We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Melvin Jones. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Melvin below.
Alright, Melvin thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?
This may be a long answer, as my path has been pretty twisty…..
Yes to answer the question! I’ve been a professional musician/ educator for more than 20 years now, and I am able to comfortably support a family of 5 even with Covid as a factor. While my path was pretty traditional from post graduate education to career placement my greatest accomplishments came as the result of being prepared to walk through the doors that were opened for me. I started playing trumpet in church at the same time as joining the middle school band. This developed both my improvisational ears as well as my music reading abilities simultaneously. However, my real goals at the time involved drawing comic books professionally and I’d already established myself as a freelance portrait artist by the time I got to High School. At the same time, I’d excelled far beyond expectations on the trumpet with the guidance of my H.S. Band Director, Kim Hass. By senior year I’d earned numerous music scholarship offers, but eventually lost each offer following the actual auditions. Though graduating with honors, I accepted this particular defeat and started working in warehouses until my mother haphazardly pointed me towards Morehouse College.
Upon applying late to Morehouse, I found favor with the assistance of my Pastor (the late K,T. Whalum) and the New Band Director at Morehouse, the late Dr. Tim Turner. It was through their efforts and my ONLY successful collegiate audition that I received the college’s first Full Scholarship in Music. My time in college actually paved the way for my professional performance career. After some hesitance I declared my major in Music and almost immediately got my first professional recording opportunity (and first unknown grammy win) on TLC’s hit “No Scrubs.” Also, I co-founded a very successful Latin Jazz Ensemble with my classmates which toured and released a few recordings independently, gaining real-world education/ experience in the industry as artists. Dr. Turner during my time as a student introduced me to some serious musical giants as well as my first international tours.
After graduating Morehouse with honors, I was introduced to the late William “Prof” Fielder by both Morehouse and Spelman College’s Band Directors to pursue my Master’s Degree at Rutgers University. “Prof” was the former teacher of all of my trumpet heroes (Wynton Marsalis, Terence Blanchard, Terrell Stafford to name a few), and his intensive training and instant connection into the upper echelons of the profession changed my life forever. While in Jersey, I ended up playing full time with the most popular Party Band in the Region, and the money was amazing for a single, 20-something year old guy with no bank account! But I also ended up playing with horn sections, jazz ensembles, celebrities, and a few club dates here and there all over the East Coast learning the importance of musical versatility! Prof would always say, “Learn to play the instrument, so that you can play any style effectively.” So this became the mantra of my career! I was no longer trying to be a jazz musician, or a classical musician, or a studio musician…I just wanted to be a MUSICIAN. This idea has remained central to my philosophy.
After graduating Rutgers with honors, I remained in the northeast performing rigorously for a few years before accepting the position as Director of Bands at my alma mater, Morehouse College back in Atlanta. At 24, I officially became the youngest director in the history of the college, and pushed alot of my performance endeavors to the side (as well as completely changing my personal lifestyle). In this position though, I rediscovered the importance of education to my entire culture, and eventually grew to be a very effective educator after some serious on-the job training. As a Music teacher who also “does,” you are forced to closely examine your own shortcomings and techniques to effectively help students deal with theirs. While this time helped me to hone my own craft I am most proud of the accomplishments of scores of students I came into contact with during my tenure. They have excelled in ways that I could only dream about, and I could not be prouder of the human beings they have all become in the midst of their own successes! (you likely know alot fo them without realizing it)
After years of serving in this pivotal role, I stepped away to resume my performance career full-time. It was apparently the right time, as the same night I started my letter of resignation I got called to go on tour with Tyler Perry. This particular tour exposed me to a different level of profit and business dealings for instrumentalists, and I ended up hopped from one tour to another over the next few years while maintaining local work, recording sessions, and gigs leading my own bands in between to create my own baseline salary. But in the midst of what I considered to be a high dollar period of my career came my greatest failure! I’d accepted the call to tour with THREE major artists/ camps consecutively! It was too good to be true! So I preemptively gave away over six months worth of work to free up my schedule, then all three of those tours were cancelled or adjusted. It was the biggest financial setback we’d ever experienced and it took as long to recover the losses. The life lesson here was to not count money before it had actually been made!
