W&J professor releases album
During his undergraduate studies at Lawrence Conservatory of Music in Appleton, Wis., Washington & Jefferson College assistant professor of music Kyle Simpson had one goal: He wanted to be the best at music with the hope that it would take him places in the competitive industry.
But something was missing for the Minnesota-born boy who would listen to music on the radio and plunk those same tunes out on the family’s piano at age 4.
His appreciation for music continued as a young child, as he replaced the radio with his father’s records of Doc Severinsen with a dream to become the best trumpet player possible. That dream continued throughout his time at the liberal arts college and during graduate studies at the University of Montana and a scholarship at the Henry Mancini Institute in Los Angeles.
That focus led to Simpson living his dreams out of a suitcase, traveling the United States to play in some of the best concert venues with the Glenn Miller Orchestra.
“Musically it was great,” Simpson said about his yearlong tour that featured playing in Seattle’s Orchestra Hall and Government Square in Boston. “It was a professional band with top-notch players, and that was exactly what I wanted to be doing. After a year of doing that, I felt that I fulfilled that aspiration.”
Simpson wanted to start a new path, one that would keep him in the same place for more than one week.
After moving to Washington to begin teaching at W&J, he wanted to do something to which every young musician aspires.
Simpson decided to combine his experimentation of composition with the musical talents around Pittsburgh, and released his first full-length, professional album, “Something in Between.”
The album, which was released on Oct. 1, illustrates Simpson’s approach to balancing and combining jazz and classic elements.
“The first reason why I wanted to do an album was to document the musical thought I’ve had for the past decade,” he said. “I had a talent for writing music when I was in undergraduate school and had already written some charts before coming to the Pittsburgh area.
“I thought how great it would be to do an album that has all my original compositions with all these fantastic players from Pittsburgh, along with some of my colleagues that I met during my time at Lawrence.”
The decade-long composition came to fruition when a group of musicians, including W&J adjunct faculty George Heid III and Tim Brutscher, joined other local artists for three long summer days in 2015.
Before the album was able to stream on Spotify, be purchased from Amazon or CDBaby.com, or downloaded on iTunes, Simpson was balancing his full-time teaching position, pursuing his doctorate in composition and crafting and editing the final product of his latest achievement.
“There are so many ups and equally the same amount of downs,” Simpson said. “I almost walked away because of the difficulty of playing the trumpet. Some people can naturally gravitate toward certain instruments just based on their physical makeup. I was not that person. I wanted to play the trumpet but physically wasn’t as naturally gifted toward that instrument. I just kept working.”
And that hard work has been especially satisfying for Simpson.
“To me, what’s really meaningful is that I have an album that is my original composition and it’s forever an official record,” he said. “The process of making the album with those fantastic musicians was a real high for me. I feel my music is represented in the best possible way.”