FAQ's
Here’s a Chance to get to know Chris a little better where he took some time to answer some
Frequently Asked Questions
What mouthpieces / saxophones do you play?
How Did You Become a Saxophone Player?
Did You Always Want to be a Professional Musician?
You’re Also a Respiratory Therapist?
Did You Grow Up Listening to Smooth Jazz? (Influences)
How Did You Go From Private Events to Being on the Radio?
Do You get Paid From Streaming Services Like Spotify, Pandora and Apple Music ?
Jazz Festivals - Why don't see see you at many of those?
Is Smooth Jazz Disappearing? Does it Have Longevity?
How Did You Become a Saxophone Player?
I was a military kid and when I was younger we were stationed in Germany. We only picked up one tv channel so we listened to a lot of music. Kenny G was real popular in our house as was a trumpet player by the name of Phil Driscol.
I loved instrumental music and in particular the saxophone so I thought it would be neat to learn it. When I was starting middle school I wanted to join the band, but my doctors said I couldn't play because my asthma was too severe. They told me to pick something else. I remembered that I could do “all things through Christ who strengthens me” [Phillipians 4:13] It wasn’t easy, but I gave it to God and He used the saxophone to help my lungs. It became a form of self therapy. The positive pressure and resistance of playing got me off of the corticosteroids that I was taking to keep my asthma under control. That was 6th grade at Morningside middle school Charleston, SC, 1997. By 8th grade I was first chair saxophonist. I was also the only saxophonist. It was a small band that year, so I was first chair everyday and I got all the solos.
Did You Always Want to be a Professional Musician?
Not at all. Playing music for a living was never part of my plan. Between being a military kid surrounded by jets and watching too much Top Gun, I wanted to be a fighter pilot for as long as I can remember. I had to make a tough choice when I got to high school...Band or JROTC. I couldn’t do both. I chose JROTC for 9th-11th grade. Unfortunately, my senior year I found out the hard truth that with my very well documented asthma history I wasn’t eligible for any branch of the military. I was devastated. I felt the need, “the need for speed” and now the closest I could get to being in the military was as a cashier at the Old Navy. I was pretty sad about it for awhile, seriously since I was like 4 that's all I wanted to do.
How Did You Get Started?
You know, God works in mysterious ways. “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” [Romans 8:28] Even though I wasn’t in high school band I never put my horn down as I was playing in the church band for 3 services per week starting in 9th grade. In this band I was the only horn initially (later joined by another saxophonist and trumpet). It was keys, guitar, bass, drums and vocalists. They didn’t give me any music so this developed my ability to play by ear. It also forced me to study music theory on my own to figure out what key I was in as it pertained to the other instruments and why. More importantly I learned when and when not to play and how to adlib and add embellishments here and there. I was given solos weekly to play during the offering and that got me over my stage fright. Because of this, however, I didn’t play the traditional jazz and bebop methods of most saxophonists, but I approached the saxophone more lyrically; implementing the Gospel phrasing runs and nuances I was hearing from vocalists.
By this time it was 2004, my senior year of high school and a lot was going on. Our minister of music left suddenly and I was ‘voluntold’ to step up and take the position. I taught myself how to play keys and led the praise team and band full time for my 12th grade year and first year of college. That was around the same time that I found out being a military aviator was not in my future. However, for the first time I stopped focusing on what I wanted and starting seeking what God’s plan truly was for my life. In no short order, God began to reveal to me a path I had never considered. This shouldn’t have been a surprise though; His ways are often different than our ways.
