Philadelphia's Musical Harmony: Sam Gellerstein on Art, Community, and Creativity

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Rob Lee
Only a couple months down. I think I recognize it.

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Rob Lee
Welcome to The Truth In This Art. We're once again doing truthiness art beyond. And we're in Philadelphia. And today I have the privilege of being in conversation with a low brass multi-instrumentalist, an educator, composer and arranger living in Philadelphia. From jazz to salsa to sky music, they work in many genres. They're a member of the seven piece brass heavy band snack time, which was created out of necessity at the height of COVID performing free shows in Rittenhouse Square and quickly amassing local notoriety and is known for its soul energizing street performances.

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Rob Lee
Please welcome Sam Gellerstein. Welcome to the podcast.

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Sam Gellerstein
Yo, Thank you so much for having me, man. Glad to be here.

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Rob Lee
Thank you for for coming on. And, you know, it's like as a fellow, I mean, yours is much more makela. There's a fellow large bearded man, you know, it's like Voltron. It's like for me, This is great.

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Sam Gellerstein
Thank you so much. And I appreciate that. It's a left, a benchmark or a landmark or my face. I know everyone likes it.

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Rob Lee
Yeah, it's great. So before we get to you, too, embedded in too deep into the convo, I want to start off with sort of this introductory thing, which was the story was the same Goldstein story. And, you know, where does the story begin? How many years have you been playing music? Give us those sort of details.

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Sam Gellerstein
Cool. So I was born in Brooklyn, New York, and I lived there for about four years as kids are raised. And then I moved to Florida. Florida, where I was raised. Uh, I play a lot of sports growing up, and I always really got a real love for music. My mom was my mom was always in community theater.

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Sam Gellerstein
She went to art care when she was when she was when she was a kid. And so music is always in my life, you know, It's like I always remember my mom and my dad playing different records that I really was attached to. So I went to middle school and then I chose to be in the band and started picking up the trombone about 26.

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Sam Gellerstein
And then I am just another person that like when I hear, like, I don't know, like once I'm good at something, I like to stick to it because I like I like instant gratification, obviously. So like, you know, I always get the trombone, but you hearing they kept practicing, getting better. And then I went to high school at Dillard Center for the Arts in Florida, which is a music magnet and I was there for football, but I was also, you know, playing jazz there.

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Sam Gellerstein
And and I was going back and forth. You know, I was doing good at both. But like, you know, not excellent at it. So something had to give me some of my shot. Well, some of my freshman year, I broke my ankle playing football and some of my sophomore year. I like track where sort of push came to shove and I was just done getting hurt.

00;03;13;27 - 00;03;52;22
Sam Gellerstein
And that same summer I went to the Florida State Jazz camp and it was a lot more rewarding. And, you know, there's a lot better to get praised for being good to trombone than giving yelled at for football. So sorry. I'm very determined to focus on music. And that was around the time. So I finished up at the Arts and that was kind of a place where we would do a lot of, you know, we do a lot of national jazz competitions, and it kind of got me into there were like other sort of national jazz camps and, and stuff like that.

00;03;52;22 - 00;04;27;14
Sam Gellerstein
So I made the determination that I want to go to school for music. So you have to, although it's a university art, to show it out there, as you guys know, Broad Street and yeah, I did my undergrad there, I loved it and I did my graduate degree at Temple University. Yeah. So following that, I got some grad school and 2018 I was at that time still through grad school, I was working at Federal Donuts, cooking solo, that whole camp.

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Sam Gellerstein
So that's sort of my first foray into food and drink. And then after 2018, I graduated from school. I started teaching school. This year, Philadelphia, 2020, the pandemic rolled around, so I was teaching in the school district until 2022. But around 2020 is on track. I started and I don't know, I guess we get more into this sort of fact later.

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Sam Gellerstein
But yeah, I just been following a path then just kind of follow Charles right through the past ten years here in Philly. It's really cool.

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Rob Lee
I love that. I love when you're following something and the instant gratification, I mean it. It's also millennials, even though I don't really go to that. But yeah.

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Sam Gellerstein
And I say that it's like it's kind of a joke. Like, obviously, like, you know, anyone could tell you, like, I work my ass off and like, I work really hard. But, you know, I like when when the hard work leads to something. So. Yeah.

