Performing on Broadway and Founding a Production Music Library (Part 2 with Mark Braud)

Check out part 1 of our conversation first, where we explore Mark Braud’s musical roots, jazz improvisation and his family legacy.

In part 2, we dive into Mark’s journey as a songwriter and composer, from singing songs as a child to writing Bebop-inspired music for school bands and crafting music across many genres for TV shows like NCIS: New Orleans.

Mark shares how these experiences led him to founding production music library Old Saw Music, with his wife Megan - a library rooted in real musicians, real stories and real soul.

Plus, we get behind-the-scenes insights from Mark’s time on Broadway including his experience in singing, playing and even speaking roles in prestigious shows such as The Cole Porter Show and Harry Connick Jr., Live. 

Find out more information about some of the things we talked about here:

https://www.oldsawmusic.com 
https://www.louisianamusicfactory.com 

#neworleans #neworleansjazz #broadway #productionmusic #librarymusic 

Transcript

Jeff (00:00.802)

Is it a dream of mine to be on Broadway? I don't know if it's a dream of mine to be on Broadway, but that is the frickin' coolest thing in the world.

David

It is!

Mark (00:06.206)

In the Cole Porter show, Harry and I had some back and forth dialogue and it would, it would be a little bit different. So that music, I would play I would play that every day.

Jeff (00:18.562)

We now continue our conversation with our good friend, trumpeter, and composer, Mark Braud.

David (00:34.456)

We can talk about your writing a little bit. Let's move on to talking about some of the writing that you've done as well as the arranging 'cause you're prolific!

Mark (00:44.544)

Oh thank you.

Jeff (00:45.802)

Yeah. I mean how I mean obviously that's always been music is in your soul, right? Have you always, I guess when did you start writing and realized that was something that you needed to do?

Mark (00:57.632)

I always wanted to write music. When I, before I started playing the trumpet and I was just singing, I would I would write songs. I would just write them I don't I have no idea where they're where they are now. 

Jeff (01:09.006)

Probably a good thing, right?

Mark

Yeah right! But it's something that I always wanted, I always wanted to do. So really I started getting into it when I was when I was in high school. I was you know, just write writing a bunch of songs because we got to play them. We were encouraged to do that. And then we had people to play them and I could hear them every day. So if I wrote a song every day that we were in school and I bring it into the class, I got to hear how the music would sound. 

Jeff (01:40.504)

That’s incredible.

David (01:41.442)

Wow. That I didn't get and that that's so they were all in a New Orlean style, what you were writing at that stage?

Mark (01:49.022)

No, they weren't at all at that time because we weren't really studying New Orleans music in school. We were studying like from Bebop and beyond. So a lot of them were more, for lack of a better term, modern type song and stuff. You know, modern jazz type songs. So that's what I was writing at that time.

Jeff (02:13.484)

With lyrics or are these just melodies?

Mark (02:15.776)

No, these were these were melodies. And so that's kind of where I where I started with writing. And then you know, I started writing songs with lyrics later on. Probably a after high school and then, you know, leading up to Old Saw, Megan and I were, we were working on a show called NCIS New Orleans. And we were writing a lot for that and so it kind of just snowballed into, you know, just writing tunes, writing songs that were you know, different genres, different eras. A lot of our catalogue is New Orleans music. You know, we do a lot of New Orleans music like traditional jazz, R and B and such. So I I mean, yeah, I like writing in a lot of different styles and stuff.

Jeff (03:21.976)

So Old Saw, so the people listening know, is you guys have started a production music company, correct? And Old Saw is the name of the company. And so, what's the specialty? Is there a specialty or what's the you know, what direction are you guys heading?

Mark (03:39.478)

Well, we have a lot of, you know, New Orleans stuff. But a lot of different genres and man, you know, we're just so fortunate to have so many great musicians here to you know, to record yeah, to record with and so you know, some sometimes we're involved in in the recordings, like we're the musicians playing on it and you know, sometimes we're the producers only. So and we just you know get the get the best musicians to serve the songs. 

Jeff (04:19.478)

I was going through the catalogue and it's first off it's beautiful. The production is so great. Are you obviously you're going into studios, these are or are people recording at their homes or 'cause the I mean they're like beautiful!

