Two. 3

One, two, three. 4

(Lively jazz music plays) 5

My name is Patrick Bartley. 6

I'm a saxophonist from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. 7

My main work has been in jazz. 8

My biggest passion has been playing the music 9

of Japanese video game, anime, and pop music. 10

I would say the first system that I actually had, 11

owned myself, was a Sony PlayStation. 12

So I played like, Spyro the Dragon was like, my first game. 13

But I also had the privilege of being around 14

a lot of different other systems 15

because of, you know, family members or friends. 16

What? (laughs) 17

Some of the titles that really stick out to me... 18

Sonic the Hedgehog was probably just like, 19

the bread and butter. 20

(Sonic the Hedgehog music) 21

A good model of what music and visuals and stuff could be. 22

So I would think, Sonic, Streets of Rage, 23

Gran Turismo was big for me. 24

Tekken, I played a lot of Tekken 2. 25

That was my first fighting game ever. 26

Played some Final Fantasy XII, Final Fantasy X, 27

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. 28

A lot of those games were a big, big part of me. 29

Whoa. 30

Oh, you can't get a shot of me getting beat by a computer! 31

(laughs) 32

Video games are kind of a big part of me getting into music. 33

When I was learning clarinet, 34

in addition to learning whatever they were teaching me, 35

I also wanted to learn these songs that I was hearing 36

that was affecting me, 37

so I would learn Sonic the Hedgehog, Green Hill Zone. 38

Put in the background, while it was running, 39

just like, play my clarinet along to it, 40

try to figure out the notes. 41

Whatever seven notes I knew on the clarinet, 42

let's try to... (laughs) 43

Use those to learn that music. 44

At the same time I was playing video games, 45

I was also watching anime, 46

so things like Dragon Ball Z. 47

Dragon Ball Z, yeah! 48

Dragon Ball Z! 49

So, I ended up learning a bunch of anime tunes, 50

I learned a bunch of video game tunes, 51

and that was a big deal for me, 52

because I was like, even though it's still just a hobby, 53

I'm seriously playing this music. 54

Like, I'm actually taking some time 55

that what I learned on the saxophone, 56

and bringing that to this music for people to listen to. 57

Come on, now. 58

How y'all doing, black cat? 59

(clapping and cheering) 60

And so that was the first kind of aha moment 61

I think I had in my head of wow, 62

I get to express myself doing this. 63

People like listening to jazz 64

cause it makes them feel sophisticated, 65

some people say it makes them feel chill, a good mood, 66

or it's expressive, and it's individual. 67

But then you put it with the music they grew up with, 68

like, today's Cole Porter, 69

like, our George Gershwin, our Jerome Kern, 70

like, these are the new standards, 71

and everybody knows this music. 72

So when they hear Super Mario Brothers ground theme, 73

but then you have like, saxophones and bass and drums, 74

and live music, like, improvising over chord changes, 75

making new melodies over these songs 76

that have melodies that are seen as immortal, 77

and you're making new immortal melodies on your own. 78

It's really crazy, 79

and so people really wanted to see that. 80

And that's when we knew that we had something. 81

Not just our personal expression that you wanted to do, 82

but also something that was 83

kind of essential for everybody else to also see. 84

We are celebrating, of course, the ultimate fighters, 85

like, some of the greatest fighting games in history, 86

and their respective soundtracks 87

that also have a fighting chance of being 88

some of the greatest music of all time. 89

The first song that we played was a song by Yu Miyake, 90

who was one of the composers for Tekken 4. 91

And that song was called Bit Crusher. 92

Fight! 93

(jazz band playing Bit Crusher) 94

The next one is a little lesser known. 95

It's called Darkstalkers. 96

And that song was called Green Screen, 97

which is the stage for two characters, 98

Rikuo, otherwise known as Aulbath, and Sasquatch. 99

(video game music) 100

(jazz band playing Green Screen) 101

The third song is actually from 102

one of my favorite games of all time, 103

and it has one of my favorite soundtracks, 104

from Marvel vs. Capcom 2. 105

I love it because this song called Clocktower Stage 106

is a very identifiable song for me. 107

It has a nice, simple melody that's reminiscent 108

of certain other George Gershwin type melodies, 109

or any jazz melodies. 110

(sings theme) 111

It has this nice melody you can identify, 112

you can attach yourself to. 113

(jazz band playing Clocktower Stage) 114

The next song is also from the lexicon of like, 115

the old Street Fighter and Darkstalkers kind of franchises, 116

but this is from Street Fighter III: Third Strike, 117

and it's one of the greatest games, 118

and one of the greatest soundtracks that we know of 119

of all time. 120

Tetsuya Shibata also did this one, 121

and this is called Jazzy NYC '99. 122

(jazz band playing Jazzy NYC '99) 123

I personally think this is probably the best way 124

to get the most amount of young people 125

into jazz as possible. 126

A lot of people can find parallels between 127

the world of video game music and jazz, 128

by that kind of personal expression, 129

that kind of individual expression, 130

the same kind of expression that you would have 131

by creating a character in World of Warcraft, 132

or creating a character in Soulcalibur or Final Fantasy. 133

You can have that same feeling about 134

creating your own character in the music. 135

That's really cool for me in any kind of way, 136

whether it's a simple fighting game, 137

or if it's a role playing game. 138

You know, these games mean a lot to us, 139

and they've done a lot for us in our lives. 140

My takeaway from those games 141

was being able to create a story, 142

create a world, create an ethos 143

around what I'm doing, 144

and expressing myself in that way. 145

I wanted to find out what was this thing 146

that meant so much to me, 147

and how it can affect other people? 148

What is this positive source of energy? 149

And video games really gave me 150

a really positive source of energy. 151

And I always wanted to have that feeling. 152

(applause and cheering) 153

All right, all right!