Brookdale Instructors and Students Team Up to Record New Jazz Album, Walk With Me

Brookdale Community College faculty and students turned the college’s recording studio into a live learning lab this August to produce Walk With Me, a new jazz album led by longtime Brookdale music instructors Jim Josselyn and Doug Clarke. Steve Varner contributed on acoustic bass and music tech faculty member Frank Slater and his advanced students offered engineering support.

Recorded on August 11 inside Brookdale’s studio, the project embraced the spontaneity at the heart of jazz. “In the spirit of jazz—improvisation and spontaneity—this project was put together fast,” said guitarist-composer Jim Josselyn, who also edited, mixed, and mastered the record at his Tinton Falls studio, Creative Digital Music. “We got the date for the studio with a little less than two weeks’ notice, rehearsed once, and made our magic at the recording studio where we teach at Brookdale Community College.”

Clarke, who has taught at Brookdale for 25 years—co-led the session and contributed three originals, including the medium-tempo hard-bop blues “Spin,” a cool-hued Bossa Nova “Always Was,” and the cinematic waltz “In Secret Dreams.” Josselyn’s title track “Walk With Me” is an homage to McCoy Tyner, paired with his ballad “Slow Dance,” written with the spirit of Kenny Burrell in mind. The set rounds out with three standards: Sam Rivers’ “Beatrice,” John Coltrane’s “Naima,” and “What’s New?” from the Great American Songbook.

For students in Slater’s advanced music tech course, the session doubled as a real-world capstone. Under Slater’s direction, they handled microphone selection and placement, signal flow, headphone mixes, take management, and session documentation. “We’ll do everything in one session,” Slater told the class as setup began, outlining a professional workflow: “Create markers for the new songs and group everything so that we can do multiple takes of each song.” Once sounds were dialed in, he emphasized performance-first efficiency: “We’re going to try and take three takes of each song . . . If you’re happy with it, we’ll move on.”

The hands-on approach gave students a front-row seat to the art—and logistics—of capturing jazz. They balanced a seven-mic setup across acoustic and electric guitars, close-miked bass (plus Direct Input (DI), and live room bleed, and learned to manage classic studio challenges in real time, from headphone mixes to phase relationships. “Frank’s advanced music tech students were there to set up microphones, work the board, assist in any way possible, and see what a professional recording session is like,” Josselyn said.

Despite the compressed timeline, the music fell into place. “The songs, in the order they are, flow,” Josselyn noted, adding that the contrast of his acoustic guitar on “Always Was” and “Naima” brought a fresh color to the Latin-flavored tunes. Reflecting on the finished tracks, he said, “As artists we document where we are, what we’re up to, what we’re working on . . . When I finally put the music into my system and listen back the first time there’s that breathless moment—and the realization that yes, this is good and something I can feel happy about and be proud of.”

Walk With Me features:
1.) “Spin” • 2) “Walk With Me” • 3) “Always Was” • 4) “In Secret Dreams” • 5) “Slow Dance” • 6) “Beatrice” • 7) “Naima” • 8) “What’s New?”

The album is available for streaming and download on Bandcamp. Josselyn hopes listeners hear the immediacy of both the performances and the pedagogy behind them. “We hope you’ll listen. If you do, we trust you’ll enjoy these creative moments with us, played with love and from the heart,” he said.

Credits
Jim Josselyn — acoustic & electric guitar
Doug Clarke — electric guitar
Steve Varner — acoustic bass
Engineered by Frank Slater and advanced music tech students at Brookdale Community College (Lincroft, NJ)
Edited, mixed, and mastered by Jim Josselyn at Creative Digital Music (Tinton Falls, NJ)
Released August 29, 2025