Speaker 1: Course Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic
Speaker 1: episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
Speaker 2: What's Up Everybody? This is unpaid bill. This week's QLs
Speaker 2: classic is a basis Christian McBride. He recalls attending the
Speaker 2: same high school as a mere playing on some incredible
Speaker 2: jazz records and a Miles David story You did not
Speaker 2: want to miss here. It is episode sixty eight from
Speaker 2: January twenty fourth, twenty eighteen.
Speaker 3: Piece Supremo, Sun Supremo, roll Call, Suprema Sun Sun Subpremo
Speaker 3: roll call, subdreama Sun Sun Supreme A roll call sub
Speaker 3: Drama Sun Sun Suprema roll call.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, come on, subram Son Supremeo roll subram
Speaker 4: So Supreme roll call.
Speaker 5: My name is Fante. Yeah, y'all know I'm filling it.
Speaker 5: Yeah here with two thirds, Yeah, Philadelphia Experiment.
Speaker 4: Calm Supreme something something Supremo, role called Suprema, something Upbreme.
Speaker 6: A roll where tune Suprema.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we set the pace, Yeah, we got them drums, Yeah,
Speaker 5: we got them face so pray Son so Upbreme.
Speaker 6: Roll called Suprama this.
Speaker 1: Sub frame roll the Bones and candy ms Yeah, turnips,
Speaker 1: mother Steak Yeah, grits and gravy man cracking bread.
Speaker 6: Son roll.
Speaker 5: Supremo rolls em Yeah, no question, that's right, Yeah, yeah McBride.
Speaker 6: Supreme Subra this is you seriously got mem freestyling upping roll.
Speaker 1: That was the greatest sprovisation of a musician our generation.
Speaker 3: Supremea some Suppreme roll call Subra son Son.
Speaker 6: Supreme a roll call. Wait.
Speaker 1: The biggest surprise of that all was like you not
Speaker 1: making our guest her third line?
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, christ isn't it? That's that's the standard,
Speaker 5: like brought my.
Speaker 6: Base, you know. Now you know.
Speaker 1: Next time, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of.
Speaker 6: Christian McBride Diaries.
Speaker 1: This is question of Supreme Uh with Team Suprema. Uh say, hello, guys,
Speaker 1: how you're doing UH with us today? You know, I'll
Speaker 1: say that we've had many hip hop debate on the show,
Speaker 1: but I will still maintain that jazz is probably the
Speaker 1: most argued and the most debated uh genre of music.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 1: It's It's fans are very passionate, and it's you know,
Speaker 1: all opinions are subjective, but I will as arguments are
Speaker 1: my favorite. Yes, indeed to watch to watch. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: you got to have your data, but I I will
Speaker 1: I will say that, in my opinion, I believe that
Speaker 1: our guest today is without a doubt, uh, probably the
Speaker 1: greatest living musician of his generation and prop you know of.
Speaker 6: Currently in jazz right now. I mean, I feel as
Speaker 6: though he is the.
Speaker 1: Spiritual epicenter, one foot rooted and the tradition the other
Speaker 1: foot rooted and experimenting and going outside out of the rim.
Speaker 1: That's all I can say about one of my favorite
Speaker 1: people ever, Christian Lee McBride.
Speaker 6: Welcome to Question Love Supreme. Another homie. Yeah, how sweet
Speaker 6: of you. I never knew you felt that way. Come on, bruh,
Speaker 6: I'm I study you, bro vice versa. I know who
Speaker 6: I'm messing with. Are y'all the same age? Are y'all
Speaker 6: the same generation? This is what I'm saying. This is
Speaker 6: what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Even at the age of fifteen, Christian sounded like a
Speaker 1: thirty five year old like the way.
Speaker 7: That's why I'm excited, because I want to hear all
Speaker 7: these stories about y'all being young and being the way.
