SPOTLIGHT // 14TH STREET LIVE

On a hot, humid, typical New York summer day, I was rushing to catch my usual train. I was momentarily paused, by the sound of a jazzy/blues trombone, bellowing out a rendition of a familiar pop song. I looked at the crowd that had formed, and realized that despite varying ages and ethnicities, the common ground was that each person was enraptured in the moment. Anyone who has stepped foot onto a New York City subway platform, is familiar with the "street performers" - the young kids, asking you to pardon the interruption, as they use the train poles to backflip themselves within an inch of your face; the poet, just trying to get a few cents to get something to eat tonight; the instrumentalists who proffer that they're just hear to make you smile. Most can be described as pleasurable, as they are a part of the authentic New York experience. When they pass their baseball cap through the aisles, I usually oblige with a dollar, regardless of talent level and simply because it takes guts to face the battalion of unamused and unimpressed city straphangers.

What was different, and what captivated everyone on that subway platform as Jovan Johnson and Tan Brown, performed, is that they're a welcome disruption: they're not just talented, they're brilliant. Classically trained musicians, who quietly set up an impressive fleet of equipment, including a tall laundry basket, that fills up rather quickly with more green dollar bills - even the occasional Benjamin Franklin -than lose change. After a chance post from another impressed Instagram user, we found the duo known as 14th Street Live and followed them for the evening to talk about being natural introverts, why they're not street performers, and dream collaborations.

Don't miss the video below!

I know how I felt when watching you perform, and I know what I witnessed amongst the people who missed their trains, danced, and excitedly threw dollar bills into your basket. What do you think makes your music stand apart from everyone else’s right now?

Jovan: I think one of the most important things is that we’ve taken away the idea that the vocals are supposed to sit on the track, we put her [Tan] inside the track, instead of it being Tan singing, it’s like Tan and I collaborating. Everything is a conversation, her voice falls in a good range for the trombone.

Tan: it’s a bit of both of those things. we’re two separate units combining, I feel like 14th Street is more of an idea. It’s not a group, like The Fugees, it’s something where two people came together, realizing we could create something special in a place and create that kind of spiritual atmosphere. What makes us different is a meeting of two opposite worlds coming together, I was trained in classical music, I grew up listening to a lot of reggae and pop. Jovi [short for Jovan] is coming from this Mid West, hip hop, heavily influenced by jazz background. When you bring those two things together, naturally you get something that’s really strange and different. I think we both have that thing where we communicate better through music, more than when we’re talking sometimes.

That begets the next question - how did you meet?

J: On the train [laughs] T: About a year ago, I was coming from church and I heard someone making noise. Donna [manager] thought it was a violin, and I knew it was a horn. We got down there and saw him with his looper and then Donna suggested I sing with him. I said, “NO!” because at that point i was still coming out of my shell…so Donna went up to him and at that point, I was like, what, Donna, no! He asked me what I like to sing, I played a Sade song, he listened to it for 3 seconds and then made the beat. People come up to him all the time and ask to sing or rap with him. We actually have it on video. He looked at me and was like, “wait a minute! She can sing!”

J: I always knew I would find that person I was looking for, you have to test the waters…understanding that I was just coming to the understanding that I could make music on my own. I haven’t called myself a producer until a couple months ago. I never thought as a trombone player could play with a singer.

And what about the name? I take it 14th Street came about because you play a lot near Union Square - 14th Street?

T: we came up with some bad names, we said the Loopers, Soul Loops, cheesy stuff. Donna suggested 14th Street. The name itself doesn’t have a connotation to a genre, it has no limit to what it can be. It’s more than just us, it’s about an experience.

In this social media day and age, why perform on the street?  I hate to use the word “street performers” because it’s so limiting, it makes you sound like you only perform on the street for pennies. I typically only see, little kids and older people performing. I don’t see people your age because usually those performers are trying to get on YouTube and become Instagram famous. I’m curious to know why you chose this medium for your creative expression?

J: After I realized I could do more than make extra money, [I realized that] it went back to me being a jazz musician. Jazz musicians would go to the club, meet people, play a bunch of politics, so you could play 60 dollar gigs. I wasn’t getting called a lot because I’m a trombone player. I needed places to play where they would actually pay me. It made me think, well what is a venue? [It's a place where] people are coming to hear me, and whether they expected to or not, this is a venue and that’s the only difference. When I met Tan, I realized we had something special and we had to push it. I don’t need to put this video on Facebook, because-

T: …everyone else is doing it for us.

Jovan: Yeah! Tan: It’s so unexpected, we weren’t pushing ourselves in people’s faces, saying come listen to us. Things should happen naturally like that. We’re in a forum people are not taking advantage of. I think us going back to basics, we’re going full circle. An experience you can’t find through social media. We’re an unexpected surprise.

Jovan: How many people would actually come to our show? When we pop up on you, we introduce ourselves to people who might have never seen us.

To learn more about 14th Street, go to 14thStreetLive.com

Photos and Video by Tyrone Rhabb

Words by Lizzy Okoro