Mark (04:36.748)

Yeah, though we yeah, we get in the studio and we record them. 

David (04:41.93)

So was this a this may sound like a stupid question but I'm full of those so I don't care. Was it a conscious decision to say, okay, I want to be a publisher within a of a sync library and that was or did it or did it just kind of organically happen?

Mark (05:03.2)

Yes and no for everything. Yeah, it just yeah, it organically happened because you know, we were like I said, we were working for NCIS for seven seasons and we would get these briefs, we'd get these requests and it might be for I remember one time we had twenty-four hourturnaround to produce a French lullaby type song. And so, you know, we had to neither Megan nor I speak French. We had to get someone to sing the song, translate it from English and then you know, yeah. So it was yeah, right? And it was it was a sharp turnaround time and but man it came together so beautifully, you know. And yeah. And so you know, we were writing a lot at that time and just writing different, you know, different things that maybe, you know, hey, we need this type of song, we want this want this kind of song. Do you have this in your library? And so we started, you know, writing songs in in all of these different styles and, and yeah, it eventually it turned into, you know, the sync music the production music library and so but at the heart of it is just writ I mean, we just love writing music, you know, and producing music and we always wanna give out one hundred percent to everything we're doing. It's just a lot of fun. And you know, really like having Megan as a as a writing partner and my wife-

David (07:02.174)

Your wife is your writing partner as well?

Mark

My wife is my writing partner and business partner.

David (07:07.832)

Good Lord. Okay.

Jeff (07:09.196)

Yeah. Megan is your wife, correct? Yes. Yes.

David (07:12.758)

Okay. We probably should have established this at the beginning of the yeah. I didn't even realize that. Wow. I'm really interested to find out, we were having this discussion that it seems like everybody we talk to when we're talking to musicians wants to get into the sync world and it's a big topic at the moment of how do I do that and what goes on. How mature is the sync library thing in New Orleans? Are there other libraries? Are the musicians very aware of I'm playing for sync and this is 'cause I know it's it's a thing here. Is that the same there? It's it's there's a lot of discussion about it?

Jeff (07:55.542)

Everyone seems to want to get into sync, yeah.

Mark (07:58.22)

Yeah, I think we're very unique in that I think a lot of the sync libraries here, think there may be a couple of them. Mainly acquisition libraries. You know, that's not Utah at all. Like we're we haven't acquired anybody else's music. Yeah. So a lot of the music that we're writing, it hasn't been released, you know, like commercially or anything like that. So it is yeah. But a lot so like if you go to another library, an acquisition library, it might be albums that have been released commercially. Yeah. Or have been on CD.

David (08:41.25)

Just put out for a sync but they were already there. They already exist.

Mark (08:44.832)

Right, yeah, exactly. So we do have some things, like a lot of our music you can find on onSpotify or you know, Apple Music or but you know, the main thing is writing the music, producing good music and then hey it's available, you know. Hopefully, you know.

David (09:11.086)

This is most of our lives doing exactly the same thing, so you're writing something new and then putting it out there and you know, hopefully somebody listens to it. And then you hear it on a toilet roll commercial or something, you're like, I did that and I know but really you are proud because you're like whatever it's for, like you can't control that, but you can do the best job that you can do and you hear it and-

Jeff (09:38.52)

So yeah, that's interesting. Do you feel, Mark, that th scene, the music scene in New Orleans has changed in the last ten, fifteen years from something that was just gigging culture to maybe now kind of a recording thing as well, or did that exist all the time and we just weren't aware of it?

Mark (09:57.942)

Yeah, I think it's been in existence. The erm, you know, the I don't know there may have been a lot more going on, you know, when I, before I was born, and when I was really young, you know, 'cause we had Sea Saint Studios, Alan Toussaint had a studio and he was always writing and recording. And then you know, we had ultrasonic. We had a lot of studios around here, a lot more than we do now actually. So I think it's constantly changing and evolving and I think what's happening now is that a lot of people will record parts at their house. They have, I mean I have a setup in my house where somebody will call me and say, Hey, can you know, can you play a trumpet part? And then I just send them the file and I didn't have to leave my house to do it.

Jeff (11:01.614)

Good to know!