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Rob Lee
And I mean, you know, it's very, very similar. Like I've been doing the podcast thing for maybe 14 years and, and then, you know, it's like, Oh yeah, overnight success. I was like, you know, it's not, it's not at all. It's just more work and more fun and more opportunity than just kind of following that path. And I always go back and think about some of those early inspirations and, you know, reminds me of why I'm doing what I'm doing.

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Rob Lee
So for you, what are some of your, like early inspirations, whether it's music, whether it's education, whether it's even in food? So tell me about that.

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Sam Gellerstein
I'll tell you that the first time I do. I love music was I mean, beyond the fact that I loved Bloody Records growing up. But the first the first thing I really remember touching me musically was the movie Drumline I saw in the theaters. I guess it was came out in 2001 or 2002. And there's a scene where they're playing I Believe I Can Fly, which, you know, they're doing like some sort of like whatever, you know, orchestral high school banner it And then at one point, like Nick Cannon goes into some sort of like hip hop drum kit and thing.

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Sam Gellerstein
And I'll never forget he's a hulking, as you guys know the really driving don't. So if she's the hulking but yeah so they they break in hip hop cadence and I was just like floored I couldn't believe it It was like it was like I didn't even know, like, you know, what I was feeling. And then later in the movie, in the Stone plays, and it's just like so much just amazing music in that movie that I never had heard before.

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Sam Gellerstein
It's felt like I was going to have to the fire or whatever, but I was just like, not necessarily in my daily listening. So like listening to that music really kind of changed my life. And then later on in 2004, I saw School of Rock, which was a Have you guys familiar with that Jack Black movie where he's a substitute teacher and he makes the kids learn how to rock And yeah, that that movie I watched over and over and over and over and over again and it just there was something about it that just touched me and just something that really, like, resonated with me so that those those two movies.

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Sam Gellerstein
And then I'm using and then later on that year, I think it was maybe she has a five Green Day's American Idiot dropped and that's the first record that I ever like wore out. Yeah, absolutely played it every single second that I could. And it was those really my initial things in the music. And then later on, you know, that I hadn't even played instrument was playing like I didn't start playing trombone until 2000.

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Sam Gellerstein
So it's like I wanted to play drums or guitar bass like a normal person, but, you know, like to to leave me that way. So yeah, so I got to think of the trombone. And then I started to learn about these shop bands, and Scott took me to, you know, the world of punk rock and Scott and Ray and learning about all these other kinds of music.

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Sam Gellerstein
So I really felt like bands like through there in the first. So that was like first show that I was never able to go to by myself. I was 13 years old or 12 years old, and I remember like CouchSurfing and that show and that and like, like this feeling of euphoria that I just don't think that will ever be replicated again in my life.

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Sam Gellerstein
Just that feeling of like listening to your favorite song on top of a crowd. It was just very, very magical. And that's a really transformative moment for me, is that first show as a whole. We've read through that manifesto a real expression. So yeah, really, really good stuff. And that's just the beginning of my musical life and shit.

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Sam Gellerstein
Michel What set me up for the rest of my life? I feel like that's nice.

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Rob Lee
Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. And it's funny because it kind of answers two of those questions. So you did a little bit of a daily double there, so shout out to you.

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Sam Gellerstein
Yeah, I try to. I try to be as efficient as possible.

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Rob Lee
So let's talk about Philly a little bit and like like how does league Philadelphia kind of inspire your creativity, your creativity currently? And you know, what would you say it's cultural identity is in the city.

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Sam Gellerstein
Yeah. So since I've been in Philly in 2012, I've really always felt this feeling of like not not use the terminology, but obviously the City of Brotherly love, the culture, etc. But like from the beginning of me being here, there's just such a community of especially in my community, before I knew anything else out there are actually communities.

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Sam Gellerstein
It's really about each one mutual and, and bringing people up and not about, you know, making your, making your, uh, your brand. It's about, you know, making the next thing better for everybody else. So I think that that's a really, a really big benchmark of the Philadelphia art scene is taking people with you and sharing the information that you have verses making people figure it out.

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Sam Gellerstein
Other don't think that that's something that I really tried to do myself in a lot of the work that I do. I really want to create a lot of opportunities for people to know how art is to be a musician. I know how hard it and if I can do any work in my own life to create opportunities for other people, then I think I'm doing, you know, what I what I hope everyone else to do and also what was done to me as well.

