Apr 15, 2025 11:44 AM
Blindfold Test: Ethan Iverson
Between last Christmas and New Year’s Eve, Ethan Iverson performed as part of the 31st Umbria Jazz Winter festival in…
In addition to producing, DJ Harrison plays keys and bass in Butcher Brown and on his solo projects.
(Photo: Joey Wharton)Every scene has a vibe, and in Richmond, Virginia, that includes community and connection.
“Richmond is a big small town. Everyone knows everyone,” said DJ Harrison, multi-instrumentalist, engineer and founding member of Butcher Brown, the five-piece Richmond band that opened for Kamasi Washington during his 2018 tour and collaborated with Nicholas Payton for his 2014 release Numbers.
In September, the groove-buoyed and genre-subversive outfit issued #KingButch (Concord Jazz), which followed up Camden Session, the band’s 2018 direct-to-disc release. The warmth that effervesces across both albums, and each of Harrison’s projects, reflects the human-to-human connection he’s pursued since he began experimenting with sound during FruityLoops “sample battles” in high school. Among melodious horn lines, backbone-slip grooves and the lyrical vision of Marcus “Tennishu” Tenney—the band’s trumpeter and saxophonist—Butcher Brown creates a sonic narrative between improvisation and pulse.
“You can’t really describe it,” Harrison said. “You feel it. Whether it’s with other people, without bandmates, with listeners, we’re all trying to establish that deeper connection.”
In June, Harrison collaborated with another Richmond rising star, singer and composer Kenneka Cook, whom he’s known for years from the scene. He became one of several artists to remix a track from her 2018 release Moonchild. “DJ has always been one of my favorite RVA artists, whether he’s playing in bands, producing songs for his solo projects or for other artists,” said Cook. “When the remix idea was brewing, I wanted [him] to be part of it.”
Alone at Jellowstone, his home studio and the Butcher Brown “control center,” Harrison spoke over the phone about the lineage of the music and charting his own path through sound.
The following has been edited for length and clarity.
You have this fascination with physical media. How have those formats influenced your voice as a producer?
From a young age, I was interested in how to make records—how songs are written and how they’re recorded. I’ve always tried to figure out every detail down to the core of what’s happening. I grew up around physical media and thought that’s what music was: cassettes sound like this, vinyl sounds like this. I just figured creating that aesthetic is part of being a musician. Even working digitally, I still carry that aesthetic.
So, as many artists transcribed solos, you tried to transcribe sound?
Yeah, I’d ask my parents about these black circles, and they’d say, “This is an album; the people on the front are the band; [band members have] different roles,” and so on. Instrumentation, engineering, songwriting—I’ve always wanted to learn how to put records together.
Is that fascination why you’ve learned so many instruments in addition to learning production?
Totally. It’s wanting to figure out what it is about my favorite music that’s pulling me towards it—even down to the packaging. But now, since I’m older and I’ve done all the experimentation, I’m like, “Can I dissect, on a deeper level, how it’s all happening?”
“I’m certainly influenced by Geri Allen,” said Iverson, during a live Blindfold Test at the 31st Umbria Jazz Winter festival.
Apr 15, 2025 11:44 AM
Between last Christmas and New Year’s Eve, Ethan Iverson performed as part of the 31st Umbria Jazz Winter festival in…
“At the end of the day, once you’ve run out of differences, we’re left with similarities,” Collier says. “Cultural differences are mitigated through 12 notes.”
Apr 15, 2025 11:55 AM
DownBeat has a long association with the Midwest Clinic International Band and Orchestra Conference, the premiere…
“It kind of slows down, but it’s still kind of productive in a way, because you have something that you can be inspired by,” Andy Bey said on a 2019 episode of NPR Jazz Night in America, when he was 80. “The music is always inspiring.”
Apr 29, 2025 11:53 AM
Singer Andy Bey, who illuminated the jazz scene for five decades with a four-octave range that encompassed a bellowing…
Foster was truly a drummer to the stars, including Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins and Joe Henderson.
Jun 3, 2025 11:25 AM
Al Foster, a drummer regarded for his fluency across the bebop, post-bop and funk/fusion lineages of jazz, died May 28…
Davis was a two-time Grammy winner for liner notes.
Apr 22, 2025 11:50 AM
Francis Davis, an august jazz and cultural critic who won both awards and esteem in print, film and radio, died April…