Weddings were constantly happening at the church and as the go to soloist, I started getting booked to play these events. At that point I started feeling a call to music. A lightbulb moment happened when I suddenly was getting paid what was 2 weeks pay for me at my cashier job to play maybe 1 hours’ worth of music on Saturdays. So, naturally I quit my job at K-mart. One wedding would lead to another two, three as well as other private dinner events, and then corporate events and Governors' balls and so on. I was well versed in audio equipment from also having to run the sound board at church and quickly learned not to rely on church / venue sound systems. With this I purchased my own PA equipment, wireless sax mic and hand held mics etc to ensure that I could have consistent, reliable sound at my events, not just for me as a musician, but for those presenting, speaking and wedding officiants. I treated my music like a business, because it was. I took all the necessary steps to establish that and learn how to document it, got an accountant and everything. Live sound and playing saxophone for private events became my full time job. That's also when I started recording music and putting out my own demo CDs. They weren't for radio, yet, but at this time it was just for my local market; kind of a form of advertisement like a musical business card. I figured if I could have a product to sell then I could play some of the 'exposure' type gigs for free, and still sell something while I was there so I didn't go home empty handed. This was especially helpful when I played churches and other events where I didn’t charge. Ultimately I wanted to be used in whatever capacity God would allow me to use the music for Him, sharing my testimony at every opportunity. Playing church concerts, worship services, youth events etc. I was playing anywhere and everywhere that God opened the doors. Once I switched to music I was all in. My goal was never to be famous, but to be able to make a living doing what I loved, playing music. At that time it was easy as I still lived at home with my parents so there was no overhead. After college, as I moved out on my own, God continued to bless my music and at that time it was about half music half Respiratory Therapy.
You’re Also a Respiratory Therapist?
Yes, God must have a sense of humor to take an asthmatic saxophonist and turn him into a sax therapist!
Music was my job all through college, but my parents instilled wisdom in me that I may need a back up plan that would provide stability and job security in case this music train every stopped. But honestly, I was bored with college and trying to declare a major. I graduated with my AA in 2006 and didn’t know what to get my bachelors in. In all honesty I was still a bit down about not being able to go into the military. Around that time my grandmother got sick with pneumonia and while visiting her at the hospital someone came in the room to put her on a nasal cannula and give her a breathing treatment. I knew she wasn’t a nurse, but I wasn’t sure what she was so I struck up conversation with her about it. (TV only glamorizes doctors and nurses, but there's a plethora of ancillary fields within healthcare that are just as important and hardly anyone talks about.) Turns out she’s a Registered Respiratory Therapist (RT) The schooling is similar to RN school, but specialized in the heart and lungs. RT’s typically work 12 hour shifts so full time is 3 days per week. Another lightbulb moment and right then and there I realized I could get paid to do what I had been self medicating for most of my life as an asthmatic, make my own schedule when I wasn’t playing music and still play music on the other days. I went back to the college that day and signed up for another 2 years. I soon found out there was a lot more to this whole breathing thing than neb treatments! I remember the first day the professors said, "Look to your left and to your right. In 2 years, one of those people probably won't be here" They weren't kidding. We started with 14, graduated with 7. It was grueling, however, I pushed forward and kept doing the music thing all throughout. I graduated in 2009 and subsequently released my first official project, “One Breath at a Time”, a play on words to my story, . It’s a bit of a Gospel Jazz inspired piece of mostly original music. It was done on a very tight budget and recorded in a bit of an old school style in that we recorded it live, everyone playing each track at the same time, in one room as a band. Like my earlier demo cds this wasn’t for radio, but mainly to have a product to sell at my gigs for the local fanbase and a bit of a musical business card. Though definitely dated musically we all have to start somewhere and sometimes I listen to it just to see how far God has brought me.
Did You Grow Up Listening to Smooth Jazz? - Who Were Your Influences?
I didn’t grow up on Smooth Jazz and really I didn’t discover the genre until around 2005. Up to this point I mostly listened to Gospel music, Kenny G and a few other Christian sax players that most smooth jazz aficionados may not be familiar with [but you should definitely check them out] such as Sam Levine, Dave Thrush and Angela Christie.