Speaker 1: That he talks right now, Like I thought maybe he
Speaker 1: was a teacher's assistant, like in school he wore like like,
Speaker 1: right now, he's wearn't sneakers. I don't think I maybe
Speaker 1: a few times I've seen you wear sneak like he
Speaker 1: always wore suits. Oh wow, and he was clean, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. So I my first day of
Speaker 1: Performing Arts school where we went all right, the history
Speaker 1: of us is that Christian and I went to Creative
Speaker 1: and Performing Arts High School in Philadelphia at the same
Speaker 1: time that Boisteroi men went there.
Speaker 6: Melue grew theory the same class, same class. He and
Speaker 6: I are class of. Remember I'm proud of my age
Speaker 6: eighty nine. Thank you.
Speaker 7: I know it was I was looking at Christian.
Speaker 1: But yeah, but I'll say that for me, there's a
Speaker 1: point where where I guess in your teens you got
Speaker 1: to get serious about about your craft. And you know,
Speaker 1: I mean pretty much people know the backstory, Like I've
Speaker 1: been playing with my parents and all stuff since it's
Speaker 1: like three, four or five years old, you know. And
Speaker 1: then my dad was like, well, you know, there's there's
Speaker 1: going to be a time where it's going to stop
Speaker 1: being cute, Like you know, you're five, six seven years
Speaker 1: old behind the drum set, playing on like adult.
Speaker 6: Oh that's good, he's so cute. But there's a point
Speaker 6: where you're actually gonna have to be good.
Speaker 1: And I will say that my first day of school
Speaker 1: at Creative and Performing Arts is probably the biggest wake
Speaker 1: up call of my life which has me here today.
Speaker 1: Like I consider that first day of the day where
Speaker 1: I was like, oh shit, I didn't know that there
Speaker 1: are other kids that play way better than I do.
Speaker 1: And you know, cause I didn't know that, I didn't
Speaker 1: know any kids, and you know, people my age like playing,
Speaker 1: like I played with a bunch of oldies cats that
Speaker 1: were like fifteen s.
Speaker 6: So meeting Chris, I.
Speaker 1: Mean on the first day of school, didn't Miles. Didn't
Speaker 1: you guys do something with Miles Davis on the That.
Speaker 6: Was the I think that was the following year, all
Speaker 6: this something on Miles Davis. One of them local channel,
Speaker 6: Bill Boggs. He used to have a talk show on
Speaker 6: daytime television in Philly. Uh, they had Miles Davis as
Speaker 6: a guest, and uh they had this overly, this this naive,
Speaker 6: romantic notion that they would have Miles Davis give a
Speaker 6: live workshop like a masterclass. And he's mad. Well, I
Speaker 6: don't I don't know if he was stand office, but
Speaker 6: he's he was brutally honest. You know, he's a man
Speaker 6: that had no filter, not even for a child, because
Speaker 6: you had an Alice Marcel's moment. I think Miles Davis
Speaker 6: is thinking, well, like, if you bolted to put me
Speaker 6: on television with a nine year old kid, you're gonna
Speaker 6: have to hear the truth, you know. So they had
Speaker 6: they had the house band, which was myself, Joey D.
Speaker 6: Francesco on on keyboard and uh Stacey Dozier on drums,
Speaker 6: our old buddy and uh they invited four trumpet players
Speaker 6: from the Philly school system to come and play and
Speaker 6: get Miles to critique him on live television and uh
Speaker 6: uh not a good idea.
Speaker 7: Please do what do you say about you?
Speaker 6: Well he didn't. We weren't featured.
Speaker 1: Were they were the master Like that's what I'm saying, Chris,
Speaker 1: Chris was already at master level.
Speaker 6: I don't know about that. But see, we weren't playing.
Speaker 6: We were just there to back up the trumpet players.
Speaker 6: They didn't. They didn't, We weren't. Who were some of
Speaker 6: the casts that were. Fred Goodson was one of the
Speaker 6: trump players. John Swanna was one of the trumpet players.