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Rob Lee
So, so and I've kind of gotten that sense in doing these interviews up there, you know, recording a lot of them at Rec Philly and being around sort of creative folks. And, you know, people are like interested in what I'm doing, where it's in some pockets because I'm based in Baltimore. So I go up there and in some pockets, you know, in other places, people will say, oh, okay, cool.

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Rob Lee
I guess that's the thing that you're doing. Whereas they or people seem genuinely like, Oh, well, tell me more about this. And I kind of got that. Yeah.

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Sam Gellerstein
Yeah. I think it's really it's really like, you know, you have places like New York where it's this place for it is so, so insanely, insanely busy and there's so much you could get into there. And it's like in Philly we have this same sort of big art community, but with a little bit more room to like not necessarily flourish because obviously it's hard, it's hard to do that, but there's just more room for more people to be here and to shine.

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Sam Gellerstein
So I think that's a really big, important part of what's happening here is that everyone is like trying to, like I said before, bringing each other up. And, you know, it's not about like if I create this opportunity for if I create this opportunity for myself or for somebody else, rather than it will be there for myself.

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Rob Lee
Yeah, Yeah. And I think some places that have this sort of idea of scarcity, I think Baltimore isn't in that that way. I think Baltimore is very similar to Philadelphia, and I think Philadelphia is a little further ahead in terms of, you know, that that sort of trajectory where, you know, there are resources, you could see people that are doing things.

00;13;04;10 - 00;13;22;12
Rob Lee
And I think we're right behind it. We're coming up next in that regard. And yeah, I think there is this sort of sentiment here where I'm a black podcaster that can only be one of us. You know, and it's like I rather help the next guy versus look at them as competition. And that's really all my thing has been about.

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Rob Lee
And what this really comes out of is like, who's doing the interesting work? Who's in the fringes? How can I talk with them and give them a platform to share their story? That's really what this is for me.

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Sam Gellerstein
And it's a beautiful thing, man, because it's important because, you know, it's like a lot. You were like, Oh, you know, there's so many podcasts oriented, so many that like, if you can touch one extra person that maybe wouldn't have heard my story or another person's or your story, and that's an effect of staying married. Like it's not always about having to have to be famous or have this crazy.

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Sam Gellerstein
Is it sometimes about starting with like, how can I directly communicate and work with my community? Yeah, and that's just by doing what makes you happy.

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Rob Lee
So with that, I think that's almost a natural segue into talking about snack time a bit. So let's say let's get into that. How did it come about and what is the significance behind the name?

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Sam Gellerstein
Cool. So basically during the pandemic I, I alongside of Jeff Bradshaw started a essentially a Jeff Bradshaw is like a local Philadelphia league kind of celebrity musician. He taught country and is beloved in the community. But he he and I of scouting over the pandemic in the wake of death of Breonna Taylor Arbery, George Floyd. But like so we wanted this sort of demonstration using our instruments and we had this conversation.

00;15;02;17 - 00;15;31;29
Sam Gellerstein
We're like, Oh, we want to get a huge, huge band together and bring it to the streets. And, you know, we have the idea of like, Let's do it at the art museum. So the RBC in Philadelphia, we got those are the rocky steps. So anyone from a natural Philadelphia is listening to this, but we all got the steps and there's zero hundred, 100 plus of us and we just played and we made sure we were talking about, you know, holding police accountable.

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Sam Gellerstein
And that sort of pivoted to more demonstrations, which we would bring out headcount or and other community leaders that could that could talk and make their messages heard louder because of the bolstering of the music a lot. LA Everyone loves music, so we bring a lot of different type of people out. And so basically we did that for a couple of months and then it, it sort of naturally dissipated a little bit as the world goes back up because people getting back to work, etc..

00;16;07;18 - 00;16;40;23
Sam Gellerstein
So prior to that, I was working with a woman, Agent Zavala, whose restaurant called one of the all. At this point she was just doing pop ups and she asked me to basically if I want to do a collaborative event, would be it would be the mixture of highlighting the lesser known chefs and different musician groups every week or every month, rather.

00;16;41;11 - 00;17;11;05
Sam Gellerstein
So. So the first one was near her friends and I called the Black Diamond. And so this was February sorry, this is January of 2020. We booked the next one. It was wildly successful, sold out, and the pandemic happened. So then dance after that is what we did when I started to do an album justice. And then as we get back to outdoor dining opening back up, Jen hit me up.