While in college I started taking a lot of music classes from theory to performance and trying to find my style and sound. In addition to the private events I had started doing some many concerts and playing at various churches during their praise and worship services, sharing a few selections and sharing my testimony of what God had done in my life with asthma and through the saxophone. This led me to compete in the GMA (Gospel Music Association) Music in the Rockies, Estes Park, CO.
In the summer of 2005 my dad and I made the 26 hour drive to the Rocky mountains from FL. It was a week long music competition filled with seminars taught by various industry artists and nightly concerts. That was an experience. I mean what was I thinking, an asthmatic Florida boy that lives at sea-level going to play saxophone on a mountain at 7500 ft? Breathing was difficult to say the least, but by the Grace of God I came out a National Finalist out of over 400 people and the only saxophonist to make it. I learned a lot about the industry, labels and so much of the inner workings of the business by Artist, A&R and label executives. However, one of the biggest things that happened was my introduction to an artist named Jonathan Butler. I didn’t meet him that day, but was mesmerized by his concert, his music was like nothing I had ever heard. The voice, the lyrics and the way he played a 12-string guitar (which I had never seen) was amazing. "Falling In Love with Jesus" sent me down a path, that led to my discovery of Kirk Whalum which branched me from Gospel Jazz to this thing called, “Contemporary Jazz” or more commonly referred to as Smooth Jazz. Ironically, we had a smooth jazz station 60 miles away from where I was living called “WSBZ 106.3, The Seabreeze” but their antenna was too small for me to get service in my area. So I started buying all the smooth jazz mp3s I could find and making mixed cds for my car. I discovered Kirk Whalum, Najee, Grover Washington Jr, George Benson, Richard Elliot, Mindi Abair, Brian Culbertson, Jeff Kashiwa and started soaking it up. My bass player from my church heard me playing something one Sunday and said, “Chris that sounded like Boney” I had no idea who he was talking about so then he introduced by to Boney James music. I had a lot of catching up to do, but it was all very inspiring to me that there was this genre of music where saxophone players [and instrumentalists in general] were given some light and ability to play melodically over these grooves just like a vocalist would. It was what I had been trying to do with my demo recordings and at churches, but on a grander scale.
How Did You Go From Private Events to Being on the Radio?
After my 2009 project I just kept doing private events regionally, throughout the southeast. Occasionally further, but for the most part I was content playing FL, GA & AL. I got married in 2010 and we became a team. My wife was with me every gig, helping either with cd sales, setting up sound or taking photos and video for promo. (She does all my promo photos and albums shots except for the One Breath at a Time project) I did a follow up project in 2011 My Offering, another Gospel inspired project, but with a few covers and leaning more into contemporary jazz territory. This one was also recorded in the same budget minded way as my previous project, but sold well locally and actually got the attention of several online radio stations with a little tune called “Kick Back.” In 2012 while playing for the grand opening of Blue Wahoo’s stadium in Pensacola, FL I met a very talented pianist named, Gino Rosaria. He and I hit it off and recorded a little Christmas EP together. I was impressed with his skills and decided to have him produce a Christmas project for me [Where Are You Christmas] the following year, using a few of the songs from our EP.
With this I started getting people in my ear saying I should pursue the radio thing and try to do a contemporary jazz project. I was pretty content doing what I was doing, but it peaked my interest. Something about hearing your song on the radio is hard to describe. I decided to research it, if I was going to do it I needed to do it right and figure out the ends and outs. I read an online magazine article around that time from Melody Warren, The Jazz in Mee Magazine. Confirming what I had learned years earlier from the GMA Music in the Rockies seminars that radio isn’t just about talent, it’s about relationships. Just like the age old saying in business, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know” So goes it for radio. In this article, Melody interviewed well known Smooth Jazz Radio promoter Jason Gorov. In it they discussed the importance of marketing in general, but especially how vital a radio promoter is in that marketing and that basically without one it’s going to be hard to get airplay. Radio stations don’t accept unsolicited materials so you have to know someone that has that established relationship with the DJ’s so they will listen. It’s pay to play essentially. But it’s not guaranteed, the radio promoters don’t work with just anyone, you have to have a solid product. In other words, don’t stink.