Speaker 6: Uh Dad was one of the trumpet players and Jafar
Speaker 6: Baron eleven. No, he was. Let me see, I would
Speaker 6: have been sixteen, so Jafar might have been fifteen. And
Speaker 6: I remember Miles pushed him in the chest. Wow, my
Speaker 6: little Miles gave him a straight left, right and right
Speaker 6: in the solar plexus. Man, I couldn't believe it. Wait
Speaker 6: a minute, I know all these years I've never heard.
Speaker 6: I never told you Miles pushed him in the chest.
Speaker 7: Well, why did he punch him in the chest?
Speaker 6: Because after it was over, you know, we all went
Speaker 6: up to Miles to you know, say hello, and the
Speaker 6: Miles you know, kind of cased everyone up, you know,
Speaker 6: and he went he saw you far, he went boom,
Speaker 6: you've been a practice boy. So what year was this?
Speaker 6: How old was Miles around that time? That would have
Speaker 6: been eighty eight, so years old? Yeah, right, your Miles
Speaker 6: was sixty four, maybe sixty two, sixty two. But that
Speaker 6: was on the second day of eleventh grade, right something
Speaker 6: like that. Wasn't that early. I don't know if it
Speaker 6: was that early in the year, but it was sometime
Speaker 6: early in the year. I had missed because my parents
Speaker 6: were on the road. I missed.
Speaker 1: Technically, I think the first two days of school. So
Speaker 1: I came in on day three, Yeah, and I had
Speaker 1: already gotten word of Oh my god, Bill found it already.
Speaker 6: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Wow. Okay, I wish
Speaker 6: I could see what I just saw.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it was mad Like for me, the whole
Speaker 1: experience is mad attimidating because every every high school has
Speaker 1: this what what what set you claiming moment? I mean,
Speaker 1: be it an actual what set you claiming moment? Or
Speaker 1: you gotta choose a click? Yeah, And because you're at
Speaker 1: performing arts high school, I mean there's different.
Speaker 6: You know, there's theater, dance, music.
Speaker 1: Creative writing, right, so then once you choose what you
Speaker 1: gotta do. But even inside those clicks, there are other
Speaker 1: clicks and clicks.
Speaker 6: Yeah. And the thing was on on the right.
Speaker 1: Side of things was Christa McBride and Joey de Francisco,
Speaker 1: whom I already knew of, like seeing clips on the
Speaker 1: news local news, and you know, Jazz brought it to
Speaker 1: these Christmas Vien Joey thirteen fourteen like playing like and
Speaker 1: I don't mean like, oh they're q for thirteen year
Speaker 1: old men. Yes, But then on the left side of it,
Speaker 1: Kurt Rosenwinkle, Kurt Rosenwinkle who worked on Q Tips. He
Speaker 1: was on the second Abstract Yeah Comala Abstract record. So
Speaker 1: Kurt Rosenwinkle uh is a year older than us, and
Speaker 1: so he has a whole nother click. So basically, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to choose which fork in the road I'm not
Speaker 1: going to go because these guys are talking traditional straight
Speaker 1: ahead jazz. But then Rosenwinkle's trying to unteach me everything
Speaker 1: that they're teaching me by like hit me to Frank Zappa,
Speaker 1: Mount Vshu Orchestra, like John mclaugh and and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: And then on top of that, you know, I got
Speaker 1: to survive up in the lunch room and Treiek's with
Speaker 1: the cool kids, you know.
Speaker 7: So it's just and his boys and men over there
Speaker 7: on the side.
Speaker 6: Were they hung with them, well, they had their own.
Speaker 6: They strictly hung with the with the vocal.
Speaker 7: When a hear tells a story, you always say they
Speaker 7: were already likes together, and pat they were together.
Speaker 1: They were singing, trying to get girls and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: But I mean, just as far as what sets you claiming,
Speaker 1: I definitely, you know, Rosenwinkle was again the jazz argument
Speaker 1: of do we file tradition in the forties or.
