Tim Larkin, distinguished trumpeter and composer, joins Musicians Reveal with Joe Kelley for an illuminating conversation about his forthcoming album, Setting Standards. Set for release on August 1st, the project reimagines beloved tunes from the 70s and 80s with fresh arrangements that honor the integrity of the originals while infusing them with a modern sensibility. Inspired by a jazz orchestral version of Michael Sembello’s “Maniac,” Larkin sought to breathe new life into timeless pop melodies. Alongside long-time friend John Paris, he blends orchestral textures, live instrumentation, and contemporary production techniques to create a sound that is both nostalgic and forward-looking. This episode offers a deep dive into his creative process, musical philosophy, and the enduring value of melody in songwriting.

📘 What You’ll Hear in This Episode

– How a reinterpretation of “Maniac” sparked the concept for Setting Standards

– The role of melody and harmonic structure in creating lasting music

– Behind-the-scenes stories from his 40+ year friendship with John Parish

– Blending orchestral samples with live instrumentation for an authentic sound

– Insights into avoiding fleeting trends in favor of timeless artistry

– The making of “Heart of Mine,” the album’s first single

⏱️ Chapters

00:14 – Introducing Tim Larkin

03:50 – The “Maniac” Moment That Sparked the Album

07:25 – Reimagining 70s & 80s Melodies

12:05 – Collaboration with John Parish

15:48 – Crafting Timeless Arrangements

19:32 – Recording and Blending Live & Orchestral Elements

23:15 – Looking Ahead to the Album Release

🔗 Links & Mentions

– Visit MusiciansReveal.com

– YouTube – Musicians Reveal

– Live365 – Musicians Reveal Radio

📝 Key Takeaways

– Setting Standards reinterprets iconic 70s & 80s songs with a modern touch

– Inspired by a jazz orchestral arrangement of “Maniac”

– Features collaboration with long-time friend John Parish on vocals and drums

– Emphasizes melody, rich chord changes, and timeless arrangements over trends

– Fuses orchestral and synthesized sounds for a fresh yet nostalgic feel

– Aims to revive the artistry that defined pop’s golden eras

Hi, I'm Tim Larkin and you're watching Musicians Reveal with Joe Kelly.

We're really excited here on Musicians Reveal.

This afternoon.

We are welcoming Academy Award winner, a great composer, a force in the music and games world.

And also he is set to release brand new record in a few days called Setting Standards.

Trumpeter, composer, songwriter, we welcome Tim Larkin.

How you doing, Tim?

I'm doing great.

Thanks for having me, Joe.

Yeah, you know, you.

You so varied your career from the.

The intro right there.

But putting out this album, how did it start to flesh out the idea for Setting Standards?

Oh, the idea actually came from a tune I was.

I ran across of Michael Cembello's.

He.

He redid, okay, the tune Maniac, and he did it within an orchestral ballad version.

JAZZ ORCHESTRAL VERSION and when I heard the tune, I didn't even recognize it until about maybe 30, 40 seconds in.

And.

And it turns out, I mean, I'd played Maniac many times in cover bands, you know, early on, and didn't realize what a beautiful tune it really is.

And the way he had it arranged was just gorgeous.

I thought, man, I got to do this for some of the tunes that I really grew up with or appreciated from the 70s and 80s.

And so that's what spurred it.

That's what spurred the idea.

And from that.

That point, it took me about a year or two to actually put it all together because it was kind of in my spare time and didn't really get super motivated until about six months ago and tried to wrap it all up.

So did you ever meet Michael Sambella?

No, no, I've never met him.

I'd love to.

Yeah.

When you, when you brought up the name, I was like, oh, that's.

That's definitely a 80s.

Yeah.

Cinematic theme right there, which you're heavily involved in in that world as well.

So not so much in the 80s, but.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I meant.

I meant throughout your career.

Yeah, yeah, right.

So Setting Standards.

The first single, Heart of Mine, features A mutual friend, Mr. John Parish, your longtime friend and collaborator.

How did you get John involved?

And I didn't know John was singing along with this project.

John is an amazing singer and I. I wish.

I wish more people knew that, and I wish he had more opportunities to express that because that's a side of him a lot of people don't know.

And he sang actually on two cuts on the album and he plays drums on five of them.

But John and I go back probably, I want to say, over 40 years, and we played in all this one together Years and years ago and, and we've sort of kept touch over the years, you know, now and then, but never really started.

Worked together until this project.

For the most part.

We had an all is one reunion about last November that I, I went and played with, which is all the guys from the band 40 years ago.

And during that I, I'd been talking to him about it and he said, yeah, we got to do something together.

And I said, well, I'm putting this album together if you want to play on it.

And he said he'd love to.

And then he goes, by the way, I also do vocal stuff too, and vocal arrangements.

So I said that's great.

Let's.

Let's see what you, you know, let's give it a shot.

And the stuff he put down was just immediately fit and it was just immediately perfect and, and again, a great drummer as well.

So he really added a lot of touches to it and, and really appreciate having him involved in it and fun guy to work with and, you know, an awesome, awesome personality.

Yeah, I think I had Eddie M. And John Paris together around the time, the.

Probably around the time that reunion concert was going to happen.

I think it was time.

Yeah, because they were mentioning it, you know.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, go back with Eddie as well and, and, and Eddie's not on the album, but he's scolded me accordingly.

