Drummer and composer Emma Garau is performing on Monday, March 3 at Berlin in Minneapolis with Bryan Nichols (piano) and Chris Bates (bass). Garau recently moved to town from North Carolina and she discussed how she’s enjoying the Twin Cities so far. She also explained her approach to making music and connecting her love of classic jazz to her more avant-garde side.
This interview originally aired on The Afternoon Cruise on 2/28/25
READ THE FULL TRANSCRIPT OF THE INTERVIEW BELOW:
Sean McPherson (Jazz88)
It’s the Afternoon Cruise. I’m chatting with drummer and composer Emma Garau. On Monday night. Garau is playing with the BCE trio, which also features bassist Chris Bates and pianist Bryan Nichols. Emma Garau, thank you so much for visiting jazz88.
Emma Garau
yeah, thanks for having me.
Sean McPherson (Jazz88)
Now, this morning, I got to check out your 2023 release, Birds Don’t Perch Here. And first of all, thanks for the music. Really, really enjoyable record. Secondly, I was sort of really enjoying the tune more striking than pretty, and I hadn’t opened my inbox yet, and then I found out that that was the tune. You were like, This is the one we should play after we’re done talking on the air. And I was, okay, really, really cool. That tune in particular was one of those songs that I felt like could have been 15 minutes long, but it clocks in at like two and a half minutes. You have infinite sounding stuff, yet it’s really concise. And now I just learned, as we were walking up and getting ready for this interview, that this is really the work of you. You credit the recording team, but you’re the one playing the instruments and doing the composing. How do you create something that’s two and a half minutes on my clock, but feels like an eternity in my ears?
Emma Garau
I think that’s where the like compositional side of my brain meets the improv side. And like as a jazz drummer, I’m super used to moving on from ideas super quickly and adapting really fast. So my natural state of playing doesn’t tend to sit on an idea very long. Like I kind of, can you use them as paths into something else? But I do like keeping things concise. And it seemed it was kind of in theme with the album to kind of let things be understated a little bit.
Sean McPherson (Jazz88)
Do you feel like if there’s more individuals involved in the collaboration. Intrinsically, it has to be longer, because you can’t go as quick through ideas if you want to see how the idea you just came up with might interact with Chris Bates’ idea or Bryan Nichols idea, etc.
Emma Garau
Yeah, I don’t think it has to be, but it definitely lends itself and really like when you’re doing some project all by yourself or a solo performance, or anything like that, like you don’t. There’s no moments where you have the kind of breath to just sit there and let someone else carry it and you just kind of hold it down and be a drummer and do the drummer thing. So in those situations, like the minutes go by really, really slow, because you only kind of have yourself to lean on. So there’s, I, like both.
Sean McPherson (Jazz88)
A lot of times in in music settings, drummers serve a relatively supportive role. It’s a beautiful role to serve in making sure that other people shine and having that opportunity to shine as well as a player, but really it’s a very supportive instrument. I myself am a bass player, and I connect with that a lot. Do you find that there’s room in your brain to do the type of supportive work that often happens for drummers, and also do this full ideation work that you’re doing on the kit as well.
Emma Garau
Yeah, I don’t see it as much of a different thing anymore. Those of those used to be two very different worlds for me, and like how I would support a band, whether it was a jazz group or a punk group or whatever I was doing at the time, and then I’d go sit at home and play drums and explore and find all these sounds, or maybe in your band, you have a drum solo moment or anything like that, that gives you all that space to just be free and melodic and expressive with it. And I think slowly, I just started merging those worlds and like, if I’m listening enough to play a good solo, I’m listening enough to express while other people are playing, like, if I’m really keeping myself honest about it, then that those worlds don’t have to be separate.
