Joan Hutton and Guest Artist Stephanie Wiesler Are Ready for Taste of MN

 

This interview originally aired on The Afternoon Cruise on 07/01/25

READ THE COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

It’s the Afternoon Cruise. I’m chatting with Joan Hutton from Take That Back. And we’re also joined by Stephanie Wiesler, the saxophonist with society of chemists, who’s joining take that back for the gig this weekend, because Sue Orfield is out. Now, the gig I’m talking about is taste of Minnesota. Take That Back is on the Jazz 88 jazz collected concert series stage on Sunday, July 6 at 545. That stage is at Marquette and Washington, in downtown Minneapolis. Joan and Stephanie, welcome back to jazz 88

 

Joan Hutton 

thank you so much.

 

Stephanie Wiesler 

Thanks for having us

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

Now. Joan, you are a member of Take That Back. And you hit up Stephanie to play on this gig because Sue is out. And I know that at times you go, Oh, what a bummer. Somebody’s gonna be gone. But it’s also this cool opportunity where you can reach out to a player who you dig and find out what it’s like to have them on the gig. So as you’ve been working towards playing with Stephanie on Sunday, what has been cool about this sort of collaboration?

 

Joan Hutton 

Yeah, you’re right, exactly. It’s great to have all the core members of the group for gigs, because it’s really easy. You don’t have to think much, but it’s actually, I find it really fun. Having one sub is the perfect magic. More than one sub, it starts getting more difficult. You know, this opportunity came up and Sue wasn’t free, and so Stephanie was my first thought. And thankfully, she was free, and I’m just super excited to play stuff, our tunes with her and see what it’s like. Play some flute in this group. That’s right. All right, I’m doing, we’re doing some of my tunes with flute because Stephanie’s a great flutist. Yeah, looking forward to it!

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

Now, Stephanie, it’s kind of the same in reverse. You get called and you go, Oh, this is such a cool band. But you also go, Oh, I got to do a lot of leg work for perhaps just one or two gigs or something like that. As you’ve been sort of getting into the take that back songbook and figuring out where you’re heading. What have you been enjoying about it?

 

Stephanie Wiesler 

about it? It’s just cool to have these different rhythmic languages. It’s like, it’s just a little slightly different than what I expected. I was expecting swing sixteenths on the song, and then I listened to the recording. I was like, Nope, that’s incorrect. So I like doing that research. I like getting into the songs, and it’s nice to have reference recordings. And Joan is so organized and prepared.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

Now, Stephanie, you are quite a writer in your own right, and I often find it interesting for folks who are writers, when suddenly you get inside the mind of another writer, or in this case, multiple writers, and you go, Oh, that’s the polar opposite of how I would have done that. But I’m learning something. I’m bringing something home to my own writing. I just anytime I’ve had the opportunity to learn 10 Songs by our writer, whether it’s like Wayne Shorter or Joan Hutton, it’s, it’s a cool experience to go, oh, this is you start to hear some Huttonisms and things like that. I love that.

 

Stephanie Wiesler 

Yes, I don’t think that’s ever been said before, so I’m glad I was here for this.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

So what is it? What has it been like to dive in as far as like as a fellow writer to dive into another writer’s work?

 

Stephanie Wiesler 

I just really hone in to those little rhythmic idiosyncrasies where it’s like, oh, I would have written it like this, but she wrote it like that, so I’m gonna honor that. And I’m gonna write, yeah, I’m not gonna impose my own taste on this. I need to just like, really read it accurately, and, yeah, honor the music.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

It’s the afternoon cruise I’m chatting with take that back. Joan Hutton, one of the members of Take That Back, and she was kind enough to bring along Stephanie Wiesler, who’s saxophonist with society of chemists, and joining take that back for the gig this weekend at taste of Minnesota, they’re on the Jazz 88 jazz collected concert series stage on Sunday at 545 Joan, I’ve been asking a lot of fancy pantsy questions about, you know, understanding the writing system and all that, who else is on the gig, like, besides for you and Stephanie, who else is playing on Sunday?