I didn’t personally know any big shot smooth jazz producers as the genre was still fairly new to me. So I talked with a gospel keyboardist friend of mine, Caleb Middleton. We had played many events together and I knew he produced some cool music. We had been talking for years about needing to get up and do something. Then I played his brother's wedding and we met up again. We talked about the idea of doing a contemporary jazz project, trying to give it a commercial sound with the hopes of getting on the radio. He wasn’t familiar with smooth jazz at all so I gave him some home work of some artists to listen to and he got plugged in to see what the vibe was. There’s a formula to it and we studied it. We wrote song after song and recorded all these demos so we could see what was the best stuff. We probably wrote 18-20 tracks and picked the best 10-11. I decided to throw in a cover as well for good measure. It’s 2014 now and my first child was born so I took a little time away. Caleb kept plugging in and reaching out to various musicians to play on the record, Adam Hawley on guitar, Eric Lampley on bass etc. When we got back together I couldn’t believe it. I wasn't familiar with Adam as this was before he put out his own music, but I quickly became a fan. I laid down the sax tracks and we sent them to Jason Gorov to see what he thought. He agreed to do a campaign with us, and at the time he didn’t work with a lot of independent artists, but he took a chance on me. The project was a rebranding for me musically so we called it, Starting Over released summer 2015. We started with the first single, "Rain" and by the grace of God it got picked up by SIRIUS XM Watercolors and numerous Billboard FM stations and online stations peaking at #6 on the Groove Jazz Music charts. The next single from that project was “Chill” which was another Top 10 charting track and has been a fan favorite.
Do You get Paid From Streaming Services Like Spotify, Pandora and Apple Music ?
No. lol Ok, really the answer is not really, barely. Each one has their own sliding pay scale, but take Spotify for example and it’s anywhere from .003-.005 per play. So if you get 200-400 streams it will finally equal $1, but then 30% of that goes to Spotify and the other 70% gets split with the rights owners, (label, songwriters and artist) If you’re indie and write your own songs and produce your own songs then you get $0.70 per 200-400 plays. Whoop whoop. So when you see these artists posting that they got 5 million streams this year on their Spotify Wrapped it looks great, but in reality they may have only gotten a few thousand dollars in royalties versus if 5 million people had downloaded their song for .99 cents they would have made millions.
Buying and downloading music is still the best way to support and artist. But I get it, streaming is just so convenient. That’s why it’s such a big deal to get picked up on SIRIUS XM. They’re a subscription service with a huge reach and therefore pay the highest royalties of anyone I know. They've been quite supportive of my music and I appreciate the platform they've given me to share my music with people that definitely would not have heard it otherwise.
Jazz Festivals - why don't we see you at many of those?
After the success of my Starting Over project I landed some jazz festival slots that had previously turned me down. I was excited initially as I was going to meet fellow artists and fans and play for large crowds. The problem was, by the time this had happened I had been spoiled by doing private and corporate engagements for over 10 years and was used to getting paid for it. Now I was having to start over (no pun intended) from the bottom and basically play for free / exposure or worse, pay to play.
