Jon Geiger

Major congratulations on your amazing new album which just premiered worldwide, Jon Geiger: Live At Harvelle’s! What inspired you to tackle a live album at this point in your career?

Thank you so much! My heroes were always the men and women who played live, and poured their hearts out and could do it live every night and never mailed it in and reached for that standard of lifting people up through their voice and their instruments and their passion… So I feel like Live is a perfect way to put across what I do… I’m also very much ready to be expanding the areas that I come to play live in, so I’m looking forward to finding the right booking representative and/or management to play broader itineraries both here and overseas and I am very much ready to do that. So that was a factor as well, because I felt that a live album would show any potential people in those positions what they can count on from me every night if they took me on to put me out there that way .

How did you specifically land on the decision to use the far-famed Blues club Harvelle’s in Santa Monica, California to record Live At Harvelle’s? Were there ever any other venues in contention for the live record, or was Harvelle’s always your bird?

I love the history of Harvelles and its’ place as a Launchpad and a Home for the greatest blues players in Southern California, they’ve all come through there, and the people who run that place worked so hard to keep it going through the pandemic and to stay committed to live music rather than simply changing their operating to a simpler dj type system… They were committed to live music and at a certain standardand in this genre, and the best way I can say thank you and to support the community that supports me out there, is to do my best to tear it up in a three set performance under their roof and have the energy that comes from that history be a part of whatever came across in the live performance… It’s a thank you to Harvelles, and it’s also an act of pride… I’m proud that I have an association with a place of that standard and I’m honored… There’s a definition of success that I always loved which is to have the respect of those whom you respect… I appreciate that they have let me know that they value me and what I’m putting out there, or that I try to put out there every time… And I’m grateful.

What makes a successful live album in your opinion?

We’re excited to be speaking today with acclaimed Blues guitarist and vocalist Jon Geiger; greetings and salutations, Jon! Before we meander down the Q&A musical pathway, how has the freshly-minted autumn of 2023 been treating you?

It’s an exciting year, I have some great musicians I’m so thankful to have playing with me and I’m very happy about how the music’s been sounding and going over!

The absence of vanity, and an emphasis on cutting a vein and pouring out every thing that one can in order to be a live wire for the audience… Mistakes and all … if it is in the pursuit of passion played and given… When one is more focused on being in the moment and trying to lift people up… then it’s not about the licks that you can play, or how fast you can go or how perfect everything ends up starting or stopping or the solo ends up being… The success of a live album in my opinion is in the passion and in the risk-taking all in the effort to be a LiveWire and to be completely vulnerable in that pursuit in order to touch people who are out there and give whatever one can to them… The greatest live albums in my view have that come across loud and clear…

In your humble opinion, what differentiates Live At Harvelle’s from the Distinguished Competition on the 2023 music scene?

With all due respect, the only answer I can give to that is that it is whatever I do that may be of value as far as my take on the music, my take on my influences and how I tend to put it all together in the arrangement of songs, and however I happen to sing, and however I happen to play… And to approach dynamics etc.… In the end, I don’t believe in music as competition… I believe that at its’ best, one has to strip away the skin of influences and hopefully has ended up with one’s own voice… And then that is inherently the differentiation, since there is no better or worse, there is just the personality; the values, the manner of communication and what One has to say… And there may be a ton of other… And there are a ton of other… Musicians out there who have come to their own voices, and are generously sharing it forward for audiences all over… And in the end the ones for whom your voice connects to are the ones for whom you’re meant to be able to connect to, and to have an opportunity and a privilege to be able to move them… and hopefully have some value for them in whatever effect you can through the music. The distinguished competition I’m sure are specific voices and I am one more voice, and that’s what differentiates “Live at Harvelles”… If people feel something for and from the way I approach Music, then that is all I can offer…

We’re tremendous admirers of the tune I Dream which is off of the Live At Harvelle’s LP. What inspired this original gem of a ditty?

Well I was driving through quite a set of storms and, unbeknownst to me at the time, tornadoes, in Texas going from a show I had played and on the way to the show I was going to play and it set up a metaphorical connection to me lyrically with the storm of relationship… When things get real, and you don’t know how things will turn out… my mom was a writer and a playwright, and once one has a stage set as far as circumstances and then a stream of consciousness of what one feels and what one draws as parallels poetically but authentically… A dramatic scene or story may emerge… This was the beginnings of, and the basis for, the song… And thank you.

Who inspires you musically?

The list is quite long… And has been growing since I was 12 lol… These days I still turn to my original influences who captured the heart, soul and passion of the 15 year old in me who heard “Live at the Regal” by BB King or the Layla album with Eric Clapton and Duane Allman and Cream … As well as those in jazz such as Jim Hall, John Coltrane and Miles Davis… Peter Green… both his playing as well as his singing, and on that note definitely the voice and singing of Gregg Allman… Contemporary artists would definitely be Tedeschi

Trucks band… In the end, the contemporary artists who catch my ear and inspire me tend to be drawing from the same breadth and manner of influences that - even if they weren’t the exact same artists that they were listening to, they encompassed similar approaches and values and attributes…

With the October 13 release of Live At Harvelle’s, can fans look forward to catching you on the touring/performing circuit in the coming weeks and months?

Yes yes yes! And the one request I have is that if you like what I do -and you know somebody else who might like what I am putting out there, well we live in a social media world and that is the basis of where draws and followings get passed along… And the venues that I play will only increase as more people are interested in coming out and hearing it… So the request is that if you find me on YouTube or Spotify or my website jongeiger. com or Instagram @jongeigermusic etc, please share it forward to anyone that you know who might also enjoy or feel something from what I’m doing… Because I’d love to play for everybody out there who might find that I’m hitting the right notes for them -in all senses for what means something to them… And then there’s more places that I will come to and that I can play and more touring and performing I can do… And I promise you this, I will give you everything I’ve got every night! And I can’t wait to! I live to play live!

You grew up in New York and currently hang your dusty fedora in California. How do those seemingly disparate roots inform you as an artist and as a person?

Well it wasn’t just where I grew up but when. I grew up in New York City as a child in the 70s and into the 80s… And it wasn’t about status and it wasn’t about income and it wasn’t about material things, the currency in my neighborhood was integrity and passion and loyalty and commitment and hard work… And those are my roots and I find that they travel well… they live inside me, reaching for that standard in the way I go about trying to respect and honor the music and my teachers, mentors and inspirations; those who set the standard for the music that I love, and in the way to go about working on one’s skills in order to honor that music by trying to be the best you can be, to not steal from others but to find one’s own voice and to work your ass off to be able to honor those who worked their asses off and inspired me to go on this path…

At the end of the day what do you hope listeners walk away with after giving Jon Geiger: Live At Harvelle’s many-a-spin on their hi-fi systems?

Feeling… I hope that they walk away with feeling something… And something that can be returned to… And that moves them.

Final - SILLY! - Question: Favorite live album - Sam Cooke at the Copa, Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison or James Brown Live at the Apollo?

Sorry, “Live at the Regal” BB King, “Live at Fillmore East” Allman Brothers and “Wheels of Fire” / “Goodbye” Cream - Not a silly question… This stuff changes lives… It changed mine :-) thank you so much for your interest… Sorry for changing the choices but… I’m from New York City, what do you want? lol Fuggedaboudit !