 

Joan Hutton 

Yeah, we have Ted Godbout on piano, amazing. I mean, my whole group is amazing, right? Kam Markworth on bass, and David Schmalenberger on drums.

 

Joan Hutton 

Yeah, it was kind of a process. Sue and I started out by making these little YouTube videos in my kitchen. And we kind of invited Dave Schmalenberger was the first person we worked with. And, you know, he was just all in. And then each new person we asked was kind of all in. I was like, Do you want to come over and play some new original stuff and record it in my kitchen and not get paid. And, you know, just, and, you know, I don’t know, people enjoy doing crazy.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

Here’s a compliment to Ted Godbout. That’s going to sound like an insult to Ted. Godbout, but I like Ted, and I’m cool with Ted, and I think we’ll be good. A lot of times when I listen to the band take that back, the piano kind of disappears, and I go, this is such like a saxophones and rhythm section band, and that is, frankly, a tribute to Ted, because he gets in, he doesn’t go, Oh, I better play every chord on the one you know. Y’all know what’s going on. And he adds his, he adds a special sauce. It is a sax band. It is a, you know, an upfront band. You are really lucky to have a very supportive rhythm section. And I was just wondering, like, how, how you found the right people to really support the sound that we all hear from? Take that Back.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

Slowly, everyone says no,

 

Joan Hutton 

and then, and so, I mean, we did it with various people, but we just, you know, we just kind of hit it off. And they were all, you know, just thoughtful about it. And. contributed their own ideas, and it sort of just grew from there. And, I mean, there’s so many wonderful players in this area. There’s certainly lots of people we could be playing with, but, but this, this group, just kind of just came together for whatever reason, and they’re all fabulous when in the rehearsal process with them is always great. They really, you know, I sort of write what I write and Sue what writes, what she writes and but the band really puts it together. They they are a big part of the compositions,

 

Stephanie Wiesler 

and they’re good people.

 

Joan Hutton 

They are very good people. That works.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

It is funny how that works. I don’t want to play jazz with a jerk in my kitchen, you know, like I better. I’ll only call the people who aren’t jerks. They’re very good people. I every time I write about Take That Back, which ends up being relatively often, because you guys put out some really awesome music. I talk about how thankful I am that the lineup remains largely intact, I mean identically intact on the two studio albums, because I just feel like y’all are building a chemistry that’s, that’s, that’s really special. And we’re lucky that there’s kind of a tradition here in Minnesota of a working band, that when I see Society of Chemists, I know who I expect to see, if they’re subbing one person out. Great, that happens. But I just, I think it creates a continuity of sound. That’s a, I bet, cool as a player, but also, like, cool for Stephanie to step into. Right? It’s Stephanie’s not learning the parts while the pianist is also learning the parts. It’s like, yeah, you have this continuity, I have sort of a inside baseball question about saxophone. I’ve never blown through a saxophone. I’m not positive I’ve even held a saxophone. And there’s some kind of quick, lazy on the job learning I can do with a guitar player or a keyboard player, where I can look over at their fingers and go, I know what key we’re in, especially with a guitar player being an electric bass player. I go, Oh, he’s starting off in B I think I can probably get there between, like, saxophones that have different transpositions, Stephanie or Joan. Is there stuff you can kind of learn on the fly by literally looking at the hands? Or is it kind of like I got to only use my ears to navigate something if I can’t remember it,

 

Joan Hutton 

I would say, personally, it’s an ear thing. I don’t know what Stephanie would say, but not. It’s a little harder, maybe, to look at the fingers.

 

Stephanie Wiesler 

We’re wind instruments. So it’s internal. So, and you don’t know if someone’s using the octave key or, like, I don’t know. It’s just Yeah,

 

Joan Hutton 

and you’re right, the transpositions too. That’s too much going on.

 

Stephanie Wiesler 

Yeah. So, long story short, you can’t fake it, so do your homework.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

US bass players just like, oh, cool, we’ll grab it.