Speaker 6: Do we move it ahead to the future. So now,
Speaker 6: But this is why he was such a saving grace
Speaker 6: for me when he came to high school, because I
Speaker 6: had nobody to talk funk with for my first two
Speaker 6: years of high school. I was just kind of in
Speaker 6: my own bubble when it came to funk. I mean,
Speaker 6: I enjoyed living in my own bubble. I could do that.
Speaker 6: You know, I'm an only child, you know, I'm cool
Speaker 6: with that. But then he's leaving out a very important
Speaker 6: part of his first day of school. He was playing
Speaker 6: the bass. He was just kind of new, lying around
Speaker 6: on the upright base. So I knew he was coming.
Speaker 6: They said we got a new drummer coming in. I'm
Speaker 6: here Thompson. I was like, oh, cool, solid, And so
Speaker 6: I walked in the music room and I see somebody
Speaker 6: on the base and I'm just kind of just kind
Speaker 6: of laying back, just chilling, like all right, who was this?
Speaker 6: And he's playing doing it to death? He's playing James
Speaker 6: Brown on that, and I went, wait a minute. So
Speaker 6: I kind of walked up to him. I was like, yeah,
Speaker 6: what you know about James Brown. He looked at me,
Speaker 6: he said, no, what you know about James Brown. It
Speaker 6: was at that point, I man, man, you don't know
Speaker 6: how much how happy I was that you came around.
Speaker 6: And for the our last two years of high school,
Speaker 6: it was great to have that that outlet I could
Speaker 6: go and really talk funk with him. Mother. Lowe had
Speaker 6: come out in the jungle groove on him, James Brown records,
Speaker 6: and he studied Jabbo and Clyde Stubblefield, all those Al Jackson,
Speaker 6: all those great R and B and soul drummers the
Speaker 6: same way I would study Ray Brown or Paul Chambers
Speaker 6: or Charles Mingus or Ron Carter and uh to the
Speaker 6: point where till this very day, should I reveal your
Speaker 6: your nickname? Yeah. So I've called him Clyde ever since
Speaker 6: the day I met him, because he's the closest to
Speaker 6: Clyde Stubblefield. Nobody else has studied Clyde Stubblefield as thoroughly
Speaker 6: as he as he has and can actually play like
Speaker 6: Clyde s Doublefield. So I've never called him quest. I mean,
Speaker 6: you know, I do when what I have have to.
Speaker 6: You know, I understand circumstances always been Booty and Clyde.
Speaker 6: Booty and Clyde. That's that's what we call each other,
Speaker 6: you know. All right, So Chris, there's.
Speaker 1: Your Your music vocabulary is so broad that I don't
Speaker 1: know whether or not to go with your story and
Speaker 1: your journey in jazz or just your opinions on music period,
Speaker 1: so we can go wherever you.
Speaker 7: Well, we got to find out how he became a
Speaker 7: child genius, though yes.
Speaker 1: He will never admit this. So well, I gotta know
Speaker 1: how old were you when you first started playing?
Speaker 6: Nine? Nine years old? Based on because just like you,
Speaker 6: you know, uh, my dad b Smith is also a
Speaker 6: bass player. My great uncle Howard Cooper also a bass player,
Speaker 6: and uh so it's a family tradition, you know. I
Speaker 6: h I didn't really want to do anything else, maybe
Speaker 6: pro football at one point, uh, but it was always
Speaker 6: about the bass. What did you play ball for a
Speaker 6: little bit? Street football?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 6: I want you to be old, get on the j bus.
Speaker 6: It was upright That's what I started on on electric base. Yeah,
Speaker 6: and then I started playing the upright base when I
Speaker 6: was eleven and I was going to Pepper Middle School
Speaker 6: in Southwest Philly because I had to play in the orchestra.