So I'm going to try to work on something with him soon, so hopefully.

Right, so.

So getting back to your affiliation with those guys, did you grow up in the Bay Area?

I did okay.

Yeah.

I grew up with the music scene in the Bay Area.

Playing trumpet, uh, know, doing casuals, doing recording sessions, doing whatever came across shows, that kind of stuff.

For about, yeah, about 20 years I was doing nothing but playing trumpet in the Bay Area.

Was that your first instrument that you played?

No, I started piano when I was four and started trumpet in fourth grade.

So piano was actually I in all as one, I was playing keyboards.

I wasn't playing trumpet.

I think I played trumpet on one tune.

So most of the bands that I was playing at the time, I did tour with one band and played nothing but trumpet.

But then a lot of it was keyboard.

Until college I majored in trumpet performance and from that point on was.

Most of the gigs I did was.

Was pretty much trumpet stuff.

So.

So when you, you get into the music study and at a higher level like that, did they usually break it off performance and then composition or business?

Do you have to choose?

You mean in college?

Yeah, in college, in music School.

Yeah.

And when I went to Cal State Hayward, which is Cal State East Bay now I think, and I studied trumpet performance.

So it was very much performance oriented.

But also, I mean you had to take theory and litten analysis and sight singing and all that stuff.

There was no really any business aspect of at the time.

And that was kind of, you know, learned by experience.

You go out there and figure it out and believe me, I've had a lot of experiences, learning experiences in the business of music, which is kind of unique.

But no, it was more performance oriented and that was kind of, I mean that was.

At the time that's all I wanted to do was just play.

So.

So it helped out a lot.

It had some great professors and they, they helped out a lot from doing everything from symphonic music to jazz band stuff to, I mean, you know, to, to pop music, whatever.

So it was, it was a good experience.

I saw a cool picture of you.

It looks like your trump is.

Is it like a vintage kind of an older flavor trumpet?

Well, it's, it, it sort of is.

I mean it's about.

I, I actually the trumpet that I play now is the same one I played studying with a teacher named Claude Gordon who was a well known educator and also a session musician in his own right.

He's, he's long gone now, but he designed the trumpet.

And I had a trumpet that I was playing on in college and it got stolen and the DMV getting, renewing my license or something, they took my trumpet and flugelhorn.

So I called him up and because I had a lesson coming up with him, he goes, I'll give you mine.

So he.

So it's, it's one of the low serial numbers of the design that he made and I've played on that ever since and just.

It's a great horn and works for me.

So I've, I've kept it all this time.

Yeah, the flugelhorn, of course you play that as well for, for a novice like myself.

Can you break down the differences and why you would use one for.

Than the other in a particular song?

A flugelhorn has a mellower sound.

It's conical from beginning to end, so it gives a, a rounder, softer type of, type of tone.

Trumpet's a little bit more edgy.

The range kind of works out a little bit different.

It's for playing lead stuff and for playing like there's a tune that's also on the album through the Fire by Chaka Khan that I redid.

That's all trumpet because it's, it's a lot higher, it's a lot edgier, it needs a brighter sound.

The flugelhorn is just a mellower tone and works better for the more ballady kind of, kind of pieces.

And it just depends on the, the context and what you're trying to.

You know, if you want a real warm, intimate kind of sound, then I usually use the flugelhorn.

And then a trumpet is a little bit livelier, a little bit edgier, although you can also, you know, you can get just as warm of a sound almost on a trumpet, depending on how you mic it and how you play it.

So.

But I, I prefer playing on the trumpet most of the time because flugelhorn can be a little bit more difficult.

The mouthpiece is a little bit different and the range is a little bit different.

So flugerhorns more physically demanding as well.

I wouldn't say more physically demanding, but it's just different.

And it's, it's just the switching.

It's.

It's not that different.

I mean, it's not that much more difficult or anything to play.

It's just, it just feels a little bit different.

It doesn't.

To me, it doesn't respond the same way a trumpet does.

And so if you're playing, it just, it just feels better.

You know, you just kind of end up trying it out on one tune or another and it either works or it doesn't.

So that's kind of how I go about it.

So you grew up in like one of the prime, you know, music areas in the world with, you know, I'd never been out to the Bay Area, but just seemed like all different flavors were flowing music wise and must have been a great place to, to get your musical ears wet, right?

It was.

I mean, there was, you know, when I started actually doing gigs and stuff, there was.

I played with salsa bands, I toured with San Francisco Opera, I played with Berkeley Symphony.

I played recording sessions with San Francisco Symphony.

There was California Symphony.

There was.

I mean, the variety of music in the Bay Area was incredible.

I mean, you could, you know, there was gigs that I did that I hated, but I mean, I played the Ringling Brothers Circus when they came into town.

Right.

You know, but they paid well.

Well, that didn't pay that well.

But the interesting thing about that gig was it was a really hard gig to play because it was like two or three hours of non stop playing and your lips are swollen at the end.

Wow.

But you get to go backstage and meet these people that are traveling with the circus and see how they live.

So the experience in itself, even though the playing was not always that rewarding, sometimes the gigs themselves were way more rewarding than the pay or the playing itself.

So that was fun.

And the Bay Area had so many opportunities like that.

Like, they had.