David (11:01.772)

Yeah. And actually it's really interesting. Do you think has this changed? Is it as a result ofCOVID, has it become much more prevalent as a result of having no choice? Or it was there anyway?

Mark (11:13.902)

I think it's been there, but I think COVID kinda pushed it in that direction. So, but I think you know, there's still a lot of bands and people creating music, which is which is a good thing.

Jeff (11:32.716)

Yeah, absolutely.

David (11:33.848)

So what's the next album on the cards for you guys?

Jeff (11:37.8)

You probably got ten in the works, right?

David (11:41.117)

Oh yeah, sorry, what are the next albums?

Mark (11:43.63)

Yeah, so there's a collaboration project that I'm that I'm doing. Actually right now I'm doing, I wouldn't call it a collaboration. This it's a composer and I'm arranging and putting a band together to play some of his songs. It's just an album. It's just an album he wants to release. but also, you know, working on several Old Saw projects. That's gonna involve some somesingers and some really, really great musicians and the music, a lot of it's written and some of it's still being written. And you know, we work pretty fast. 

David (12:35.798)

It comes together at lightning.

Jeff (12:37.966)

That’s awesome. Can't wait. And that's the best part, I think, of any project, right? Is the journey and the writing and putting it all together. I mean, that's the exciting times.

Mark (12:48.51)

Yeah, it really is. But to you know, to hear it come to life in the studio and one session that that we did, we were doing, you know, a lot of R and B stuff and the musicians had never seen the music and I didn't sit, I wasn't playing, Megan nor I were playing on the session. We were just the producers, but we had written all the, we had written all the music. And we're just listening to the musicians in the room and they're just messing around. They're just tinkling, tinkling. And then all of a sudden, they start playing the songs, and it's just like, yeah, this is great. And it's just the way I envisioned it. And it's, you know. So, and I think, you know, being a performer and knowing you know, knowing these guys, knowing who to who to put together, who to 'cause you can get a bunch of great musicians in one room and they don't work together well. I think it's about getting the great musicians who work together well. That's the main thing.

David (14:02.506)

It's interesting. We've had we've done a couple of recordings, a couple of podcast recordings with our great friend and I'm sure one of yours, I hope, Jay Weigel. And we've done a couple of podcasts with Jay and he when we first said to Jay, so we want to put together a band and can you can you contract this for us? And he said that the Venn diagram of players that would read the music and players that would play in the traditional style was quite, it could be at that time quite small. He's like, you'd love these guys to play it but they wouldn't be able to read it at the speed you need them to read it. And these guys would read it but wouldn't necessarily have the feel that these guys would have. And finding that crossover would be the sweet spot. And that was the interesting thing.

Mark (14:54.818)

Yeah.

David (14:56.248)

That's when we called you. No I don't know whether you remember, but we did a song, we talked about it on the pod before called Mississippi Water. And you I you no doubt wouldn't remember it 'cause you played it once and then never heard it again. But one of my favourite memories is that part of this is that the band all sings the tune, Born Down by the Mississippi Water and you guys were all singing in the studio and it's one of the, you can't write it in Sibelius, you know, the band sings here. And then we heard you guys play and then it was just like-

Jeff (15:31.03)

But also there's these, we do the the lyrics part and then in between that there were these improvs where the band was just shouting out like they were talking like guys would do, right? And you in particular shout you shouted out Crawfish Etouffee and it cracks me up every time I, yeah.

Jeff (15:55.822)

We’re like, just do some New Orleans-y kinda talk. And it's just so funny. 

Mark

Oh, man. How can I hear this?

Jeff (16:07.948)

We'll send you a link to it. I mean it's on the streamers for sure. Yeah.

Mark (16:11.357)

Okay. Yeah I wanna yeah, I haven't heard it.

David (16:13.164)

Yeah, and I've up I'm this is quality podcast material, but I've gotta send you a copy of, I can't point in the right direction of that album which is sat there, which is our New Orleans double album, which is not for sale. But we have it and it's very precious to us and I've got a lot of copies under here 'cause we couldn't cut in ones. And you're all over that with that tune and many others. So I'll get your address and I'll send you a copy.

Mark (16:40.896)

Okay, sounds good.