 

Joan Hutton 

Yeah, no, I wish

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

now you guys are getting ready to play taste of Minnesota, and we had a really great time on the Jazz 88 stage last year and the year before that as well. But when you’re at an outdoor festival, you have significantly less control over the environment than you might playing at a spot like Berlin or jazz central studios or Dakota, you might be playing for somebody who’s just waiting in line for a corn dog, and that that changes. It might change how you present, what you do. So as you might be trying to win over a crowd of folks who are just, sort of just gonna sit down for a minute and finish this snow cone or whatever? How does that impact how you communicate your your gig and your vision on stage?

 

Joan Hutton 

Well, I mean this band, honestly, I feel like we’re always just having fun. So I feel like we fit in in that setting just fine. You know, it’s nice to play

 

Stephanie Wiesler 

Not like a string quartet. That’s just right? I mean, you

 

Joan Hutton 

know, yeah, so I feel like we’ll, we’ll draw people in with our energy.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

Well, speaking of drawing people in, Stephanie’s main gig Society of Chemists, definitely drew a lot of people in when they were on the Jazz 88 stage at the Twin Cities Jazz Festival. And I thought you did a really great job of communicating your sound, but also being ready for just folks walking through, getting comfortable, waiting for other people to play. So Stephanie, as you’re like, you know, as a performer, how do you navigate different levels of intimacy with the audience?

 

Stephanie Wiesler 

Well, I think it’s important to start with gratitude always, especially when it’s 95 degrees of heat. Yeah. I mean, people don’t have to be there. So if you really acknowledge the audience, appreciate them, and then also just appreciate the people behind the scenes who put everything together. I always want to dwell in gratitude and the fact that, you know, our weather is so volatile here, so if we get to play outside, Wow, incredible. It’s a miracle, you know. I mean, we have, like, what, three months that are sure, you know, we just don’t know. So and then just be, yeah, energy, and then choosing songs that are going to translate well to a live setting, something that’s a little quieter or slower. Leave that for an indoor venue.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

This is, this is sage wisdom from Stephanie Wiesler and Joan Hutton. They’re gonna be performing as take that back on Sunday, Stephanie’s joining the group, filling in for Sue Orfield, Joan Hutton, one of the leaders of the group and Stephanie, what song are you most excited to play on Sunday as you’ve been sort of preparing for the gig? What is the one where you go? This is going to be awesome. Probably splash. That’s a good one. I love, I love what the groups are doing. Society chemists have something in my inbox from society chemist that I haven’t even been able to really check out because it came in. During the big move for jazz 88 back to a North High. So we know what’s up for society. Chemists, Y’all keep on releasing awesome music. Take that back. Are we thinking a third record at some point? Are we getting back in the kitchen? Joan,

 

Joan Hutton 

we are thinking it. We are actually getting together next week to rehearse some new material. So it’ll take a little bit to, you know, get another album together, but also I’m releasing a new single on July 11. Oh

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

my gosh, okay, I’ll just mention that. Is that what kind of lineup for that?

 

Joan Hutton 

That’s a very similar lineup, but it’s just my own stuff and but adding Dave Milne on flute, and, yeah, this, this first track that we’re releasing. There’s a few different things, but this first one is with Ted is playing and cam and Dave and then Dave Milne.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

It is so great that people keep on releasing new music. There was a time when it was a certainty that maybe you’d put a little money in your pocket from releasing a piece of new music, and that is not the case that we face now. So one role that jazz 88 can play is at least being excited about it and sharing it and getting it to a larger audience. And you two have been fantastic examples of folks who have released really spectacular music, and that jazz ADA has been really supportive of. I’m very glad you’re going to be on the stage the Jazz 88 jazz collected concert series stage on Sunday. And please do keep on releasing new music and keep on collaborating. And thank you so much for visiting jazz 88

 

Joan Hutton 

Thank you.

More Posts for Show: The Afternoon Cruise