I played the Grand National Rodeos, would come through the Cow palace, got to play those.

There was a.

A room called the Fairmont Hotel or the Venetian Room at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, and I played regularly up there.

And that's where James Brown came through, Tony Bennett came through, Mel Torme, George Shearing, all these artists that I got to play with there.

And then again, then the next day you're off doing a salsa gig or you're off doing, you know, a recording session or something.

And at the time, there was a bigger.

A bigger venue or there's a lot more recording happening in the Bay Area.

So commercials and occasional film soundtracks and TV gigs would come up there, which I think is kind of.

Kind of withered away a little bit in the Bay Area.

From what I understand now, I haven't lived in the Bay area for over 20 years, so I can't really comment on that.

Well, what's the music scene like up your way?

No, nothing like it was in the Bay Area, let's put it that way.

You're sitting.

You're sitting where the music scene is.

For the most part.

Yeah.

I mean.

Well, interestingly enough, when I came up, there was a Spokane Jazz Orchestra I played with for a little while, and a guy named Bob Kernow, who used to play with.

Play with Stan Kenton, and he did all the arrangements for Stan Kenton's Big Man.

He lives in Spokane, and he put a big band together to record his arrangements for Sierra Music Publishing.

And so we'd get together and play at a small club downtown once a month.

And all these players would come from all around to play in this big band because he's such a great arranger and had incredible music to play play.

And so all these good players from.

From the universities and even the west side would come over and we had a great band for.

For several years that we played, you know, like I say, about once a month.

So there's a little music scene here, but it's not quite what it was like, say, in the Bay Area or LA or New York or something like that.

Well, I guess, like, most places have gone the way of that, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Unfortunately.

Your.

Your record, where's the best place people can pick it up?

I'VE seen you all, you have all the outlets pretty much cover.

But where would you like to direct them?

We'll have the links in the description.

When we air this, it's going to.

Be on Pandora and Amazon and YouTube and Spotify.

So, you know, whatever people have their own preference, you know where they like to put their playlists and that type of stuff.

So whatever's the easiest for them is, is it works for me.

I mean it doesn't really make any difference.

I just kind of want to get it heard.

So hopefully whatever's makes it most accessible is the best.

And August 1st is the official release date and Heart of Mine is already out there.

I'm.

I'm really glad you put through the Fire.

That's one of my all time favorite songs on there.

So.

Yeah, nice choice.

You covered Sting and you have an original.

Tell us about your original song on that record.

Uh, that was a.

It's called Gumshoes.

And the reason it's called Gumshoes is kind of a film noir type Chinatown kind of vibe to it.

And I, I originally wrote a little snippet of that for a video that I did for, for a video game tournament a long time ago.

And it was about a 20 second snippet that they needed that we needed that type of vibe for an underscore.

And then I really liked the piece so I thought, man, I'm going to make this into a full blown piece.

So I rewrote it and re recorded it.

And although it has the bones of the original video clip that I did, it's, it's, it's extended out with a piano solo and a trumpet solo on it.

And, and so yeah, it has, it's kind of a quartet.

It's, it's just, it's you know, piano, bass, trumpet and drums.

And then there's some strings in that as well.

But it's, it's pretty much a real intimate kind of film noir spy vibe.

And if anybody knows what Gumshoes, if it knows the meaning behind Gum Shoes, then you'll kind of get the, the vibe of the tune.

Yeah, you're going back to the, the black and white exact shows and stuff.

Police shows.

Right.

The video was done in black and white and everything.

I mean it has totally has that vibe.

So it was kind of fun to do that.

So do you do most of recording where you're sitting right now?

I do, yeah.

This is it.

What do you have in your studio?

I see keyboards and.

You have keyboards?

I mean mostly now.

I used to Have a whole different studio where I had, you know, a 16 track tape machine and a Trident console and a bunch of analog outboard gear.

And now most of it is in the box anymore.

I mean, it's all, you know, digital and it's all done.

I do it in Digital Performer or Pro Tools and it's all done on the computer for the most part.

I mean, I have keyboards that are controllers for the most part, but they're controlling samples and stuff and some outboard gear, some, some lexicon reverbs and you know, interfaces, that type of stuff.

But 95 of it is now in the box.

So it's all mostly software.

And being such a person who knows sound inside and out, can you tell right away how something's been recorded?

Not always.

I mean, you know, the, the technology has, is, is so good now to the point where, I mean, there's string libraries and orchestral libraries and samples that are so well tuned and so well refined and in the way that they present them in the technology that, you know, all the legatos, all the dynamics, everything that are built in are so well done.

If somebody takes the time to really program it right, it's difficult to tell the difference.

It really is.

I mean, I think when it comes down to it, if you really listen on a good set of speakers and really nitpick it and find little spots where there's something that gives it away as a sample, I think that's possible, but.

But it's hard.

It's definitely getting more and more difficult all the time.

Wow.

You mentioned before, you've for the past 20 plus years have been really deep into the composing of music for video games and such like that.

Were you a gamer when you started?

Not really.

Okay, me neither.

I think, I think I ended at Super Mario.

Yeah, not really.

I would say I'm still not really what you would call a gamer.

I mean, I mean, I play games when I'm working on them because you have to figure out how you can integrate the music and sound into it in a good way.

But for the most part, I mean, in my spare time, I don't spend time playing games.