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Sam Gellerstein
She's like, Hey, like, you know, I'm going to be having these big lines for this event. And I would love to, you know, have you guys come out and like, make some music and like, you know, you know, and the problem was, was that we couldn't necessarily bring amplifiers and microphones because I was outside. So I like, you know, I've been in brass bands so long that I figured, okay, like, let's make it a brass band.

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Sam Gellerstein
So we lined up and we play, you know, I called a bunch of friends and we just played on the covers and it wasn't even a thorough like it was like a fresh hit. I think that we were just so far away from people and people were like, kind of like, you know, being a little cautious. You know, they went insurance and the pandemic, but we just like it just felt so good to play with friends, you know, So good.

00;17;59;08 - 00;18;18;22
Sam Gellerstein
Yeah, we made a lot of money, too, which is always nice. But like, it just felt so amazing to like to play music with your friends. We hadn't worked and we hadn't played music in more besides, like in our house, you know, And there was like a big there was a big to do about all this online recording.

00;18;18;22 - 00;18;52;03
Sam Gellerstein
So everyone was just basically recording themselves and making like a little bolstered together. Instagram video. So like to play a real music with friends is so amazing. So then following the that we kind of just started to like go out outdoor dining, open back up. So we, we just started playing outside of this restaurant park, which is in the middle of Rittenhouse Square, and people were just excited that the streets were closed off.

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Sam Gellerstein
People hadn't heard live music in literally months. So people would just, you know, they'd have their cocktails or they'd be sitting outside eating their meal and they would just watch us play and we would do that two or three times, George, during the week. And the steam just kind of kept picking up and picking up them from the women.

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Sam Gellerstein
We started playing birthday parties and we started playing this night and then the city would be like, Oh, and then, you know, I hear rolling them, you know, basically through through playing in the park. We were, you know, we really being able to get to all these amazing places to the gym are generally well, right.

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Rob Lee
It's wonderful. And I love hearing about that. And that's really one of the reasons I became aware. I was like, what was going on here? And started just looking into it, looking deeper. And I just know when I planned out this whole series in Philly, I was like, I'm getting one of these dudes for an interview. I was literally what I said, So what would you say?

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Rob Lee
You'd want someone to kind of take away from, you know, snack time like shows, like time performance or what have you.

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Sam Gellerstein
So the three pillars of snack time, the organization, the band like their time as much as it is. The band have like many different facets. We we do food and wine curation. We do we do events, the parties we do you know, we do community outreach. You try to do everything, the three pillars of it, regardless of what we're doing, our food, community and music.

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Sam Gellerstein
And the biggest one out of all of those to me is community. Because to me, music is community dancing and gathering with your friends and taking a short time out of your life to kind of hopefully we put a couple of those things that are stressing you out and just put it aside and just have a moment to dance with people that you don't know and not be so standoffish and not be so afraid to be open.

00;20;47;01 - 00;20;59;24
Sam Gellerstein
And I really hope that anyone that comes to that performance just gives themself that grace to, you know, be comfortable, be in the moment, and just enjoy yourselves. Yeah, I love that. Yeah.

00;21;00;23 - 00;21;22;14
Rob Lee
So my take on snack time on the social media stalking and so far in this conversation, guys like the People's Champs, you bring a music to the people from your vantage point in being a musician, like what would you say some of the alternative ways of getting your stuff out there that can be helpful to someone? It's like running into a roadblock and it's like, I don't know how to get it out there.

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Rob Lee
Is it take it to the streets, you know?

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Sam Gellerstein
Well, here's the thing. I personally have been I mean, I have been doing different projects and different bands for from literally I've been making original music with people. And I think a big thing about it is you just keep creating. Never stop it. Maybe not financially successful. Yeah, if you believe in it, other people will too. If you really believe it and take the steps to really like put yourself out there, people will do it.

00;22;02;25 - 00;22;30;01
Sam Gellerstein
But you have to be creative in the ways you know necessary. Organize yourself. I guess like you have to be creative and within yourself out there because it's not enough anymore in 2022 to just be a musician and be like, okay, I made this album and got Instagram and then I people are inundated with so much social media that you see something, you forget it instantly.

