Stephen, thanks for taking the time to speak with Occhi Magazine. Let’s start at the beginning—For those unfamiliar with your background, can you share a bit about your introduction to music? Was there a defining moment or influence that set you on your musical path?
I would say there was no defining moment but a nurturing environment in different areas of my life. Between singing in church my mother’s love of funk and neo-soul, my family’s proclivity to sing hymns whenever we see each other, our family’s connection with our high school’s band program… it was almost like there was no portion of my life I can remember there not being music. Even my hometown punk shows have felt like a defining influence. Really, I’ve just spent my life taking in as much music as possible because that’s what the people around me seemed to be doing.
Who were some of your earliest mentors or role models, either in your family or the wider music community, and how did they shape your approach to music?
The approach of Black vernacular music has, in my older age, astounded me. I feel like as I was being raised, it was just something you did, y’know? Someone would sing a song, and by training, you should be able to hear the three-part harmony. This ear training has been more than essential to my approach to all of my music.
Also, my mother and my grandfather gave me the gift of song. Though I don’t release vocal music, their influence on how to sing a melody, change a melody, improvise a melody, etc. cannot be understated. Quite often, I repeat their habit of just making up silly songs. But with those silly songs comes the practice of verbally and rhythmic rhyming, improvising countermelodys, silly bass lines. What all was kind of a joke in my family has been how I’ve approached the majority of my tonal and modal compositions.
Your career spans composing, arranging, performing, and conducting. How did you evolve from your early days as a musician to leading large ensembles like the SPH Jazz Orchestra?
My early days as a musician were always balanced between instrumental and vocal, all the way through my undergrad at Seton Hill University. Though I went in as a voice major, I was keeping up my saxophone and clarinet studies. My marching band professor, Ted DiSanti (also a phenomenal jazz trumpet player), noticed my ability to make music both in song and via the clarinet and encouraged me to start listening to clarinetists liked Ken Peplowski and Buddy DeFranco, and it bridged out from there. I simultaneously was exploring starting to write for wind band, string quartet, and jazz combo. I found enjoyment in really committing to musical ideas and developing them to be interesting and exciting. So, after finishing my teaching degree, I went on to purse a degree in Jazz Studies at Youngstown State University to really focus on writing and playing. From there, it has been a slowly evolving expansion to what I’m doing now!
Improvisation and genre-blending are central to your work. What drew you to these creative avenues, and how do you keep your approach fresh across different projects?
I’ve always been unsure how artists/musicians are satisfied working in one medium/idiom. Most of the artists I respect had periods of time where they were learning from diverse sources and putting those things in their music. My musical eclecticism in childhood wasn’t purposefully curated but just came from the same types of periods. It’s been an interweaving development of experiences that have just fed my musical ear, and using them all bridges listeners across those connections. If I write a piece that has a gospel build-up and a pop-punk breakdown superimposed with bebop licks, I really feel like I’m being my most authentic self. Billy Strayhorn, Thad Jones, Maria Schneider, and many others are my heroes. But I want to take what I’ve learned from them and put it in the same blender as my other influences get mixed into.
You’ve worked with a variety of ensembles—from the chordless trio SPH+2 to your 17-piece jazz orchestra. How do you adapt your compositional voice for different group sizes and settings?
One great thing is that the different instrumentations lend themselves to different styles, techniques, and figureheads. I’d be hard pressed to make my trio sound like the Duke Ellington Orchestra, and would have the same difficulty continually making a big band sound as open as a trio. With each of my projects, it seems like a different aspect of musical exploration takes the forefront due to these differences. For example, with trio, groove, and line take the forefront. (It’s hard to apply the four-voice harmonization techniques that I think about for octet and big band when there’s only two tonal voices!) But that doesn’t mean that the things I learn listening to the form, melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic aspects of those same octet & big band passages that I can’t apply to trio and quintet writing. Really, the continual development of each ensemble feeds the new compositions for each new project.
Another fun practice is to take tunes and play them across multiple ensembles. Expanding and condensing pieces make them feel completely different! I’ve taken a trio piece that felt extremely open and free and added so much color with its octet expansion. It’s interesting the way you hear the pieces across each ensemble and how it influences your future playing of the piece in its original context.
Comic books and the multiverse are recurring themes in your recent work. Can you tell us how these inspirations shape your compositions and performances?
The literature and media of Marvel and DC Comics have been a monumental part of my childhood. The 90s was this burgeoning period of animated series with compelling plot and expanding rogues’ galleries and the 2000s saw like advent of the blockbuster superhero film. (I look back and remember my brother and I, wide-eyed, waiting to see Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man. Life changing!) These massive strides for superheroes as an accessible and acceptable storytelling arc then just fed back into more animated media and comic arcs and re-births. (I jumped into Marvel during The Ultimate Universe and DC during The New 52.)
For my large ensemble compositions, I take these story arcs, powers, character archetypes, etc., and use them as programmatic inspiration for each piece. So, while each piece has its own theme and journey, all have the connectivity of inspiration. Just like the comics (and the media spin-offs), this still leads to an infinite number of results in musical storytelling. Some pieces try to recreate the feelings of specific situations, try to inspire the feeling of a specific superpower, or create the aesthetic of an archetype/trope/stock character. These inspirations, mixed with different compositional techniques and eclectic musical inspirations, lead to what you hear in my music.