I mean, I play them for work and occasionally I'll get into one or two that are kind of fun and that I'll try or just playing a game to see how somebody else has done something, how they've implemented the sound and what kind of a music score it has.

And you know, writing for games is so much different than writing for something like an album because you're Writing music that's, you know, often dynamic and that, that works in a whole different way than just listening from beginning to end.

So it's always interesting to find out how someone else has done that and how effective it is.

What was your first introduction into getting into that, that area?

Into gaming?

Yeah, into gaming.

Well, it's funny because I had started a music production company with a friend of mine and, and we thought, okay, we're going to start writing jingles and do that type of thing.

And so he looked, he opened up the phone book and said we thought CD ROMs at the time were just beginning to explode.

And this was, it was actually 30 years ago that this happened.

Okay.

So he opened up the phone book under CD ROM companies or whatever and the first one was Broderbund under B.

And he called them up and they ended up hiring both of us.

It was again, the industry itself was really expanding at the time, so we just got hired almost on the spot.

It was, it was pretty lucky, you know, it was kind of fate.

So that's how we got introduced to it.

And so I, I started working on video games literally a little over 30 years ago.

And, and it was a much different type of composing and, and, and writing at the time because you were writing for, you weren't writing for live musicians for the most part in the beginning because it was done on sound cards and all that stuff was done via, you know, eight bit sounds and you'd have limited voices.

And so writing for it was, was a challenge in the beginning.

As the technology advanced then we were able to bring in live, live musicians and bands and orchestras and all that stuff.

As bandwidth increased and speeds increased and that type of stuff where you had more voices.

At the first, first game I, well, one of the first games I did, I think only had two tracks of audio.

You know, you could only have, you could have a voiceover happening and maybe a sound effects track or an ambience track or music tracks and you had to swap them in and out.

And so it was a, it was a constant, constant juggle to get things to work.

It was different times.

It's definitely a passionate fan base.

I mean, I think I caught a couple parts of the interview with, with a guy who's obviously into gaming and everything and they know their stuff and their music plays a huge part in the games, right?

It does, yeah.

I mean, it's interesting because we, again, where it's evolved to now we're doing.

I'm working on a game called Dota where it's an esport.

Okay.

And they have a big huge tournament that we do every year.

And these tournaments take place in arenas literally with, you know, anywhere from 12, 13,000 people up to.

We did one in, in China where It's like a 30,000 seat arena and they fill these arenas up with these fans and the cool thing about it.

So we do now we do live concerts of the music in front of the, in front of the actual gaming tournament.

So the next one, I'm going to be doing one in Hamburg, Germany in September and you start playing the music.

And so I'll do usually a montage of different Dota themes throughout maybe an eight or ten minute piece of music.

And as it switches from piece to piece, they know the music.

You know, it's, it's kind of fun because the audience, they'll recognize a certain piece and you, you get the reaction from them and you know, in real time as you're playing it.

So it's, they're, they're, they're into the music for sure.

Yeah.

You did the music, right?

I did the sound design for that actually.

So a friend of mine, Chance Thomas, did the music and so we.

And it got the Academy Award for best best Animated short with Sony Image Works.

And yeah, that was a fun project.

It was.

Because when I first saw it, I thought the idea was Sony imageworks was trying to compete at the time more or less with Pixar, where they were doing the little shorts in front of each film that they did.

And so Sony imageworks decided to do the same thing.

And I remember seeing the first few rounds or iterations of the short and thinking, wow, this is never going to make it.

But as with a lot of things iterated and got better and better and ended up.

I.

It took a life of its own and started winning all these awards and next thing you know, it was nominated for an Academy Award.

And I remember, you know, just watching, watching it and thinking, this is never going to win the Academy.

There's no way.

And sure enough, it won.

I was just, I was blown away.

It was, but it was, you know, it was a great experience.

It was a really interesting experience overall.

How long does it take to get the actual award sent to you?

The statue?

I.

You only get there.

They only give one.

They only gave one out to the director.

Oh, okay.

I wish I had a statue, but I don't.

It wasn't like The Stanley Cup.

They pass it around to whoever worked on the project.

They let you keep it for a day.

I do have pictures with it.

I actually.

I went over the director's house and we all took pictures with the.

With the Oscar.

So, yeah, I do have some photos here, actually, up on the wall holding it.

Cool.

Yeah.

Sound design.

Let us know exactly what goes into sound design.

Well, sound design is.

It varies.

You know, in a game, for example, I mean, it's.

It's taking care of not only the heart effects, they're called that you see, like, you know, a door opens and closes.

You've got to cover that because it doesn't exist in a pixelated world.

Right.

In a virtual world.

So you have to create all the sounds for that.

And even in movies, they do the same thing where pretty much everything is put together after the fact, because when they're recording on set, there's a lot of other, you know, noises, or they want to sweeten up the sound effects afterwards.

So a lot of that is done in post production.

It's the same thing with a game where you're creating not only sound effects for the things that actually happen and you interact with, but then you're also creating things that maybe help to inform the player for certain things.

You know, whether it's things that are happening off screen or how, you know, maybe in a.

In a game where there's fighting or something, you're helping to escalate the actual intensity of the battle based on the sounds and stuff that you use, or it informs a player how.

How close they are to defeating their.

Their.