Sean McPherson (Jazz88)
That’s praiseworthy, and I aspire to it, and I understand it. Okay, I’m not, I’m not in the parking lot with you, but I feel it. It is the afternoon cruise. I’m chatting with Emma Garrow, playing with Chris Bates and Bryan Nichols, Monday night at Berlin in Minneapolis. Now, Emma, you bring a unique perspective to the Twin Cities, because you weren’t raised here. You’re relatively new here. That is so rare in this area, the amount of times I bet you will be on gigs where people are like, and where did you go to elementary school? Oh, how about preschool? Like, Let’s cover it all so you have this unique perspective, because most of the people I talk to from our scene have been in this scene for decades or longer. How are you finding a how do you connect to the Twin Cities and decide to live here? And then, how are you finding it so far?
Emma Garau
Well, so far. I love it is one of the best decisions to move up here, and my connection was through Dave King, who I studied with remotely for a while, and that just grew into more of a casual mentorship type thing. So I kind of saw the cities as a kind of like the best kept secret of a hub of creative music that’s happening, like through all my touring and all these things, I’ve been in plenty of cities, and I’m super opinionated about them, and I knew I didn’t want to move to New York. I kind of wanted, like, having I grew up in North Carolina, first in Winston, Salem then Asheville, and so I’m very comfortable in this sort of, like, kind of small town, blue collar. Down to Earth, thing that I think, like the South and the Midwest shares, and at the same time, I did want to be in, like a bigger creative scene. And this seems to like thread that needle so perfectly that the same people that are on just like this wild art wavelength are also like, oh yeah. Like, I can pour concrete and
Sean McPherson (Jazz88)
let’s, let’s change our oil, and then do improv. Right?
Emma Garau
Exactly. So I relate to those types of people, and it’s been amazing getting into a, like, creative art and music scene that is really, like, excited about each other as well, like, very kind of, like, soft spoken, but everyone wants good music to be happening. There’s not this hyper competitive vibe around all of it.
Sean McPherson (Jazz88)
Fair enough. And you know, as an insider, I agree with you. That’s the vibe I get too. I gotta ask anybody from North Carolina in 2024 2025 especially somebody who spent time in Asheville, are your people safe? Are people doing okay? Because I know y’all suffered some very difficult
Emma Garau
Yeah, that was very shortly after I moved it was still, is, in a lot of ways, very chaotic down there. So 25 or 20 late, 2024 It was late 2024 and it’s just such an unexpected thing, like, it’s in the mountains. I think people up here don’t realize that, like, that’s not on the coast. But yeah, all my, all my people, are varying degrees of well, like recovering beautifully, like amazing, hate, that tragedy has to happen to see people be like, fierce and brave and strong and caring for each other, but it has been beautiful. Like, I just have so much pride for my friends and family down there that’s beautiful.
Sean McPherson (Jazz88)
Well, I’m I’m glad that you’re seeing some silver linings and a really difficult tragedy, and we are thinking of the people in that era, era, in that area. Emma, I saw you on Patreon as well, and you have a tremendous reverence for classic jazz. Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Thelonious Monk, beyond just saying I love this stuff, you’re actually behind the kit, explaining how you connect with it and playing along with some of it, you play in a lot of different styles. The music I heard you make on birds don’t perch here has tons of connections to that music. But it’s not like it’s the same song book. It’s different when you’re in your more composing environment. How do you bring in the things you’ve learned from listening to Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and these other classic artists.
Emma Garau
I think that’s the type of stuff, among many others that like keep me grounded to having things be enjoyable and listenable as far like left field as they may get in this, like free jazz avant garde thing and that kind that all that kind of stuff ties me to one side of this impossible task of, like, make avant garde jazz that people can groove to and and which I think is like something that I’ve devoted a lot of time to chasing. And like, I want it to have melody to it, and a singable thing, or something that grooves or has what we all love about, like, oh, that just really swings in that moment. And I always want to be pushing how far it can go on the abstract side, but I don’t want to lose the anchor, the anchor of like, what actually makes music listenable and community oriented and all that.
