Thoughts on the Week: Colbert, Keyon, and a Man in a Bathrobe

What The Late Show with Stephen Colbert meant to musicians in New York, my own unexpected connection to it, and a handful of stories from WBGO this week.

This week, for the last time, I got a message from The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

I’ve been an occasional ghost in the machine over there since 2022, helping produce music for the cold open whenever one of the regular team members was away. I worked from home. The process was intense and quick. The writing team would have an idea by 10am and the music would be produced and delivered by 2pm, and sent off into the television bloodstream.

I was barely part of the operation. But enough to see something remarkable up close.

Already in 2015, when Stephen Colbert took over The Late Show, I was thinking about the impact it would have on the music community in New York. Back then, I ran an episode of The Musicians Behind the Late Show With Stephen Colbert, featuring segments from interviews with Will Lee, Michael Thurber and Jon Batiste.

This was when The Third Story still had its original logo, before my friend Mike Fusco-Straub redesigned it, and before he went on to open Books Are Magic, one of Brooklyn’s beloved literary gathering places.

An early episode of The Third Story podcast on the musicians behind The Late Show.

And indeed, The Late Show became an unlikely institution for working musicians in New York at a moment when so many musical institutions were disappearing.

Over eleven years, the show became a kind of musical commons, through formal performances, and through jam sessions, side appearances, and the ecosystem around the band itself.

I think of performances by friends of The Third Story: Lawrence, Rachel and Vilray, and Jacob Collier, and appearances by Andrew Bird, Madison Cunningham, Cory Wong and countless others in the show’s Commercial Breakdown and Off Air segments.

Much in the tradition of David Letterman’s Late Show before it, the house band also welcomed a vast collection of guests into the fold - elevated jam sessions that served as little snapshots of the music scene at any given moment. Larry Goldings, Vulfpeck, Ibrahim Maalouf and so many others could suddenly be found onstage, making music together on national television.

Later, I interviewed Jon Lampley - who plays trumpet in the late show band, Louis Cato - who ultimately became the bandleader after Batiste stepped down, and Jack DeBoe who worked behind the scenes producing music for the show.

But my own relationship to The Late Show deepened even further when, several years ago, Cato invited me to cover for DeBoe while he was on tour, helping produce music for the show’s nightly cold opens.

That experience gave me a chance to see just how talented, funny and committed the team was that made the show happen every day. I did my work remotely, communicating with writers and producers over Slack and sending music off from home. I was barely a member of the team, but all the same, it was an enormous privilege to see behind the curtain and to be able to say that in some small way, I participated in what I suspect will be remembered as a glorious chapter in late night television.

Perhaps it will be remembered as the beginning of the end of an era in American entertainment too.

Meanwhile, Louis Cato, Jon Lampley and the rest of the band are keeping the music alive with Great Big Joy Machine . They released their debut album in April.

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This Week on The Art of the Story

Meanwhile, in another corner of my musical life, I’m continuing to make short-form radio pieces for Newark’s WBGO. They air every day on 88.3 FM in the New York area, and you can always hear them online.

A few stories that stayed with me this week:

A Man in a Bathrobe

Recently, friends started sending me instagram videos of a young mustachioed man, often bathrobe-clad, sitting in some anonymous white-walled room, quietly playing one brilliant original song after another.

The songs were funny, humane, and observant. Clearly rooted in tradition, but unmistakably contemporary. He sang at what might be described as an intimate volume, smiling at the camera with just enough irony for the internet age and just enough sincerity to make you trust him.

I found myself wondering: who exactly was this mustachioed bathrobe guy?

So naturally, I slid into his DMs.

Turns out Mike Harrison is a 33-year-old piano player from Detroit, working the club circuit and living a largely quiet life while somehow becoming an unlikely internet obsession.

Hear my Art of the Story with Mike Harrison.
Watch my conversation with him here.

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Keyon Harrold honors Miles Davis

In May of 1961, at the height of his first great quintet, trumpeter Miles Davis took the stage at Carnegie Hall for a concert that has since become part of jazz history.

This week, as the jazz world begins celebrating what would have been Miles Davis’ 100th birthday, another trumpeter returns to Carnegie to honor that legacy: Keyon Harrold.

Born in St. Louis, Miles’ hometown, Harrold has spent years finding his own voice while carrying some part of that lineage with him.

Hear my Art of the Story with Keyon Harrold.
Watch my conversation with him here.

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Jazz, Community, and Dr. E

Eli Yamin - or Dr. E, as he is often called - was mentored by figures like pianist Barry Harris and writer Amiri Baraka. He has toured as a jazz ambassador for the United States in more than 25 countries and performed at venues including Carnegie Hall and the White House.

But his heart lies in education.

For decades, Yamin has dedicated himself to community-building through jazz, and this year his Jazz Power Initiative begins a new partnership with WBGO, the same station where he got one of his earliest starts in jazz radio.

Hear my Art of the Story with Eli Yamin.
Watch my conversation with him here.

Anyway, that’s the week.

More soon,

Leo

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