3 SU professors collaborated on a live, folk-driven album

As the first strum begins, chords on the guitar ring out and fill the Bowne Hall classroom while Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers taps his foot, keeping the beat. He scratches his fingertips across one of the strings to signal he is finished.  

Rodgers teaches at Syracuse University and has played guitar since he was 12 years old. Now, Rodgers leads a folk band, The Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers Band, whose latest album, “Live & Listening,” will drop on Oct 16. The group will also have a listening party at 443 Social Club and Lounge on the debut date. 

The band also features two other SU professors, Jason Fridley, a biology professor who plays bass and alto saxophone, and Josh Dekaney, a music professor and a percussionist.  

Fridley and Rodgers first met when Rodgers moved in a house next door to him in 2009. Rodgers, after seeing Fridley’s musical talent, invited him to play with his band.  

Dekaney met Rodgers at a Dinosaur Bar-B-Que music event on a Monday night about 10 years ago. At these now-defunct events, people would come on stage and jam out.  

Rodgers also saw Dekaney at a music night, soon after he invited him to gigs, Fridley said. Eventually the two would become a duo.  

Dekaney has played percussion for more than 30 years and is also planning to release a percussion-led album called “All the Americas.” He added his music is rooted deeply in the Brazilian and jazz genre. Along with Rodgers’s band, he leads the Samba Laranja, SU’s Brazilian ensemble. 

The sound of the album was originally set at a live show at the 443 Social Club & Lounge in Syracuse, Rodgers said. While in previous studio recordings, he worried about small aspects of the music like dubbing. He said producing this album was “magical” in how it came to be.   

The album was inspired when he was performing at a show and realized the room among other aspects could lend themselves to good audio. After listening back, he soon realized its potential. 

“When I got home and heard what we had gotten that I realized, like, wow, this is a lot more than just maybe some live tracks I can put out like it really is an album,” Rodgers said.  

He added that the entire band is connected to SU in some way. He met band member, Wendy Ramsay, at jam sessions led by SU professors. Soon after, the two would play music for a few hours in someone’s living room every month and would switch off who would lead each song.  

Rodgers and Ramsay currently travel around playing gigs as a duo called Pepper and Sassafras. While Pepper is Rodgers’ real middle name, Ramsay made up Sassafras as a pseudonym.  

All three mentioned that it was by sheer coincidence that the live album happened. It occurred after what Dekaney called “an excellent sound engineer being there that night and recording us.” 

All three said their biggest influence for the band comes from each other’s experiences, but Rodgers curates the best aspects and talents of the band to create a holistic sound. Rodgers said that his biggest influence is The Grateful Dead but uses other music genres to create the folk sound. 

Because the album was based off of a live performance, Rodgers said listeners will be able to hear the excitement and energy.  

“I love being able to kind of capture that and put it out there,” Rodgers said.