Their protagonist or their enemy or whatever.

So there's a lot of different layers for sound design and then creating the ambience for an area, that type of stuff.

And then you want to, you know, sound design can also be integrated at times into the music.

So sometimes it's not always a melodic thing that's happening, but it's more of a textural or an ambient type thing that kind of crosses the.

Blurs the lines between sound design and music.

So it's.

And if.

If you.

You know, I started out in music and.

And when I got hired at Broderbund, as a matter of fact, I was hired as a composer.

And as I was leaving, you know, the interview with.

With the guy who was hiring me, he goes, oh, by the way, about half the job is sound design.

Is that okay?

And I had never done it.

And I said, yeah, that's fine, no problem.

So I lost.

To us.

Yeah, exactly.

But I kind of learned on the job.

And if you have the skills to be able to put it.

Compose music and put, you know, the.

The elements together to make a good composition, I think you have a good.

A good starting place to do sound design, because basically in sound design, you're kind of composing only with different elements.

You're not always using musical elements, but you're using sound effects instead.

So it's kind of the same mindset, but.

But using different elements.

I was laughing in my head when you mentioned about that job interview, because I. I worked in Taiwan years ago in the late 80s as a.

As an editor for publishing company.

Came back to the States and.

And got hired by a.

It was like an editor for an advertising company.

So I show up the first day and the owner of the company who hired me said, did you bring your tools?

And I thought to myself, I don't know what the hell he's talking about.

Yeah, they're in the car.

Yeah, they're in the car.

I think I got in the car and left.

No, but, but I didn't last too long there.

But yeah, it was World of Difference.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you know, your career, you've worked with so many talented musicians who, Who I love and of course.

And you're a big fan of.

If you don't mind.

Can we talk about a few of them?

Absolutely, yeah.

Natalie Cole.

So that was a great gig.

Unfortunately, this was towards the end of her career and her life and she was.

She.

Her health was declining at the time.

And so, I mean, she.

Not to say that her performance was spot on.

I mean, she was an awesome singer and she nailed everything, but we were really isolated from her at the rehearsals and so forth and the gig, because she was.

Her immune system was compromised at the time, so.

So I wasn't able to talk to her and go meet her.

Right.

Because they wanted everybody to stay separate without, you know, the chance of her catching anything, you know, even a minor cold at the time would have been pretty major for her.

So.

But she was great at the rehearsal.

She, you know, nailed the performances.

And, and, and it was, you know, it's one of those performances.

It's like.

It was so cool because we did the, The, The.

The iconic.

When she had her.

Her.

Her dad, Nat Cole.

Nat King Cole on the, on the screen.

Right.

You know, singing along with her.

We did that duet and so that was unforgettable.

So that was.

Yeah, yeah, I used that song when I was DJing parties, practically everything.

Wedding and.

Yeah, classic.

Classic.

So.

So it's Amazing.

You know, towards the end, she probably felt like crap a lot of time and still hit the stage and was sounding great.

Yeah, absolutely.

A lady who came before her was another great vocalist, Ella Fitzgerald.

What was your affiliation with her?

So that was.

I remember sitting down at the rehearsal, and I mean, I'll kind of just point on the memories of each one of these, because that one.

I remember sitting down through rehearsal and the first.

You know, it was like a.

It was a big band, and the intro was like four bars or whatever.

And then she started singing, and I think we had some background stuff to play.

And she started singing, and I couldn't play.

I just.

I put my horn down.

I just had to listen to her because it was.

And.

And the only thing I can relate it to is she sounded like a bird.

I mean, she just.

It was so amazing.

I. I'd heard her on TV and.

And recordings and so forth previous to that, but live, it was, like, so much different.

She was just amazing.

I mean, and so fluid and so comfortable in her own skin and the way she sang.

And I remember, you know, the first 16 or 24 bars or whatever, I was just sitting there with my horn in my hand going, wow.

And fortunately, it was a rehearsal, and I.

And.

But then started playing, but distracting because I really wanted to just sit and listen to her because she was so amazing.

You become a fan yourself, right on stage there.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, I was a fan before that, but that just cemented it for sure.

Yeah.

Just amazing.

You.

You mentioned James Brown, and he was the first celebrity I ever met backstage.

Him and Wilson Pickett were doing a bill together, and I met them.

He had his hair up in curlers, but how about your experience with James Brown?

Okay, so my James Brown experience, it was.

It was really cool.

There was no rehearsals.

It's like you just went on stage and you started playing, and he had hand signals and all this stuff.

And so you kind of learned as you go, right?

And.

And you knew all the tunes because you've played.

You know, how many times have I played I Feel Good in My Life?

You know, and so.

You know the tunes.

But so.

But he would call.

So we'd start out the set with.

With Maceo playing.

He.

Maceo would come out and play for, like, 20, 30 minutes, just on his own, going through the audience until his lips were bleeding practically.

And.

And from the downbeat to the end of the show, which would be sometimes three hours, I mean, he would just go.

The audience never sat down.

I mean, that band grooved so hard.

It was just you, you.

Nobody could sit down.

We didn't sit down.

So we're playing.

We're playing some tunes and.

And all of a sudden he calls out of nowhere, he calls the theme from Entertainment Tonight, right?

It's like, no charts, no nothing.

So they start out in this funky groove and you know, you know the melody in your head, so you start playing it.

