'An earworm that never left': Columbus jazzman embraces musical gifts to inspire others

For jazz musician Miles Smith, the poignant sounds of classical strings and soothing tunes from the likes of Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, and other legends of the genre echoed through his home. 

There was never a moment of dullness, Smith, 21, said. Every morning, his ears were filled with the reverberating sounds of trumpets, saxophones and piano keys, with jazz seemingly becoming an inescapable fix.

And with both his parents dedicated musicians and music professors at Ohio State University, the Fort Collins, Colorado native — who moved to Columbus at age 12 —said his  culmination as an instrumentalist was a near formality.

"I like to joke that I was either going to become a musician or be disowned by my parents," Smith said jokingly.

Named after American trumpeter Miles Davis, Smith, now a Dublin resident, picked up the drums at age 3 before switching to the trumpet in sixth grade. From there, "jazz was an earworm that never left his body," Smith said.

"That was the turning point," he said. "I pick up the trumpet in sixth grade and think, 'Maybe this will work.' I picked it up, notes started coming out, it was feeling pretty good."

Instead, his affinity for jazz music soaked deep within him, becoming a sequential part of his every day. And while many his age gravitated to other popular R&B and hip-hop artists, he leaned toward the genre that got its start in the backwaters of New Orleans. 

"It's something to be prideful about," he said. "With jazz becoming a lost art, but still very present even in 2021, is something I'm very proud of. It found its way to me, and jazz music just felt right." 

An affinity for teaching

Now, Smith is a member of the OSU Jazz Emsemble and the OSU Fusion Jazz Ensemble, led by his father Mike Smith.

As he held a picture of a younger Miles Smith resting in his arms as he conducted a band, Mike, 61, looks at his son's artistic growth in awe. 

“He has an absolutely amazing ear," Mike said. "He can hear (the sounds) and spit them out. He formed an intimate relationship with the trumpet. He could figure them out and play them out.”
Mike, a lecturer and jazz professor at OSU, said even during those early stages, he knew Miles would morph into an incredible artist.

That never shocked him. What surprised him is Smith's affinity for teaching, a role he vowed he’d never do.

“I'm thrilled by it," Mike said. "I really am.

"Me and his mom laugh at it because they seemed to do anything but teach. Both of them have found they excel at it. It’s funny but it's heartwarming to see it happen. I hear him giving lessons on Zoom to people and I marvel at how good he is at that.”

Between his commitments at OSU, Smith works as an instructor at various Columbus-area schools and previously held teaching stints at the Lincoln Theatre, a place he frequented often as he built up his own command of the leadpipe. 

Smith's influence on local musicians

Gamal Brown, associate director of The Lincoln Theatre, said Smith’s involvement there has been an incredible addition and has provided assistance toward to developing local musicians through practice and education.

“I'd love to see organizations use (Smith) as the poster child for what jazz is in the city," Brown, 49, said. "They would benefit from him as a source,"

Smith said he works as an instructor to inspire other young, Black kids to embrace their inner musician, just as his professors and mentors did for him. 

Along with his parents’ influence, Smith credits the mentor-to-mentee relationships he’s developed with famed musicians and former professors for his musical maturation. 

Having met and briefly instructed Smith when he attended OSU, Jon Lampley, 32, said he had the talent from the start.

‘He had talent from the start’

Lampley, who currently plays with the house band of "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert," quickly recognized Smith's desire to be great in the time they spent together.

From listening to Smith, Lampley said he knew he had the tools to be a great musician.

"I gravitate towards people who are inspiring and uplifting, and to be able to have a direct line of inspiration at an early point is really cool," he said. "I'm excited to see how Smith progresses, and hopefully, we can make some music in the not-so-distant future."

Anthony Stanco, 32, Smith's former trumpet professor at OSU, said the young musician's budding talents are only surpassed by his dedication to the craft.

"I've always been blown away from his talent," said Stanco, who currently works as a professor at Michigan State University. " To play this music, you have to be around the culture, and Smith does that."

From transcribing the solos of Miles Davis and fellow trumpeter Clifford Brown, Stanco said given Smith's love of the genre, the sky is the limit.

"If you take care of the music, the music will take care of you," he said. "That is huge, and I don't see him having a national name as a far stretch. As his previous instructor, I'm going to help as much as I can."

As his young musical career marches forward, Smith said there are many things he wants to pursue. While grad school is a possibility, he's thought about a full-time role at the Jazz Arts Group or the Columbus Jazz Orchestra and, more recently, teaching on the collegiate level like his two parents. 

But above all, Smith said he wants to reach the heights of Lampley and others who have inspired him. 

– The Columbus Dispatch

'Just be a little nerdier': Austin fashion designer creates 'nerd-wear' based on science

In an industry built on creative nuance and a flair for chic stylings, Austin designer Ryan Britton has embraced the call for originality.

The El Paso-native combined his love for history and science to create the National Bureau of Product Research, a limited clothing brand that merges streetwear with scientific exploration.

Renderings of planetary surfaces, scrapped rocket blueprints, geographical landmarks and patterns of radio beacons, radiation detector dials, and other tech are placed throughout his clothing pieces.

Interwoven into each garment, which range from $69 to $1,000 in price, are stories that unfold like a paperback, with texts and images detailing the inspiration behind Britton's designs and where they come from – an element he says is missing from fashion and the world at large. 