David (16:41.792)

But yeah, they are all over streamers and yeah, we'll send you a link. And actually, for just to repeat for our audience, if people wanna hear the Colossus Brass band, this stuff's all over the streamers, right? The new album.

Mark (16:56.65)

Yes. And so yeah, it's on it's on all the major streaming platforms. It's also on CD. It has, so if you want a physical copy you can get that from LouisianaMusicFactory.com. And then there's some really great liner notes in the, in the Colossus Brass Band CD. So if you don't, if you if you're streaming, you won't get that. A guy named Ricky Ricardi, who runs the Lewis Armstrong. You know who he is? Ricky Ricardi is a prolific writer and he, but he also runs the Lewis Armstrong house in New York. And I had the Colossus brass band in mind. I also had him in mind to write the liner notes. Like I had my sights set on Ricky Ricardi to write the liner notes. He's won two Grammys for his liner notes. He's a bad dude. So he you know, so I said, hey man, you know, would you would you write the liner notes for Colossus? He was like, yeah! So when he sent me the initial draft, it was over three thousand words.

Jeff (18:16.744)

That's like a book!

David (18:18.282)

Chapter two.

Mark (18:19.842)

But man, I mean really like you know, he listened to every single song. He knew everyone's history, he knew about the family connections and such. So on the CD there's an abridged version of those that he did. And then but if you if you're not getting the CD, you could go to ColossusBrassBand.com to read Ricky's liner notes. It really, really interesting.

David (18:46.54)

Yeah. I read them. And it's fascinating. Yeah, they're on the site and I'd read them. But hopefully if it's okay, off air we'll get some details from you about Louisiana music and the links and we'll put them on screen for everybody and we'll do it so that everybody can click,come through and get some details. Well it's just been a lot of fun!

Jeff (19:07.518)

Hold on. I want to go back in time a little bit here because we didn't talk about your stint on Broadway and I want to know what the hell that was all about. It's, is it a dream of mind to be on Broadway? I don't know if it's a dream of mine to be on Broadway, but that is the freaking coolest thing in the world.

David

It is, he’s always talking about being on Broadway.

Jeff

What was that experience like?

Mark (19:26.862)

So yeah, my first experience on Broadway was doing One More Time, which was a musical that started here in New Orleans. And it started at the Toulouse Theater. Written by a guy named Vernel Bonaris. And so that it started when I was really young. I think 1982.

Jeff (19:54.647)

Oh boy.

Mark (19:55.234)

Yeah, I was a I hadn't started playing trumpet yet or anything, but and I think the original trumpet player was a this trumpet player from the nineteen twenties, Jabbo Smith, who's put he was a contemporary of Louis Armstrong. And so one of the musical directors brought him out of retirement to come play this show. Just to make a long story short, the you know, the show had several touring companies. Then finally in 2001 it went to Broadway. And I was asked to do the Broadway production. I had never done it in New Orleans. So the first time I played this music from the show for the Broadway show. And so we went up and did that. I had I was singing and playing. I didn't have any speaking roles, but I was I was singing. And then let's see, the next one was the Harry concert where I just, I was just you know playing in the in the in the section. But every everything I've done on Broadway has I've never been in the pit. I've always been on stage so I've been lucky enough to do that. And so then in 2019we did a record with Harry which was all Cole Porter music.

Jeff (21:22.552)

We love this album!

David (21:23.822)

We are both very, very I have it on vinyl. And we've been for a project that we won't go into now, we've been using some of those things as temp tracks for something that we've got to do. So we've been listening to stuff over and over and over again. 

Mark (21:41.966)

Oh cool! I love that record, man. Harry did some really wonderful writing on it. So we took the, we took that show to the Cole Porter show to Broadway. But also it was more of a play than just a music concert. So I wasn't, I was just expecting to be, you know, just playing music. And Harry asked me if, how comfortable I was doing some speaking lines. So I wound up having a speaking role in the in the Cole Porter show. 'Cause I was you know, I told I said, yeah, I feel really comfortable doing that. I'm doing it all the time, you know, I'm presenting shows and you know, I'm talking to the audience and so it's it was not something that was very foreign to me. So I was really stoked about doing it. Yeah.