So I'm playing the theme from Entertainment Tonight and so.

And he's out there grooving.

He comes up and he walks up to me in the middle of the tune and he puts his microphone on the bell of my horn.

He goes play.

So.

So I'm sitting there soloing with James Brown for like five minutes.

It was, it, I mean, again, the most.

It was one of the most incredible experiences, I think, of my career because the band was so good and so funky and grooving so hard, and it was just a, you know, an out of body experience for that, that period of time.

And he's just standing there, just.

Just me and James and he's.

I'm standing there and he's got his.

His microphone in the bell of my horn and I'm playing.

I wish I had had pictures or video of that at the time, but that was a.

That was a while back.

So.

Well, what's the cue for him to give you?

Like, okay, that's enough.

He walks away with the.

Micah.

It's like, okay, I guess we're done.

How many other horn players were in that section that night?

Do you remember?

A lot?

There was.

We had a full big band, and then he had like five horn players of his own.

So we had.

I played with him for several weeks when he was in town.

And so there was probably a total of.

There's probably maybe six or seven sax players, four trumpet players, two or three trombone players, and everything in his band was doubled.

Anyway.

He had two drummers, he had two guitar players, he had two keyboard players.

So it was.

It was a big group up there.

It was like a.

A tuxedo kind of P Funk, you know, one of two of everything.

Precisely.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Now switching genres right there.

You were involved with Ice Tea, right?

I did a recording on his.

On one of his albums.

Yeah, I.

It was through a producer when I was living in the Bay Area and he was doing.

Gosh, I forget the name of the album and I forget the name of the tune, but he was just saying, hey, you know, it'd be cool if we did a trumpet solo on this you want to try it?

And so I said, yeah, I'll give it a shot.

So I just went in and did a trumpet solo over this total, you know, hip hop banging tune.

That was, it was, it was kind of fun.

It was different.

Different experience at the time, but that kind of got me into the, the hip hop scene a little bit and was really sort of integral.

I did an album years ago with, with Avenue Jazz with Rhino Records.

Okay.

And some of the tunes kind of had a little more of new jack swing or hip hop flavor to them, which I kind of got into a little bit for the time.

So it was, it was fun.

And then I ended up producing a tune for too short out of that.

And so it was, it was fun.

I mean, again, like you said, in the Bay Area, the scene was all over the place, you know, so got to deal with that as well.

I'm going to run a couple Bay Area musicians by you again.

Huey Lewis, who, you know, we.

Huey Lewis in the news.

Great, great band and hope he's doing better health wise.

But how did you work with Huey?

With him?

I, I did a. I did a concert with him and I think it was Cyndi Lauper at the time.

I, it was just.

I, I can't remember.

This is so long ago.

I can't remember exactly how it came about or whatever.

But then I was working in a band called Alex Call, who worked in a band called Clover with.

With Huey a long time ago, so they were really close.

And I started working with Johnny Cola, who was their sax player, and doing recording sessions for him.

And maybe that's how I got into that, that group, I'm not sure.

But we were doing occasional recording sessions for some Japanese recording artists and, you know, overseas.

Johnny was doing a lot of horn arrangements and stuff for them.

And I actually ended up buying a recording console, my Trident recording console.

I was talking about before I bought off Johnny Cola, who I think he swapped it out for a bigger console.

But so working with those guys, I was kind of in the Sausalito music scene for a while, doing recording sessions at Studio D over there, which they recorded at a lot and.

And played on a softball team with some of the guys from the new.

So just kind of knew everybody that way, I guess, and ended up.

And I think that's how that worked out.

Who do you root for, baseball wise?

I, you know, I'm still an Athletics and Giants fan.

Being from the Bay Area.

Yeah.

So I have to root.

I mean, I'm in the Northwest, but I Still root against the Mariners because they're in the same conferences.

Yeah, right.

Soon.

Soon to be out in Las Vegas.

That's right.

That's too bad.

Yeah, I, I actually, I was in Vegas in March and, you know, my, my dad's wife pointed out that's where the, the homes for the, the A is going to be.

Yeah, yeah.

Yep.

Sweating it out there next to the Raiders, right?

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah.

It turned into a pretty, pretty big sports town.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm a Mets fan myself.

Always good and bad.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Mets and the A's.

1973.

You guys got the better of us, I remember.

Yeah, it was.

They had three A's.

Had three years in a row, right?

Yeah.

That's a dynasty.

Yeah.

So I actually, as a kid.

Interesting story.

You remember Campy Campaneras?

He was short shortstop.

Yeah.

Oakland A's.

He lived across.

We lived on a lagoon growing up and he lived across the lagoon.

And we were on a sailboat on the lagoon one day and he waved us down and wanted a ride.

So we took him for a ride and ended up being great friends with Campy Campanes.

And he played baseball with us and he got us autographed baseballs and autographs of Reggie Jackson.

And I actually have a.

Had a baseball with Joe DiMaggio's autograph because he was a coach for the Oakland A's for a while and so he got me autograph and it was, it was quite a thrill as a kid being able to hang out with, you know, one of the baseball players there.

So.

Yeah, I mean, Joe DiMaggio.

Wow.

The Yankee Clipper, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mr.

Baseball.

How about the attendance wise at the, at the Coliseum there for the, for the A's?