"I feel like The National Bureau can push things forward a bit by advocating for everybody to have a little more nerd in them – to look at our shared reality a little more empirically," the 49-yar-old designer said.

Described as "nerd wear," the brand's designs are directly drawn from decades-old documents from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration that Britton archived following his days as a science reporter. 

On the brand's "Trippy Trajectory" T-shirt, Britton stitches in a graphic that details a mission NASA developed in 1966 to test its ability to dock two ships in space at the same time. 

The inside of the shirt reads: "The graphic on your shirt illustrates the approach angle the Gemini 12 Spacecraft took in its rendezvous and docking with the unmanned Gemini Agena Target Vehicle. A major objective of the Gemini project was to learn how to dock and tether space vehicles together. The Gemini Spacecraft and Agena Target Vehicle left the Earth's surface on different rockets at different times to successfully meet in low Earth orbit. At the mission's conclusion, Gemini 12 (and its two astronauts) parachuted down and landed safely in the ocean. Everything else burned to a crisp in the atmosphere :-D."

An untraditional path to fashion

Britton's path to becoming a designer is as unique as his aero-inspired motifs. 

Before launching National Bureau, he worked as a journalist for Earth & Sky, a daily radio series focused on science and nature. The company began broadcasting in 1991 and eventually switched its operations to online-only. 

While at Earth & Sky, Britton's admiration for astrogeology was at its highest. He began collecting vintage blueprints, drawings and graphics from past projects and interviews with industry scientists from NASA and other organizations, and soon built a database filled with keepsakes.

Britton developed the archive in 2013, and instead of naming the catalog "Ryan's Database," he settled on the National Bureau of Product Research. 

At the time, he didn't know what purpose the catalog would serve, but he knew he wanted to put the valuable relics to use. 

It wasn't until a friend suggested placing one of the graphics on a T-shirt that he considered getting into fashion. And from there, the concept of the clothing line was born. 

"(Fashion) wasn't really a new thing for me," Britton said.

"It was just me kind of in the middle of my career thinking" no one in fashion was telling stories like his, he said. 

"The idea for a fashion brand was so big in my head, I almost felt obligated to do it," he said. "If I didn't do it, I would just be carrying this idea in my head."

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Beyond creating basic print designs, Britton wants to give his consumers an inside look into his clothing brand and embrace the pursuit of knowledge and truth through his designs and the stories they carry. 

"The goal is to create a brand but also a community," he said. "There's value in digging a little bit and understanding truth, like real truth, and understanding the value of scientific method and scientific inquiry.

"Let's just be a little nerdier and our world will benefit."

Education at center of the brand

After some time selling his initial designs, Britton decided to join the first cohort of the Austin Community College Fashion Incubator in October 2020, where he remains a designer-in-residence. He'll have access to the program's space until October this year. 

The Fashion Incubator is housed inside the former Highland Mall – Austin's first suburban shopping mall that closed its doors in 2011 and has been transformed into a campus for Austin Community College.

The fashion design school is now housed inside a 7,500-square-foot space, where aspiring designers and entrepreneurs have access to  $13 million of Gerber Technology, business coaches, networking opportunities and other resources to sharpen their skills. 

The year-long program helped Britton hatch his plans for The National Bureau.

Director and fashion designer Nina Means said Britton quickly refined his concept and learned to compose his intricate designs in a way that celebrates the power of education. 

While niche, National Bureau has everything a brand needs to grow into a successful business, Means said.

"I think Ryan is on to something with The National Bureau, and he's tapped into the archival space and into a customer that's also obsessed with learning," said Means, 41, who worked for American Eagle and other brands before taking on her role at ACC.

Science and innovation are next

Before launching the first National Bureau capsule last year, Britton said it was hard for other designers to grasp his concept.

"Before I actually had clothes made, people just didn't get it," he said. "It's taken some education, drawings and things like that to explain what it is I want to do. But when I hand over a T-shirt, people just get it."

Fellow designer Lord Justice Canton was immediately drawn to the brand after a conversation with Britton in a Los Angeles clothing store. 

Canton, 28, said Britton, a "nerdy, 6-foot white guy with glasses," didn't look like a typical designer, but once he saw the vibrant colors and aero-inspired patterns he created, the Queens-native said he knew Britton and the brand were worth exploring.

"(Britton) is definitely a needle in the haystack," said Canton, who works as a store manager for the LA location of the streetwear brand The Hundreds. "I know a lot of creatives, but a lot of people don't push the boundaries. When I first met him, I knew he was doing something most people don't take the time to do."

Since connecting in LA, Canton has helped Britton drive the creative direction of the National Bureau. From social media posts to public appearances in different pieces, he wants to inspire other lovers of streetwear to put the brand name on their back. 

"It's' going to take some time, but I think he's going to go really far," Canton said. "I think (Britton's) biggest contribution to fashion is his previous work history – going from that to designing. He's also teaching people within the garment. A lot of people that own brands are just not that innovative."

While the first capsule serves as a nod to space exploration, Britton said he's placing computer science and innovation at the center for the next National Bureau line set to release in late May or June. 

So far, the geometric patterns of vintage computer circuit boards are already in play. But above all, Britton said he plans to continue encouraging the world to be a little nerdier.

– Austin American-Statesman