Sam Brigger
speaker
1,127 appearances
24 recordings
1 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard 6 Jun
Sam Brigger’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 8 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 2.
Appearances
It sounds like you also met people who knew some of the older musicians. Like you met people that knew the guitarist Johnny St. Cyr because I guess he died in Los Angeles when he was older. So he played with Louis Armstrong as well as Jelly Roll Morton. And I think you play one of his rags. Is that right? Yeah.
Would you mind playing a little bit of that song?
I hope you're treating that old banjo nicely.
That's great. That's Jerome Paxton playing a rag by Johnny St. Cyr, who played with Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton. More after a break. This is Fresh Air. When you were a teenager, you started having trouble with your eyesight. What was happening?
What's your eyesight like now?
Since you were so interested in trains or you were interested in being a train driver as a kid, do you particularly like train songs?
Would you mind playing one that you like particularly?
Before you play the harmonica, I just want to say that, like all the instruments you play, you seem to be able to make it sound like you're playing two different parts on the harmonica. So I don't know if you do that in this song, but I just wanted listeners to keep an ear out for that.
I am playing two different parts.
John, that was great. Thank you. That was our guest, John Paxton, playing the harmonica. Was that hard to figure out how to do?
Okay. Well, that couldn't be more cryptic if I'd asked it to be. Yeah. Yeah, I watched a video of you playing and singing a song, Hesitation Blues. All right. No, no, no. But at one point, you were singing, and then you played the harmonica with your nostril at one point.
Well, thank you for doing that. Cheers. Our guest is musician Jerron Paxton. He's got a new album of his own original songs called Things Done Changed. We'll be back after a short break. This is Fresh Air. So you said you moved to New York because in part because of the difficulty you were having with your eyesight.
But I've also read that you moved to New York in part to learn maybe and play more stride piano. Was there no real scene for that in Los Angeles?
The Jalopy Theater has a lot of old-time music in it. But tell us about Stride Piano in particular. I guess one of your heroes is Fats Waller.
Not too shabby, either.
Well, I wanted to play a bit of you playing sort of old-time jazz piano. And this is from a duet album that you did with a clarinetist and mandolin player, Dennis Lichtman. The album is appropriately called Paxton and Lichtman. And this is part of a song called Caution Blues.
And we're going to start sort of partially into the song where Lichtman's playing some clarinet, and then we'll hear you play some piano. So let's just listen to this. That's my guest, Jerron Paxton, playing from a duet album that he did with clarinetist Dennis Lichtman.
So, Jerron, when you got to New York, did you find sort of more like-minded musicians who played the kind of music that you enjoyed playing yourself?
Well, I wanted to end with a song that I think you like very much. It's written in 1928 by Irving Berlin. It's called Sunshine. I'm going to play this from the album that you did with Dennis Lichtman called Paxton and Lichtman. But before we hear it, can you tell us about the song, like when you first heard it and what you like about it?
And so Vitaphone shorts are like shorts that you would play in front of movies?
Showing 1061–1080 of 1,127 · page 54 of 57
← Previous
Next →