Speaker 6: Wait where was Pepper Uh? Now out near the airport? Yeah,
Speaker 6: you know what I'm saying. That wasn't Yeah, it was
Speaker 6: past Bartram it was. It was actually like Sharon Hill.
Speaker 6: It was behind Bartram, like past penn Rose Park. It
Speaker 6: was like that. The school the suburbs. Yeah, oh big time.
Speaker 6: What would you take to get a chartered sefter bus
Speaker 6: damn yeah.
Speaker 7: Thing?
Speaker 6: Yeah yeah, well we basically took what was the G
Speaker 6: bus and but it was specific it went straight to Pepper. Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 6: I never heard of such a thing. Yeah, man, And
Speaker 6: so the technical uh, the the exact address was eighty
Speaker 6: fourth and Lions Avenue. The schools now closed, doesn't exist,
Speaker 6: but it was this. It was the school built on
Speaker 6: top of a swamp. There was always a prediction that
Speaker 6: the school would literally sink at some point. But yeah,
Speaker 6: it was out there near the airport, near Island Avenue
Speaker 6: pass Linburgh Boulevard. It was. It was way out there.
Speaker 6: But they had a great music program. So that's when
Speaker 6: I started playing upright base really yep, and this is
Speaker 6: a public school or yeah? Okay, okay, so then you
Speaker 6: went there all eight years of your No, I went
Speaker 6: to Hamilton for for elementary school from first to sixth,
Speaker 6: and then Pepper seventh and eighth, and then Kappa nine
Speaker 6: through twelve.
Speaker 1: So what when you went to Kappa, especially those two
Speaker 1: years before, at what point are you, you know, dedicating
Speaker 1: your life to Jack at least the serious the seriousness
Speaker 1: level that I saw you ass Like.
Speaker 6: What, Well, it's a couple of things that happened. When
Speaker 6: I was in eighth grade still at Pepper, I met
Speaker 6: Joey he was there too.
Speaker 5: No, but.
Speaker 6: My string teacher, you remember, Mss Keith I think she
Speaker 6: was known as Miss Funk back then. Was yeah, exactly,
Speaker 6: so I know right. So she was teaching, she was
Speaker 6: my base teacher at Pepper, and she said, I think
Speaker 6: you're good enough to go to Settlement for their jazz program.
Speaker 6: And so I started going to Settlement Music School. And
Speaker 6: that's where I met Lovin Hines and Joey d. Francesco
Speaker 6: and Antonio Parker and Donald Ward, all these all the cats.
Speaker 6: And they were like, yo, you in eighth grade. You
Speaker 6: ain't even supposed to be here till till at least
Speaker 6: next year. But Joey was there, so he was in
Speaker 6: eighth grade too. So uh, Once I met Joey. We
Speaker 6: started practicing together. We started calling each other up on
Speaker 6: the phone every day.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 6: He you think, look, Joey de Francesco was the real
Speaker 6: child prodigy because he was gigging. He was making gigs
Speaker 6: in Philly when he was like nine years old. Yes
Speaker 6: he was. He was. His feet could barely touch the
Speaker 6: organ pedals. But I mean he knew like half the
Speaker 6: real book already.
Speaker 1: And the fact that all right, so there's a real
Speaker 1: book and there's a fake book. Why do y'all use
Speaker 1: the fake book more than the real book.
Speaker 6: It's cheaper, it's easier to get get your hands out,
Speaker 6: So it's the real book would be the Wikipedia of
Speaker 6: all jazz songs in book for him.
Speaker 1: So when you're a jazz musician coming up a saxophone player,
Speaker 1: whether were there various books where they just court charts.
Speaker 6: Or well they would have uh you know, B flat key,
Speaker 6: concert key and E flat key, so.
Speaker 7: Yeah, like sheet music.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, but you you basically, if you're a jazz musician,
Speaker 1: it would be who you to least know at least
Speaker 1: eighty of this book?
Speaker 6: Yeah, because the big is it? It was pretty thick.
