Josh Deutsch and Nico Soffiato are good friends and musical collaborators.  I've had the chance to see them play live a few times here in NYC and really enjoy their music and vibe.  The duo struck up a friendship after meeting in Boston and have been working together ever since. Josh and Nico's recent project on RocketHub is doing well so far and recently I had a chance to connect and talk about their crowdfunding campaign.

What was the inspiration for your new musical material? Can you tell us a little bit about the collaborative process?

We’ve been friends for five years, and recorded a few originals back in 2006, while we were both living in Boston. After living on opposite coasts for a few years, we were excited to start playing again when we both ended up in New York a year ago. We started getting together a few times a month to play and try out some new ideas, and talk about what our musical goals for this duo were. The two of us share many common influences and our musical vision tends to line up very easily, although we also often introduce each other to new ideas and push each other in new directions as well.

We wanted to create a set of music that showcases both the guitar and trumpet in a variety of textures. We also wanted to explore textures and musical forms outside of a traditional jazz format, while still incorporating plenty of room for improvisation.

Being able to workshop these pieces and have them be constantly evolving, living pieces has been really fun, and made for some great results due to collaboration. Some of our pieces are actually written collaboratively, either begun by one of us and finished by the other, or written layer by layer, with the final version a composite of ideas.

How has your experience been as a crowdfunding pioneer in the world of jazz music?

The jazz recording industry has changed a lot in recent years. As record companies consolidate or fold, especially in the jazz genre, many labels aren’t signing new artists, and even the ones that are often leave all the recording costs up to the musicians. We have this project that we feel strongly about and want to share with our fans, and waiting to be “discovered” isn’t really practical, so the idea of “crowdfunding” appealed to us, since we do have many fans and friends around the country and world who are happy to support us given an easy way to do so. The ability to involve our prospective audience in the process of making this CD is exciting, and we’ve already been able to share some special live videos and recordings with our fuelers. We are really looking forward to be able to send out the finished CD and our other gifts to our awesome supporters!

Any advice for Creatives looking to crowdfund a project?

Personal emails have seemed to be most effective in connecting with our supporters. Facebook is a great way to keep people up to date on the process, and we’ve been playing a few shows through our campaign to keep momentum going (and just because we like playing!). We’ll be able to offer better advice once we’ve hopefully hit our goal in a few weeks!

Thanks for the insights - I am confident you will hit your goal.  Mahalo for putting your energy and talents into the RocketHub community.

Brian Meece