00;22;30;04 - 00;22;51;10
Sam Gellerstein
So it's like what you have to do is, you know, we were lucky. We were a band during a time in a certain place where we were able to go out and make music and people were kind of almost in a way, like forced to listen to us. But there are other creative solutions to being able to be heard and to touch young people.

00;22;51;10 - 00;23;16;24
Sam Gellerstein
And I think that's the most important thing, is remembering that we are, when it comes down to it every day, we are there to make people's lives better. You know, if you want me piece of yourself, that's one thing. If you make music for musicians, that's another thing. But if you want your music to be heard and appreciated by a lot of people, you kind of have to do things that people appreciate.

00;23;16;24 - 00;23;36;26
Sam Gellerstein
So just remembering to always like, appreciate the audience. And James, what would they want as Summer verses? Like What can I give as a musician? Because I think a lot of times physicians just like think that, you know, everyone in the world would want every single note, every single chord, every single like some people just want to hear a beautiful song.

00;23;37;03 - 00;23;38;29
Sam Gellerstein
So yeah.

00;23;39;16 - 00;23;56;20
Rob Lee
That's good. And I think that's where we'll wrap on the real questions. I got. I got five rapid fire questions for you, and then we'll wrap up to the point to the point where we get to the shameless plugs. But here's these five rapid fire ones and don't overthink them. They're ridiculous questions, but they're fun questions. All right, Got it.

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Rob Lee
Here's the first one. Actually, I have four. What is it? You could make this Philadelphia specific, if you like. What is an overrated snack to you?

00;24;07;11 - 00;24;31;12
Sam Gellerstein
Overrated Snack? Well, I guess I have to say this because I know I'm allergic. I'm allergic to these things. Like, here's a fad, but like, if you it it really far out of fashion. I'm allergic to them. But no, I just. They just are not, man. They're not any better than a walnut or is it just a pistachio?

00;24;31;23 - 00;24;46;07
Sam Gellerstein
Other than that and like, I don't really. I don't. You know what I got for you? I hate sour cream chips. Really nasty. Nasty. I don't like them at all.

00;24;47;28 - 00;24;50;26
Rob Lee
I'm. I'm allergic to cherries and passion.

00;24;51;03 - 00;24;53;19
Sam Gellerstein
So. Cherry. Oh, I love passionfruit.

00;24;54;05 - 00;24;58;03
Rob Lee
It's just a lot of cocktails. I can have that have that in there. So we swap it.

00;24;58;14 - 00;25;00;19
Sam Gellerstein
Is it also is it all stone fruit?

00;25;01;18 - 00;25;18;23
Rob Lee
I don't think it's all stone fruit. Like I like plums. So yeah, I think it's just it's like passion fruit. I've learned by mistake. It was a cocktail named after me. I had it. I was like, Oh, I'm. I might die here. This is. This is not great. So. So this one now this is the inverse. What's an underrated snack?

00;25;19;12 - 00;25;52;00
Sam Gellerstein
Underrated snack? Good question. Yeah. I don't hear people talking about this, Candy. And it's my favorite candy. These nerds cluster these bites. Oh, nice. Basically, think of a nerd where they're chopped up into little bite sized pieces of the you're too to talking about them. Yeah, those are really good. And I think more people should be eating them.

00;25;52;14 - 00;25;57;11
Rob Lee
I'm a big fan of nerds, especially like the OG triple OG the what is it, the great?

00;25;57;11 - 00;26;00;10
Sam Gellerstein
Yeah, yeah, they're good. Uh.

00;26;00;23 - 00;26;16;23
Rob Lee
What are three quintessential? And this actually would be the last one since it's three what are three quintessential Philadelphia things one must do during like a visit, you know, like, like what? What are the things that you're doing that you say, You know what? You guys should check this out. Here's some three things you should do over. Let's see how long weekend.

00;26;17;09 - 00;26;38;02
Sam Gellerstein
That's a good question. I'm so food and food and drink motivated that I feel like lot a lot of my things are going to be dark. But I think I think that if you can while you're here, I would make it a point to go to South Philly and Barbacoa that way. I mean, as much good food there is in the city.

00;26;38;02 - 00;30;25;18
Sam Gellerstein
I mean, I think that that's just like a it's like a church like experience to go there. And so that's a big one. The other one I would say is I do think that visual art is really beautiful, which is just more so like, I think driving around, walking around, seeing the city is just so.