Speaker 6: I would I would say about that big you know,
Speaker 6: there's two hundred what kind of what songs are? They
Speaker 6: like it? Standard Autumn, Leaves Misty, you know, take the Train,
Speaker 6: all those all those standard jazz songs. I mean, because
Speaker 6: the part of the biggest challenge of being a jazz
Speaker 6: musician is learning repertoire. You know, because you get on
Speaker 6: stage with some of those older guys, you know, turn
Speaker 6: around and say body and soul. They don't want to
Speaker 6: hear that. Oh I don't know that. Well what you
Speaker 6: up here for? Get off the stage, you know. So
Speaker 6: that's part of the that's the biggest challenge there is,
Speaker 6: just learning the repertoire. So how were you when you
Speaker 6: read music? When I started at Pepper, That's when I
Speaker 6: started learning reading music.
Speaker 1: Uh, anybody can put anything, because that's the thing is
Speaker 1: that I in my experience musicians that are proficient at reading.
Speaker 6: I know cats that.
Speaker 1: Live on the stage, they look at it, they can
Speaker 1: play everything, but their feelings off. But then I know
Speaker 1: cats that have awesome feel they can't read a lit
Speaker 1: So I mean, at what point.
Speaker 6: Well, it was always a myth that, especially speaking to
Speaker 6: a lot of older jazz musicians, they always had this
Speaker 6: thing and they were scared to learn how to read
Speaker 6: because they say, well, if I learned how to read music,
Speaker 6: I'm not going to be able to get the feeling
Speaker 6: into it. But I mean, I think that myth was
Speaker 6: shattered by so many great legendary musicians. I mean, first
Speaker 6: of all, if you played in a big band, you
Speaker 6: had to learn how to read, so Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker,
Speaker 6: all these great musicians. I mean, obviously they knew how
Speaker 6: to read music and write music as well. But once
Speaker 6: I started playing in the orchestra at age eleven, at
Speaker 6: Pepper started taking private lessons, and I had to learn
Speaker 6: how to read music. And you know, of course at
Speaker 6: that time, you read music every day, so I was
Speaker 6: really good at it. You know. I think I consider
Speaker 6: myself a moderately good reader now because I don't do
Speaker 6: it every day. But if I don't want to put
Speaker 6: myself on the spot. But there are varying degrees of
Speaker 6: of of of you know, challenge challenge when it comes
Speaker 6: to the music that people give you to read. I'm
Speaker 6: fairly quick still, you know, so just in front of you, blam,
Speaker 6: can you play this? And you're looking, you know, I
Speaker 6: give it the once over and I write away. I
Speaker 6: just try to look for the problem spots, you know,
Speaker 6: and I'm just like, okay, what is that? Okay, I
Speaker 6: think I got it, you know, and then nail it. Okay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's kind of where I got off the train
Speaker 1: because reading drum charts is boring. Well, no, it's just
Speaker 1: hard for me. I mean, I'm certain that if I
Speaker 1: seriously applied it, it wouldn't be anything. But I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, just reading drum charts and okay, so this
Speaker 1: is the kick, and that represents the snare and this
Speaker 1: represents the like, there's so many hours of practice you
Speaker 1: have to put into that, which I don't think.
Speaker 6: And there's so many different kinds of drum charts, like
Speaker 6: you know, sometimes they'll just give you a lead sheet
Speaker 6: with just the melody on it and you're left to
Speaker 6: your own devices on what to figure out what the
Speaker 6: accents are exactly. You know, some will give you an
Speaker 6: actual drum part where they have all of the slashes
Speaker 6: and all the stuff on top and underneath, and like
Speaker 6: you said, you know, I've seen like drum like that.
Speaker 6: Shit makes no sense at all.
Speaker 1: So when some of the older casts come like Tony
Speaker 1: Bennett comes through, this guy like gave his rump charts
Speaker 1: like look at each other.
