From the producers’ studio at Chatham Street Records: Michael Pelz-Sherman and Hal Goodtree

Pianist Michael Pelz-Sherman and multi-instrumentalist Hal Goodtree joined Six Count at Chatham Street Records, an indie record label in Cary, North Carolina. The label supports local artists through artist management, fair-share royalty collection, music production, and distribution. 

Michael and Hal’s next album, “Notes from the Suburbs,” released November 8. Follow the Lounge Doctors on Spotify.

About Michael

A jazz fusion enthusiast, Michael has been playing jazz, blues, and R&B in Raleigh since moving back to the Triangle in 2006. 

The musician received his bachelor’s in composition and piano from Indiana University Bloomington (1986) and his PhD in musicology and ethnomusicology from the University of California, San Diego (1994).

Michael plays regularly with the North Carolina Jazz Ensemble and as a rehearsal accompanist for the Carolina Ballet in Raleigh. For his day job, he’s a software engineer at Nextiva and a co-producer at Chatham Street Records.

In this episode, Michael shares about his early career days touring the Midwest with a Top 40 cover band; collaborating with Swedish composer Klas Torstensson at IRCAM, a Paris-based institute (associated with the Centre Pompidou) dedicated to music and sound research; working in the Bay Area tech scene after the dot-com crash in 2000; his current musical work around the Triangle, and more.

Follow Michael on Facebook or YouTube.

You can catch him at the Hayti Heritage Center’s annual Christmas concert with the North Carolina Jazz Ensemble this December.

About Hal

Hal (bassist, vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter) is the general manager and executive producer at Chatham Street Records and a filmmaker and photographer at Goodtree.Studio, where he specializes in high-end architecture, food, and events. 

Hal is the writer and producer of Shaw Rising, a documentary about Raleigh’s Shaw University, the oldest Historically black university in the South. The film won the Midsouth Regional Emmy Award in 2021 and is now streamable on PBS. His documentary, “Because No One Else Would: American Tobacco and the Durham Renaissance,” won Best Short Documentary at the 2015 Longleaf Film Festival at the North Carolina Museum of History. 

For the past seven years, he’s taught at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University in filmmaking and photography. He was also the publisher for the online newspaper CaryCitizen for more than a decade.

Hal received his bachelor’s in history from Rutgers University—New Brunswick in 1980. He’s a member of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, the American Society of Composers & Publishers, Directors Guild of America, the Cary Chamber of Commerce. 

Music credits

This episode features “Blue Winter” from the album Goes Without Saying (2012), by Michael (piano), E. Scott Warren (bass), and Charles Barchuk (drums), as well as “Typology,” by the Lounge Doctors.

This season features the songs “Forged in Rhythm” and “Callous & Kind” by Keenan McKenzie & The Riffers (2017), used by Six Count with permission from the artist.

How to listen

You can find Six Count on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other listening app!

Support the show

If you’d like to support Six Count, you can make a gift on DonorBox or Venmo @thexarawilde.