Jon Ryser, also known as Big Talk, plays Funk, Soul, Rock, R&B, and New Jazz.
His main ax is a Yanagisawa Alto Saxophone. For the last year, he has been incorporating his big bad King Zephyr Baritone Saxophone into the mix.
Now, a history...
Big Talk studied music since kidhood.
He studied saxophone privately with Bruce Wilson in Seattle and later with the late great Johnnie Jessen. He also studied music theory (and a little tiny bit of piano) with the great Kenneth Benshoof. He also studied voice with Karen Olesen.
In 1989, he went of to LA to the now defunkt Dick Grove's School of Music where he majored in Voice and minored in Saxophone. Studying with amazing artists such as Terry Janow, Kim Richmond, Dick Grove (of course), Charles Black, Jay Daversa, Janna Brown, and so many more.
After Grove's, he came back to Seattle and was recruted by the Reverend Robert Wilson as the musical director for his Heavenly Band.
Big Talk left the Reverend and Neil Stafford drew him into the Hungry Young Poets horn section. All the while, Jon was studying saxophone with Don Lanphere.
During the 5 years with HYP, he began playing with DJ's at dance clubs with the other half of the HYP Horns, Chris "CD" Littlefield.
The Poets broke up. Ken Nottingham, the Bassist, went on to form Creeping Time. Greg Leonard, the Drummer, joined Jumbalassy. Pat Royer, Guitarist-Vocalist-Writer, produced a record for Heather Duby. Big Talk and CD joined Phat Sidy Smokehouse.
Ryser stayed in Phat Sidy for 10 years. During this time, he formed the live Acid Jazz group Pangaea.
Pangaea initially consisted of Ricci Gurango on Bass, Steve Scalfati on Tenor and Alto Saxes, Nick Rhodes ..boards, LoOn-e with Words, and LSDJ on Turntables. For a while Ernest Pumphrey, Jr played Drums and Eric Huber took over the Keyboards when Nick moved to New York. Ronnie Villanueva got the Drum Kit job when Ernest left. Ricci G moved the the Phillipines and started his version of Hungry Young Poets on Sony Asia and Charles Mac got the Bass job. Steve moved over to the Keyboards (keeping his Sax nearby) when Eric went to start ReelWorld Productions. When Ronnie moved to LA to hang out with Dave Weckl, Davis Martin took over the Drums spot.
Now Big Talk became very active. He began playing with many groups including the Ganja Farmers, Mowgli, Sharkskin, the Super Sonic Soul Pimps, and more. He also began taking care of the business for Phat Sidy Smokehouse. He also began the record label, "dig Records".
Aaron Str8, didjeridoo player and founder of Mowgli, asked Jon if Pangaea would be the house band for a club night he was starting called, "Horns and Vinyl". They did this for 2 years. The members of the group began to rotate. Marc Fendel joined on Alto Sax, John Wicks on the drums. WD-40 rotated with LSDJ. Daniel T Flemming spoke words. Abigail Fein played congas. DC Cooper joined on Bass as Charles Mac had gone back to Chicago. "PK" Paul Kemmish also played a lot of Bass. There really were too many musicians to list here.
Horns and Vinyl ended and Jon renamed the group, Futomaru. They played one show at Bumbershoot in 2000. Kevin Sawka on the drums, Steve Scalfati ..-Bass, Chris "CD" Littlefield on Trumpet, LSDJ on Turntables, Abigail Fein on Percusion, and MC Jamal with words. Then Big talk pushed "pause" on the group.
All along, Phat Sidy Smokehouse was hitting it hard. Jon arranged and recorded on many records and played all over the country. Then Big Talk pushed "pause" on Phat Sidy.
Currently, Jon plays with Marmalade (at least every Thursday at Tost in Fremont). They toured France and Spain in the summer of 2005. He plays with Keeth Apgar's "Harmonica Pocket". He performs regularly with the live dub raggae group, "Dub Championz" (at least every first Wednesday of every month). The Dub Championz also back up solo artist Adrian Xavier.
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