Hey there, welcome to Soda Jerker on songwriting. Brian and Simon here and joining us today

as a quite exceptional American musician and composer, best known as leader of acclaimed

multiple Grammy-winning fusion ensemble, Snarky Puppy.

Since founding the sprawling genre-bending collective over two decades ago, he's emerged as one

of the most respected figures in the

music world and worked with the likes of David Crosby, Roy Hargrove, Lela Hathaway, Jacob Collier,

Bobby McFerrin, Esperin, Esperanza Spalding and Patty Austin, amongst a host of others.

A few weeks ago, Snarky Puppy dropped their latest album, Somni, a quite stunning musical

exploration of the Dream State, recorded live

in the Netherlands earlier this year with the globally renowned Metropole Orchestra conducted by

Jules Buckley. We are stoked to welcome the brilliant Michael League to the show. Michael was born in

1984 in Southern California into a military family and grew up in Alabama and Northern Virginia.

After first dabbling with the drums and violin, he started playing guitar at 13,

picking up the bass a few years later at the request of his high school jazz band.

Though initially reluctant to do so, he quickly developed an affinity with the instrument.

He went on to major in jazz studies at the University of North Texas, and it was there in

2004 that Michael conceived Snarky Puppie as a college project with some of his fellow jazz majors,

such as guitarist Bob Lanzetti and trumpeter Justin Stanton. Within just a few short years,

the outfit had two albums under its belt, developed a solid reputation and expanded to include

a number of denizens

from the Dallas Gospel and R&B community. These included drummer Robert Sput C-Rite and keyboardists

Bobby Sparks and the late great Bernard Wright, who also became an informal mentor to our guest.

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