In the midst of that loss though, I’d purchased recording equipment to begin taking more control over this area of my career. This life lesson of increasing my skill set in the midst of loss turned out to be the missing key to our financial gains. Now instead of waiting for calls, I was making more noticeable advances and earning awards in a more intentional setting. And being the boss allowed me to raise my rates to more appropriately match the work. Ultimately, this taught me that if you do the job right and give all you have to give each time, then you should not have to keep paying the same dues over and over again without reward. So the price went up, I learned more and more how to be strategic with my work, and I got to a point even through Covid to gain more control over how, when, and how much I earn. So my process has taken the span of my career, but central to my advancements was one core idea: the ever-changing idea of success has to be defined on your own terms lest you end up pursuing things endlessly that you may already possess.
You must treat the least of your life the same as the best of your life as you never know what doors may open and who may be watching to open those doors. My freshman year at Morehouse, a question on an introductory quiz asked the names of janitorial staff in the building. The lesson there was to show how important everyone is in the grand scheme of things, as it was the janitors who had the ability to help a familiar student who may have accidentally left books or keys in a classroom! And the most important idea I found in this industry is the need to establish multiple skillsets and streams of income because it’s more difficult for the average musician to make a suitable living supporting a family just doing one thing. Musician after all is an umbrella term encompassing so many areas of interest!
I wish I had known all of that earlier in life….but that knowledge really came to the forefront at a time in my life when I placed more value in sharing knowledge. That is now an integral part of whatI consider to be my purpose. Im just thankful that God has seen fit to allow me the ability to provide for my family with that purpose!
Melvin, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I am a black kid from Memphis, Tennessee whose artistic abilities and aspirations likely saved me from having a much shorter lifespan. Since making the choice to become a full time musician, I have earned numerous awards as an educator, performer, recording artist, composer, recording artist, and horn arranger. I’ve appeared on well over 200 recordings spanning from major award-winning projects to independent artists who you may never have heard of. My arranging and horn work can be heard and seen on dozens of films, television shows, and high calibre awards programs including most recently the Oscars, Grammys, NBA All Star Games, Super Bowls, etc. . I got into this multi-faceted career in multiple stages by developing different skill sets as professional and educational settings demanded. I made it a habit of saying “yes” to the opportunities that came my way, and finding ways learn how to do the things I didn’t already know when necessary.
Once I made the choice in college to major in music I was already in the infancy of a professional performance career, so naturally I focused almost exclusively on the skills needed to pursue that career. If I knew then what I know now, maybe I would’ve taken more courses on education, composition, or even music technology (all skills which are central to my current career). Now I perform and tour live on stages across the world playing multiple genres. I also teach at multiple institutions, serve as Artist in Residence for numerous programs, and teach masterclasses on the various skills I developed as a Trumpet Instructor and Collegiate Band Director. Once I decided to take more control over the income I made from home, I invested in home recording equipment which has grown commensurate with the knowledge i’ve gained in recording and musical engineering technology. So now I work under high demands as an arranger and recording/ mixing engineer for those arrangements on major labels, independent records, tv shows, movies, etc.
I find the arranging aspect of my career to be most interesting as often times I’m called upon to create something out of nothing to help elevate certain projects, and other times I’m simply meant to provide the icing on the cake. Each time, I find joy in the ability to use the elements already present in a song or project to help highlight the work that was already put into the product, Hearing the end result is super rewarding!
In the Jazz world, I’m fortunate enough to enjoy the thrill that comes from instantly creating music before various audiences and experiencing their reactions simultaneously. Music always creates a connection between the listener and the performer that cannot properly be described. But in improvisation you find new ways to consistently express ideas and feelings intentionally without saying a word that speaks directly to people in the audience. It’s almost like finding a way to speak on others’ behalf without even meeting them.
As an educator, I find a sense of actualization in being able to share knowledge with young black kids that I had no access to until much later in my own life. I’ve seen firsthand the power of empowerment, and it is nothing like it on a professional level. The most rewarding part of this part of my career is encountering the students now as established and successful adult scattered all over the world succeeding in ways far beyond any of my own expectations.
So you ask what I think sets me apart from others….and typically I would say “nothing.” But there is a long standing stigma that too who teach can’t do, and those do can’t teach. I like to dispel that particular idea, and counter with the notion that those that do at the highest levels have the responsibility to teach the next one to do the same. This is how we create an environment that can sustain itself. And while everyone may not be destined for the classroom (some people really shouldn’t be talking to kids in general lol), success on any level automatically turns us all into role models with or without our knowledge. You never know who is watching and making decisions on their own lives based upon their impressions or interactions with you. For this reason, I take everything that I do with the utmost seriousness considering the possibility that it may influence another young budding musician to make some good choices (as it has in previous years). If there’s anything I want people to know about my brand of music, it is that I make it an intentional point o represent every aspect of my life and musical development in all things that I do creatively from marching band, to jazz, to hip hop, to gospel, to classical music, to R& B, to even blue grass. It’s all music in the end, and it all leads back to roots in black music…so I like to think that nearly everything I play has roots with my own ancestors. That is who I am and that is the legacy I hope to leave behind for my own children!
Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?
Non-Creatives I believe may have a difficult time understanding the pressure of constantly having to create or recreate something new as a means of employment. In a regular position, there is a certain level of comfort that comes from only needing to do today whatever you did yesterday. The ultimate test of a musician’s mettle, intelligence, and overall character I believe comes from the ability to improvise music, as is the case with Jazz and Church Musicians. The late, great William Prof Fielder defined improvisation as “spontaneous musical composition,” and often reminded us that the word “ïmprovise” was actually derived from the latin term for “improving”…. so if a solo did not improve the song, then don’t take one! In essence, improvisation as evidenced by numerous scientific studies now, is one of the few activities that involve both sides of the brain simultaneously. So to master this art convincingly is a challenge, and is not necessarily compatible with everyone’s levels intuition. All fo the above considered, I’m not sure non-creatives (who are accustomed to only using one side of their brains at a time) can relate to the ability to eat or provide for a family being hinged on the one’s ability to create new music instantly every day.
Another important area in a creative’s career is relatable (I believe) to any entrepreneurial endeavor in which there is a requirement to seemingly negotiate with clients to pay monies already earned. Plumbers typically do not have 30-60 day net terms on payment after services have been provided. But professional creatives tend to need clauses and contract terms indicating such with or without representation simply for how the industry is set up. That is ridiculous when it comes to financial planning! Non-Creatives though, with set salaries and pay periods, may find a certain level fo content in knowing that in two weeks they will receive a set amount of money to set aside and/ or spend on bills and necessities.
One other area that I believe non-creatives may not relate to is the idea of set business hours and weekends. TGIF has no meaning to professionals whose primary work hours exist from Friday- Sunday. Business hours in the most profitable areas of my career involve a need to be available and ready to respond with words or work at any time of day or night. Not to mention the toll it takes on a personal life to constantly have to miss family time, friend hangs, and special events for the sake of providing for one’s self or one’s family. National Holidays…while celebratory and generally providing federally sponsored work breaks for non-creatives tend to serve as work days for creatives of all types. So in all I believe the type of service provided by creatives serves to strengthen and make way for the services provided by non-creatives…often thanklessly, but nonetheless necessary.
How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?
From my experiences, the way to best support artists, creatives, and a thriving creative ecosystem involves restoring the necessity and presence of the arts in public school systems starting at the K-5 levels. It’s well-known that early education lays the foundations for every individual’s interests and aspirations. So in the sense of a thriving creative ecosystem, providing outlets for early interests in turn boosts the pool of participants in arts programs in junior high, high school, colleges, and eventually in the actual profession. But beyond the participants, the support system of the arts tends to primarily comprised of individuals who personally experienced the benefits of participation in arts programs during their own matriculation. Benefits such as social skills, intellectual advantages, team-building experiences, time management, a sense of business etiquette, respect for hierarchy, etc..these are the qualities that helped America gain earlier global advantages during previous periods. These qualities were at the route of the exceptionalism that Americans like to believe they possess so frequently. That patronage and appreciation also leads to reforms in how the business of the industry is conducted.
What I believe is funny about this aspect is how the powers that be, the policy makers, and the wealthiest amongst us already understand the importance of the arts in early education in creating the most effective professional, scientific, and forward-thinking minds. This is evidenced by how centralized arts programming is in the private schools and better situated public schools across the country in which they enroll their own children. A closer look at the success rates of those schools reveals an impeccable record of producing world leaders in all areas and providing those children with a built in network to guarantee their success. In essence, this model mirror he type of planning necessary to create a thriving, self-sufficient eco system for professional development in the arts. However, the strange part is watching how things such as the arts were cut for budgetary reasons by the same law makers who make sure their kids have access to the same programming at their own schools. Now, those of in my generation who are fully aware of the benefits of such offerings are forced to pay exorbitant amounts of money to provide for our children the same opportunities that were available to us at even the least favorable school systems before.
So I say wholeheartedly, if we want to see society contribute something meanignful which would in offer the highest societal gains, a reinvestment in arts programming in early educational settings would be the move!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.melvinjones.net
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/melvinjonestpt
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mjtrumpet79
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/melvinjonestpt
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/noiresoldier
Image Credits
Holland Reid Photography Vincent Bursey Photography Bassic Black Entertainment Troy Nalls