcast dot com. Subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash broken record Podcast, where you can find all of our new episodes. You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is produced with help from Lea Rose and Eric Sandler. Our show is engineered by Echo Mountain. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and ad free listening for four ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple podcast subscriptions. If you like the show, please remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app. Of the music's by Kenny Beats, I'm Justin Richmith.