Top brass: Local musician prepares for the next step in journey

As any jazz musician would hope to do, Nathan Fisher of Moses Lake continues to march to his own rhythm after graduating in June from Central Washington University with a degree in music performance.

Fisher is getting ready for his audition to hopefully be accepted into the exclusive Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz Performance at the University of California, Los Angeles in 2022. He said he plans on spending the next months practicing, honing his craft and hopefully performing in Washington.

Originally born in York, England, Fisher said his parents moved back and forth between the U.K. and the U.S. But he said he’s spent the majority of his life in Moses Lake, outside of six months in 2009, and considers himself a native.

His father, Nick Fisher, was born in a small, rural town east of London and has been a professional bass player for a few decades. Fisher also said it’s hard to understate his father’s influence and support of his development as a musician.

“He listens to music of all kinds; I was exposed to Mozart, Gentle Giant, some alternate rock, classical music, jazz fusion, all kinds of music,” Fisher said. “He was the one who encouraged me to sign up for band.”

Fisher first started his musical journey on the clarinet, but admitted that only lasted a few weeks before he moved to the instrument he’s stuck with, the trumpet. A bit naive starting out, Fisher said he thought the trumpet would be a little easier to pick up.

“I was in middle school band class and I look behind me and there’s a row of trumpet players,” Fisher said. “Okay, there’s three buttons and two working parts, that seems a little easier, whereas with the clarinet there’s like a button for every note. I was really naive then and I thought, well the trumpet is easy and the rest is history.”

Fisher said he’s since learned the trumpet is one of the hardest instruments to learn and master and it’s a very physically taxing instrument to play. He said mastering the trumpet can be a bit of a mental game, calling it a “never-ending project.”

He cited a quote from renowned trumpet player John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie who, paraphrasing, said there are days a musician picks up the trumpet and wins and days where the trumpet wins. That continues until eventually the musician dies and trumpet wins. It’s a bleak quote, but an accurate one, Fisher said.

“Learning the trumpet, or any instrument really, is a lifelong process you have to accept you’re never perfect at it, you learn to accept the fact that you’re always growing,” Fisher said.

From his first days in jazz band class at Chief Moses Middle School to his time with the Moses Lake High School band program, Fisher said there were countless teachers and band directors who played a big part in his growth as a musician.

Fisher said he doesn’t know where he’d be as a musician without the high school band members and teachers who taught him to have fun playing music and being part of that creative community. He also said all of his professors at CWU were instrumental in helping him continue to progress as a trumpet player and musician, learning about life through music and the importance of “authenticity” in a performance.

Fisher said he could go on listing musicians and classical composers who have shaped and influenced him through the years. Miles Davis was a key influence for Fisher early on and he said it’s hard to overstate how important Davis was to jazz music, with the creativity he brought to the genre. And Roy Hargrove is a trumpet player Fisher said never seems to leave his musical rotation.

Jazz has been Fisher’s main focus as a genre through his musical career, but he said the classical music training he learned at CWU the last few years “worked wonders” for him in his progression as an up-and-coming musician.

“You can know all the scales and the cool harmony stuff, but if you can’t play your instrument well with good technique, you can’t truly express yourself,” Fisher said. “One of the biggest things was being able to play the trumpet with the right technique. It was quite a struggle, but it was totally worth it.”

With his time at CWU wrapped up now, Fisher said the next year and a half he plans to spend a lot of time listening to music, finding new artists, genres and applying them to his own playing style. He said he hopes to accomplish this through a lot of intense practice while working in his own improvisation skills and musical training.

He said he looked at a few different opportunities after graduation, including playing with a band on a cruise ship for a stint. But ultimately, he said he decided to pursue finding gigs to play in and around town and Washington. He’s also looking at starting up some trumpet and improvisation lessons in town, continuing to practice the trumpet as often as possible.

Nathan Fisher and his dad have played together as a trumpet/bass jazz duo under a few different band names, including Affirmation and Sherbet Image, even releasing an album, “Sketches,” available on Spotify and YouTube.

They’re looking for opportunities to play around Moses Lake and in the meantime the Fisher duo will perform at Michael’s Market & Bistro (221 W. Broadway Ave., Moses Lake) from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. on July 24, and again at the same location on Aug. 21. The performances are free to patrons.

Fisher said his goal in life is to make a living as a recording/performing artist, making music that “really matters” and continue the jazz and western musical traditions.

“It sounds pretty broad, but I just want to have an impact; I just want to play music that means something, that is a force for good in the world,” Fisher said. “There’s a lot of ways that could happen.”