Sean McPherson (Jazz88)
I’m making legitimate efforts in my life to give out less report cards, like in my marriage and in these things of like coming home and be like, you get to be minus because the kids are, you know, a little one of the things that I can’t I got to give you a really positive report card for making avant garde jazz that grooves because a lot of moments, even when I thought I was in something that was didn’t have a pulse, I heard, then a pulse coming in, and you’re playing. And for me, that’s like, that is, that is my hook in so many ways. So I just, I’m like, you know, it worked for me. Listen to your record. Thank you that. So that’ll be the last report card I give out. It is the afternoon cruise. I’ve been chatting with Emma Garau, not only a fantastic performer who is now based here in the Twin Cities, but also a teacher with the Twin Cities drum collective, Emma, I wanted to ask you, what’s something in the world of music that was relatively easy for you to learn but is relatively difficult for you to teach?
Emma Garau
That’s difficultbecause I think most things were difficult for me to learn.
Sean McPherson (Jazz88)
You’re like, what was something that I didn’t struggle with mightily?
Emma Garau
I don’t think I’m necessarily the, like, naturally gifted musician in the like, most basic sense. I think, like, everything that takes people an hour takes me to type thing, and I just kind of brute forced my way into like, well, I care about this enough I’m gonna sit behind a drum set long enough.
Sean McPherson (Jazz88)
Does that make you a stronger teacher? Because sometimes I feel like some of the people who got it so easily, they just go, Oh, it’s just like this. And you go, No, yeah, this took me a long time, so I can help you?
Emma Garau
What will usually happen is I’ll spend the bulk of a lesson explaining something and going into all this detail. So okay, when this. And that’s going to be difficult. Then approach it this way, and then approach it from that other angle. And then you’re going to merge them, and I will do all this explaining, and then some like, 10 year old girl will just go, like, rip this idea. And you go and be like, You mean, like this? And I was like, I was braced for this to be like, maybe you’d have it next week. What are we doing for the next 40 minutes like we You did so well, yeah, is that humbling? I mean, like to just have a 10 year old girl just go, Oh, I got this. Did you just go? Am I in the wrong job? Oh, yeah, very.I mean, it’s also thrilling. Like, I think one of my life goals is to have, like, the next generation of drummer being, like, today’s 10 year old girls, yeah, taking the drum set back.
Sean McPherson (Jazz88)
I’m chatting with Emma Garau. She’s preparing for a show Monday night. Chris Bates, Brian Nichols, now, what are you excited about playing with this group?
Emma Garau
Well, I mean, I think at the most basic level, I think these people are just two of my favorite musicians to play with, some of the first musicians I played with when I came up here, just on, like, random standards gigs. And I was super blown away. Like my mind was just like, oh my god, everyone. Does everyone here sound like this? Does everyone here play this well? And, like, a lot of people sound great here, but not everyone sounds like Chris and Bryan. So really like, whatever we do some original stuff, we do a bunch of improv stuff, we do a bunch of kind of renditions of standards, and really play it by ear a good deal. But I think in all different ways, like we’re very different musicians, and the two of them are very familiar playing with each other. So it’s really great for me. Like never outside of this trio, do I get that much stability to explore within, especially when it’s combined with such a like, exploratory approach to playing improvised music? And like playing with those two really sometimes feels like, oh, I can’t fail. I can only what a cushion respond like. And I think that lends itself so so well to like finding new places, even with people that I’m relatively new to playing with.
Sean McPherson (Jazz88)
Drummer and composer Emma Garau, new to town, but definitely season behind the drum kit, as well as a great composer and preparing for a show Monday night at Berlin. Really appreciate you visiting jazz88 for folks who are just learning about your work. Now, what’s the best way they can find more about you?
Emma Garau
My Instagram is probably the most active place right now. That’s em underscore goral, my website. I’m
Sean McPherson (Jazz88)
I’m gonna spell goral because I want to know how to spell it if I was listening to the radio. G, A, R, A, U, right. Okay. M, underscore, garau.
Emma Garau
And then the same without the underscore.com. Is my website. EM, garau and like you said, I’m on Patreon. All the things, all the links are linked together. You can find them. I’m in at Twin Cities drum collective most days, and always happy to be nerdy about music and drums. To whoever wants to stop by as well.
Sean McPherson (Jazz88)
Emma Garau, thank you for stopping by jazz88 and looking forward to a gig on Monday night.
Emma Garau
Yeah. Thank you. You.
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