Bottom line, it’s a business. The majority of the festivals only want to book the same 10-15 "Big Named" Artists to fill seats and sell tickets to get their guaranteed Return On Investment. And why not? It works, the consumer keeps buying tickets and showing up to watch the same show over and over. As for the little artist, it's nearly impossible to get to that major artist level with the way the music industry is structured now. The industry has changed so much since the 90’s when a lot of these Household name Artists were coming up. Then, it was about record deals and record sales. Now, anybody with a laptop can put together a project and get it out there. Marketing is a whole other thing, but the market as a whole is saturated for how small the genre is. It’s really hard to stand out, especially as a sax player. Sure there’s piano, bass, guitar etc, but for some reason saxophone is the poster child for all things jazz. I’m not even a jazz player, but people assume I am because I play saxophone. I’m more of an R&B / Gospel player, but people see saxophone and automatically think, “Jazz”
I was kind of late to this Smooth Jazz thing. Maybe if I had started it 20 years ago instead of playing weddings and private events I would have had the time to grow with it, but this late in the game doesn't really make sense to me personally for the work vs reward. I’ve done quite a few festivals over the years, and they’re a lot of fun, but also a lot of work. From the band rehearsals / to the traveling they’ve all cost me money in the end. Often the festivals wouldn’t be willing to pay our travel or even hotels (despite having hotel sponsors) so I’d be out of pocket all of that. Then it’s deciding to use musicians I know and bring them or hire a house band locally to learn my music. Sometimes they didn’t learn my music and that really backfired. All in all, I had to just realize if I was going to pay the bills with music I needed to stick with what paid well and for me that’s always been private events so ultimately that’s what I’ve gone back to.
Is Smooth Jazz Disappearing? Does it Have Longevity?
When I finally decided to try the radio thing it was 2015, there were about 44 Billboard Reporting stations playing smooth jazz (not including online stations) As of 2024 there are around 15. Note this is Billboard Reporting stations, this does not include the numerous online stations spinning smooth jazz. (Side note - These smaller online stations are hidden gems playing the most variety and giving little nobody artists like myself a platform and for them I am truly grateful!)
There’s a lot of factors at play here though and you can’t merely look at the numbers. What’s to blame? COVID shutdowns, or streaming services or XM Radio, stale format, or ??? Probably all the above and more. I have xm in one of my cars, the other vehicles I almost never listen to FM radio, I have it on Pandora or something else streaming music or audio books, podcasts etc. We live in a Burger King society where we want what we want when we want to hear it. I love commercial free xm, but it’s hard to argue that you can get commercial-free Pandora for $5.99/month and skip songs and listen on repeat. Having all of these apps and technology on our phones, streaming services with no commercials is tough competition for any radio service so while the smooth jazz genre as a whole does seem to be diminishing, I’ve seen several other FM Top 40, Country and Rock stations closing down as well.
As for longevity, you’re not alone if you feel like music is all starting to sound the same. It’s not just smooth jazz, pop music is the same way. But really it always has been. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard “Under Pressure” (Queen) start playing and thought it was “Ice Ice Baby” (Vanilla Ice) It's biblical though. “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This is something new”? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time. No one remembers the former generations, and even those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them.” [Ecclesiastes 1:9-11]
People will copy whatever is popular and successful because it’s so much easier than original thought. And what is original? There’s only 12 keys in music and most arrangements are limited to 6-7 chords. Most pop music uses 3 or 4 chords with I, iV & V being a real popular progression for literally thousands of songs. Angus Young from AC/DC said "I hate it when I hear people say that we created 11 albums that sounds the same. The fact is, we made 12 albums that sound the same." What’s more, even if an artist feels they have an original thought, often it’s produced by one of 4 or 5 of the same producers making all the other ‘hits’ on smooth jazz radio so it’s going to have a familiar vibe that’s out of their wheelhouse. That and the radio has gatekeepers too and they like what they like and they won’t play what they don’t. So these producers know what has worked and been working so let’s keep making it sound like that! I’ve had many songs that I thought showcased better musicianship, but radio didn’t think they were catchy enough. I remember one very big Billboard station told me they didn't pick up one of my songs, Vibin' because it didn't sound like my last one [Momentum]” To which I thought, isn’t that the point? Ironically that ended up being my highest Billboard charting song.
The good news is, music is timeless. Good music from yesterday is still good music today. Mister Magic [Grover Washington Jr.] is still just as funky today as when Grover rolled it out. Ecclesiastes 3 says that "To every thing there is a season..." This is the season God has me in right now. I'm not sure what's next, but He is ordering my steps. I'm a willing vessel and along for the ride...