Looking back, what would you consider a major success in your career so far? Is there a particular project or moment that stands out?
My large ensemble’s first release, Smash! (2022) was the project with a lot of those first moments where I said, “Wow, I did it!” From planning the mini-tour before the recording, doing a two-day studio session, working with a label to plan a release, planning a release tour, bringing in a killer guest artist; it checked so many boxes that not just confirmed that I was capable of doing these things but wanted to keep doing them again and again.
On the flip side, can you share a challenge or setback you’ve faced as an artist, and how you overcame it?
I think my biggest setbacks have just been the results of stretching myself too far for comfort (in ways that I can’t personally control). It’s a challenge learning how to develop a career as an artist while simultaneously working as an educator in a rural area. Sometimes this meant producing a show from my own pocket just to break into a new area to play to a mostly empty room. It doesn’t often work out, and it’s part of the investment of trying to get your art in different spaces and places.
But realistically, these experiences are part of the learning process of being both an artist and an entrepreneur. At the time they happen, these setbacks can hurt my pride, my self-worth, and/or my wallet. (Ouch!) But I can recover these things (or untie some of them from my musical career) and try again with more information and more experience. I feel like each time I get back out there and make more music, I’ve overcome.
As an educator, how does teaching inform your own artistry, and what do you hope your students take away from your classes?
I really hope students take away a passion for all music from my classes. Whether I was rehearsing my choir through a Romantic choral anthem, teaching a lesson on improvisation, running a survey course on popular music, or looking at Western European Arts history, I wanted them to see how much passion the music deserves. To someone, somewhere, at some point, this was their mode of expression and their preferred sound. There is so much life in all of that!
As for informing my own artistry, I feel like teaching keeps you fresh. It encourages you to continually push yourself forward like you push your students. (I can’t challenge them to play things if I’m being stagnant in my progress, right?) My students also challenge my to keep my musical ear fresh. No matter how I’d like to think, I’m not the youngest demographic anymore, and my musical tastes will start to be dated. I appreciate them putting me on to music that I’d normally forego, just as I hope I do for them.
Your latest album, Multiversal: Live at Bop Stop, was recorded live in a single take. What was that experience like for you and the orchestra? Any memorable moments from that session?
The experience was AMAZING! It’s one of those core memories you keep forever. The live recording itself was a Hail Mary (pass) after my first crowdfunding attempt for the album failed, and I had to slash the budget and pivot. Going into the night, there was almost this underdog feeling. Like we’ve pivoted and changed so much to get to this moment, it has to go well! (My first live recording with my octet in 2023 went well, but I was a nervous wreck the whole time!) This time around, it just felt like everything had to be on our side. The night proceeded just like any other concert. The same improvised frontman vibe, the same explanation of the pieces to bring in the audience, the same just overall fun vibe I like to bring to the bandstand. But that’s one of the best things about live recordings! You capture not only the music but the environment that the band creates with their music and presence.
Collaboration seems to be a big part of your process. How do you foster creative synergy within your ensembles, and what do you look for in your fellow musicians?
I think a lot of my creative collaborations have just stemmed from really liking people I happen to get to work with. If I’ve worked with someone repeatedly, they’re a great musician, but they’re (more importantly) a better person. I look for people who respect music like I do, who respect people like I do, and who try and bring an energy in the room you can work with. Luckily, my friends are all versatile. So, I’m happy to play with many of them in many contexts. While I tend to keep the recording groups very similar once established, the live performances can really be anyone I want to perform the book of music. As long as they’re a good person and a great musician, it’s amazing to open collaboration to many musicians. Sometimes, I may feel neutral about a chart or have only heard a passage a certain way; when different musicians realize their sheet music, they might bring something to it that I want ingrained in its identity.
Finally, what’s next for you? Are there any upcoming projects, collaborations, or new directions you’re excited to explore shortly?
I’m super excited to be producing several projects in 2025 that will be released over the next several years. We’ve talked about Multiversal which is releasing in August and was recorded in March. My octet will be recording a new suite later this year and will be premiering its music in a mini tour this August. Those performances will be kind of like a swan song for the octet as I had off my large ensemble focus to the jazz orchestra for September 2025 through 2026. Also, my trio has been playing a monthly residency that’ll also culminate in a live recording of that new book of music. There are some other irons in the fire that I hope come to fruition, but I’ll just keep those in my notebook until they can come to light. (Plus, even the plans I have now are the Plan F’s of the backup plan of the Bravo Squad’s playbook…) Just know that I’m not planning on slowing down music making any time soon.
Where can our readers find out more about you?
You can always find out more about me by heading to my site www.stephenpharvey.com. Here you can find info on all of my releases, upcoming concerts, and many more things.
You can also connect with me on most social media under the handle @stephenpharvey (Instagram, Threads, Facebook). I get to share stuff about my life with my wife, family, and friends, my music, and general ramblings about Black American culture and nerdy comic book stuff.
Photo by Cecile Davis, courtesy of RedCat Publicity
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