Was it in those prime days?

How was it?

Was it still poor?

It was.

Wasn't bad.

I mean, we, I, I went as a kid, so I, I never really paid much attention to that.

But I remember, you know, Monday nights we'd go because it was like a dollar.

They'd have dollar nights on Monday nights.

And so my family would always go on Monday nights.

And I think it was a dollar for the bleacher seats or whatever, and then it discounted for the rest of it.

So we'd go, you know, every once in a while on Monday nights and go see the games.

And I don't think the Coliseum was ever full.

Right.

But I don't think baseball games still fill up the Coliseums for the most part.

I haven't been to one in A while, so I'm not sure, but.

Yeah, myself either.

I mean, I played baseball, you know, up until late teens, but.

Yeah, I wanted to run another name by you.

She's.

She's been on her show before as well.

Sheila E. Another Bay Area.

Yeah.

So I played briefly with her.

That's.

I think.

I'm trying to think if that's where I met John.

I don't remember.

I know we played together with her for sure.

With me, it was only for a matter of a few months.

We did a television show, I think, and some rehearsals, and we'd.

We'd play in her garage, I think it was her dad's house.

I don't remember.

I honestly don't remember.

And then did a few.

Some recording sessions for Peter.

Peter Michael.

Right.

And.

And.

And then Sheila, she actually played on when I first started trying to get an album together way back then.

She came and played percussion on some of my tunes at the time.

And.

And I. I never got signed on that particular project, but.

So.

And.

And then I. I lost touch with her.

I. I saw her once or twice, I think, since then, but I haven't really worked with her since then.

I mean, I've worked with a lot of players that work with her and obviously Johnny and Eddie have worked.

John and Eddie have worked with her a lot, so.

Right.

Yeah, I think that's.

I. I think that's where I met John.

I want to.

I want to think.

And then I think all is one was maybe after that, it's hard again.

It's.

That was quite some time ago.

Did you play Yoshi's a bunch of times?

No, no, we played.

We did a television show.

I remember we went down to LA to film a television show and was on pbs and I wish I could find that, but I imagine it's in the archive somewhere and.

No, we just rehearsed for that and we did a television show and then I think that was that band kind of.

Then we.

We may have done a few rehearsals after that.

And then I think, you know, she went on at that time to start playing with Prince or.

Or doing her own recording and stuff.

And so she kind of.

She, you know, she's gone through a lot of different.

A lot of changes in her own career as far as, you know, playing with different people and whatever.

And so I think she may have even moved down to LA at that point and we were all still in the Bay Area, so.

Yeah, I remember family said they were moving to LA at the time, so.

But.

Yeah, but I Did I wrote a tune for.

For her dad.

It was on one of his albums.

And then.

And Tito Puente ended up doing that as well.

It's called Yesterday's Memories, Tomorrow's Dreams.

We.

I put that.

Or he took that.

A friend of mine, Wayne Wallace and I wrote that together and they put that on his album.

Is that the album?

I think it was a red cover.

Yeah, I've got that.

I've got that in.

Well, I call it my vault, but it's the closet with everything.

Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna look that up.

Red cover.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I forget the title of the album, but yeah, I remember distinctively.

Yeah, I think it was something family.

The.

Yeah, I. I don't remember a long time.

Yeah.

Because I think, yeah, there was Juan and Peter and the father and Sheila were.

Yeah.

Jamming on something.

Yeah.

So I like a quote in.

In some of your press release that mentions about you're not chasing trends with the new album set in standards.

Tell us the feel about a lot of the songs.

You know, why.

Why you have that presentation like that?

Well, a lot of these, these tunes were.

To me, they're.

They're a lot of the songs from the 70s and 80s that were iconic.

I mean, they're.

In my opinion, the 70s and 80s had some of the best pop songs production wise and writing wise that.

That exist.

I mean, I, I think and, and this can be controversial or a whole another conversation for another time, but pop music is kind of degraded with, with the rise of technology.

I mean, so a lot of the stuff, you know, these tunes that were written by David Foster or, Or, you know.

Oh, who's.

I, I did Wichita Lyman, which.

I can't remember the guy who wrote it now, but they were.

The melodies are something that you'll never forget.

You hear it once or twice and the melody sticks with you.

And so that's why they always stuck with me.

I mean, and I heard these tunes and they're the ones that have the, the best, in my opinion, have the best chord changes and melodic structure and, and upper structures like Smile Again from Manhattan Transfer is one of the tunes I did.

And I remember I was driving home from a camping trip or something.

I heard that on the radio and on.

On Spotify or something and it's like, wow, that tune just hit me again as hard as it hit me when I it, you know, 30 years ago or whatever, 40 years ago.

And so I, I wanted to take these tunes and, and sort of reintroduce them because in my opinion they're standards, you know, they're.

And that's why the album is called Setting Standards, because it's kind of bringing these tunes that were standards in the 70s and 80s back to life and sort of doing it in a.

In a way that I'm comfortable with or.

Or you know, arranging it in ways that I.

That.

That doing it from, you know, in a way that I like and I.

That.

That it's just represents the style that.

That I am.

You know, instead of conforming it to any particular.

It's like, okay, it's gotta match these particular trends that are happening, happening now.

And I think it's still contemporary enough.

It has, you know, contemporary feel to it.

But I just wanted to.