Jeff (22:40.928)

The thing that interests me most about the Broadway stuff is that you're doing what is it, eight shows a week, nine shows a week or something? I mean I mean that's a lot of work.

Mark (22:51.221)

Yeah.

Jeff (22:54.476)

How do you how do you keep energized? How did you stay, you know, fit I mean, I realize it's only maybe three and a half hours at the theater or something in the evening or, you know, except days where there's two shows. But it's just it seems really grueling to me. Did that affect you at all? Did you do anything differently to prepare for that or do your lips get super I mean I mean you must be l play every day anyway, but you know.

Mark (23:17.58)

Well, you know, I've never been in a situation where it's the same thing night after night. There's always an improvisational aspect in all the shows I've done. So when, even when I did one more time, even though it was scripted, the band had the freedom to, you know, reinterpret those songs every night. And we were we were reading, but it wasn't so strict that we couldn't get off the page a little bit.

David

It's not like doing Le Miserables where you're like on a click track and you just like play the notes and get off.

Mark (23:55.318)

No, I mean everything was live every night. We you know, somebody would stomp the song off. There was no click track. And so you know, and yeah, each song was improvised. And then with the with the Harry live on Broadway thing, you know, it was different every night. It was different. We did a lot of the same songs because it was it was eventually gonna turn into a DVD and CD. So, you know, we had to capture the same songs night after night. But really, you know, working with Harry it just never gets boring because he's night after night, he changes he changes it up. It's you never know what to expect.. And that's, it makes it so much fun.

Jeff (24:44.75)

That changes the, that changes the situation I think, yeah, when you're yeah you know not quite as grueling when you're just going there to play a gig and have some fun. That's awesome man. What an experience.

Mark (24:56.31)

And then so yeah, and then in the in the Cole Porter show, Harry and I had some back and forth dialogue and and even with that, it would j it would be a little bit different, you know, every night. And so we'd kind of just like bounce off of each other with the with the dialogue. And the, and the music well, you know, you you've heard you've heard that record. So that music, I would play I would play that every day. And never get tired of it.

David (25:30.366)

Those arrangements are killing.

Jeff (25:33.154)

Funny story about that album. We have yeah, we got speakers in like every room in this house. And so we always have music going when we were making dinner. And that when that album first came out, streaming it, making dinner, and one of the trumpet solos come up and I'm like, is that Mark? And that's when I first realized you played with the band because I literally I'm like, I gotta stop and go see and of course it was you. And because your style is very distinctive to me. I mean I'm familiar with it just because of the stuff you played on for us. But so much so that just hearing your solo on Harry’s stuff, I was like, that's frickin' Mark. That's amazing. Yeah, it's so great, man. It really, really your playing is amazing. Yeah. Wellanything else we want to talk about, guys?

David (26:21.706)

This is very cool. I really I hope it really works out with Old Saw because I love the idea that instead of other people telling the New Orlean story, that you're telling it yourself. It's not imposed on you, you know, you're doing it yourselves and-

Mark (26:37.04)

Thank you. Yeah. And you know, a lot of a lot of the the stuff we're doing is I mean so Megan is also a great graphic designer. So if you see like these album covers from Old Saw, she designed all those album covers. She designed the Colossus brass band bass drum and painted, hand painted it.

David (27:00.622)

'Cause I actually I did see that Yeah, I saw that and I was like, that is amazing. The album cover is

Mark (27:11.926)

She's incredible, man. She's amazing.

David (27:14.946)

Wow. Well, Mark, thank you so much for the time with all of this. So one more time, if anybody wants to be able to check the album out, this is the Colossus Brass Band, which you can find on streamers, but also Old Saw Music, for sync and LouisianaMusic.com. Is that right? Yes. For that and we'll put a link up to that. And hopefully we will be in New Orleans in the next few months and we're gonna maybe get you to get your horn out and have a little blow on some things that we've got coming up. You never know. I can't wait. This has been a lot of fun. So

Mark (27:46.968)

Man, that'd great. Thanks for having me, guys. Appreciate y'all.

Jeff (27:53.194)

Thank you, Mark. Bye. 

All the links to Mark Braud’s music discussed in this pod can be found in the description.