To reintroduce them again and.

And bring back melody and changes.

There's of a lot.

Lot of music that's out, even in the jazz, you know, smooth jazz genre.

I guess I would say that that really doesn't go anywhere.

You know, there's a lot of stuff that it's just a groove and.

And it's repetitious and it's not memorable.

So these tunes to me were just tunes that really stuck out as being memorable and having great melodies and so.

And.

And lent themselves well to being redone as an instrumental as well, which is important.

You know, sometimes if the lyrics take over a melody, it's more.

It's much more difficult to then make that an instrumental because the lyrics are.

Are part of the rhythm or whatever.

And if you do.

If you sit on one note forever on a trumpet, it's not as interesting as being able to sing a different lyric across that one note.

So it was also important that these melodies worked out well instrumentally.

And you captured the Police on one of the tracks as well.

Every little thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Great, great, great 80s song right there.

It.

It is.

And it's again, another tune that had a really interesting melody to it and interesting changes to it and.

And lent itself well to.

To the.

The genre that I'm going, you know, going for.

So.

And a friend of mine helped helped out and did the arrangement on that.

A guy named Joris Hoogstetter.

And he's a incredibly talented musician and he did the arrangement on that piece.

So I. I think I arranged four of the pieces and then I. I wanted to also involve other people and just get other perspectives on it.

So I don't know if you know Mauricio Metalli, he worked on Smile Again.

Lenny Moore, a friend of mine who's I've worked with over the years in Games.

He, he helped out on the arrangement of through the Fire and then Joris did every little thing and I think I did the rest of them, so.

And Heart of Mine, you have someone working the strings as well, right?

I did some.

I had someone do overdubs on it.

Yeah.

So it's a blend of orchestral samples and real strings to just give it that little extra live feel, you know, and having the, the, that, that there's just some, some, you know, you just add that little bit of frosting on top with the live players and it really makes a big difference, I think.

And, and on the, the next album, Eddie M. He's got to get in the studio with you.

The first, the first track is an EDM assignment.

Right?

I, I, I, you know, I've been thinking about that a lot the last few days for some reason.

And yeah, I meant, meant to call him up and say, hey, let's think about what we want to do here, because I, I really want to work with them and, and great guy again.

You know, we go back so far.

So it, and I didn't mean to, to keep him off of this album.

It's just, it was all kind of done.

It's like it was kind of an afterthought.

There really isn't any sax work except for through the Fire is a big band arrangement.

So I had Johnny Beaumont as a sax player played on it because he plays, he played all the sax parts.

Barry, tenor, alto, and he overdubbed all the big band parts on there.

He played with Huey for years.

Johnny did.

Okay, so great sax player.

So he did all the overdubs on that.

But there's no solos or melodic parts for sax or, or I should say melody sections for sacks.

So I'll definitely work in something for Eddie on this next one.

And she.

Lee doesn't have any horn players on your current band.

I, I was watching a clip.

I said, where's the horns?

Yeah, that's.

Well, I'm sure she'll do it again with horns.

And like I say, she goes through a lot of changes, it seems like, but there's a lot of, lots of music all the time, so I'm sure that's coming.

Right?

Yeah.

Lady who I don't know.

Do you know Rad.

Roseanne Dimalata?

I do not.

She plays keys.

She's from the Bay Area, but she plays in Sheila's band as well.

And she played with Prince for, for a bit too.

Yeah.

So, you know, you, you migrated up to, to the Northwest up and just outside Spokane, Washington.

But the Bay Area is still in your heart, you could tell.

Absolutely, absolutely.

So we're going to direct our viewers, our listeners, because this, besides YouTube, it's on all the major podcast outlets.

Our links are in our respective descriptions and pick up.

Setting Standards.

Our guest, Tim Larkin.

And yeah, wherever they're preferred.

You, you mentioned wherever their preferred download is, place or streaming, it's.

It's going to be there.

I even start Distrokid.

That's new, right?

Yeah, that was recommended by a friend of mine.

Yeah.

So Distrokid is actually distributes it to all the different platforms.

Not the Columbia Music House, they don't have that.

No, I'm just kidding.

The 70s reference for us.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So.

Hey.

Hey, you got a gamer's chair, right?

I do, yeah.

I saw that.

That's pretty cool.

Wow.

International.

Oh, wow.

From the tournaments that we do, they, they do a different chair every year and, and they, they actually use these chairs at the tournaments and then after the tournament's over, they give them to the people that work the tournament.

So I've got a whole collection of them, actually.

I've got one from almost every year.

There's, you know, different colors and different, different logos and so forth on them.

So I have, I have about six chairs sitting around here.

Seven tier, actually.

The tournament's going on.

This is the 14th one we're doing this year, but I don't have a chair from every single one.

But.

Yeah, that's.

That's cool.

They're designed differently than regular office chairs.

Yeah, they're comfortable, you know, and so.

Yeah, and, and they're.

They're kind of fun, you know, with the logos on them.

Yeah.

Yes.

It's really cool.

Yeah.

All right, thanks for the, the talk and of course, the music.

And we're gonna hope to catch up with you in the near future, hopefully.

Yeah.

Thanks, Joe.

I appreciate it.

All right.

Tim Larkin.

Setting standards.

Get it soon.

August 1st, it's available.

Thanks.

Thank you.