Speaker 6: He just gave his Just give us the NP three
Speaker 6: brother straight up. Well, you know, speaking of you, you're
Speaker 6: talking about Kurt Rosenwinkle and he was turning you onto
Speaker 6: the mound Official New Orchestra. Well, I would say that
Speaker 6: John McLoughlin and the mon Official New Orchestra where they
Speaker 6: had uh, legendarily difficult music. None of it was in four,
Speaker 6: you know, it was all in nine and eleven, shifting
Speaker 6: back and forth five four, five eight, eleven, four eleven
Speaker 6: eight and uh, you know, the I is crossed listening
Speaker 6: to some of this music right now. Imagine reading it.
Speaker 6: When I went on tour with with Chick Corea and
Speaker 6: John McLoughlin, uh in a in an all star group
Speaker 6: called the five Piece Bad p E A c E.
Speaker 6: I was literally scared. I thought Chick Corea and John
Speaker 6: McLoughlin together, boy, I know I'm gonna be doing some
Speaker 6: heavy reading on this tour. And Vinnie the Great Vinnie
Speaker 6: Calu to former Frank Zappa drummer of all people, played
Speaker 6: on that tour, and uh, John mcgloughlin had this one tune.
Speaker 6: What was the name of this piece? I can't remember,
Speaker 6: but it was so difficult I'll never forget. We had
Speaker 6: to jump on a conference call with Chick Vinnie Call
Speaker 6: you to Kenny Garrett, who played saxophone on the tour,
Speaker 6: and we're all sitting there trying to figure out, now,
Speaker 6: how are you hearing this? Are you hearing it in
Speaker 6: five or you hearing it in ten? Or I mean,
Speaker 6: like what, what?
Speaker 4: What?
Speaker 6: Where? Where's the down beat? Where's the one The one
Speaker 6: part of me actually was relieved to hear Chick career
Speaker 6: of all people, asked the question. You know, he was like, man,
Speaker 6: I'm having trouble finding out how to count this, and
Speaker 6: I'm like, Okay, I don't feel so bad. Oh man,
Speaker 6: what song was it? And Vinnie call was like, uh, yeah,
Speaker 6: we'll see. Think of the dotted quarter note. It's like
Speaker 6: that's the actual quarter notes. It's like doom doom, doom, doom, doom,
Speaker 6: doom doom. And instead of counting it, uh like like
Speaker 6: with the eighth note groove and to think of it
Speaker 6: as like a super slow five. What was the name
Speaker 6: of that song, Oh, old Blues, New Bruise. That that's
Speaker 6: the that's the recul that's the name of the song.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, old Blues, new Bruise. Damn. Even even my
Speaker 6: computer's like, right, yeah, or new Blues, old Bruise, something
Speaker 6: with blues and bruise in it, and like so it's
Speaker 6: a slow five and it's got all these accents in
Speaker 6: the middle of it, and I mean, I'm looking at this, going, bro,
Speaker 6: I can't feel this, and I'm thinking, well, we got
Speaker 6: a tour coming up.
Speaker 1: I better learn how to feel it and quit. Oh
Speaker 1: so it wasn't any question of it. Well maybe it's
Speaker 1: too difficult for you guys, let me.
Speaker 6: No, no, no, we had We had to buckle down
Speaker 6: and figure it out. And I'll tell you the whole
Speaker 6: time we were on that tour. When we played that song,
Speaker 6: you can literally see me. I'm gonna stay this going three, four,
Speaker 6: five or two. I was counting out loud and unashamed.
Speaker 6: I was like, I ain't getting lost in this tone. Wait,
Speaker 6: what year was this?
Speaker 1: Uh? Eight eight and o nine? We did that tour
Speaker 1: ten years ago? Yeah, I'm thinking like, oh, post high school?
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, no, no, no, this was less than ten
Speaker 6: years ago. Really, yeah, So how many years did you
Speaker 6: do at Juilliard? I only stayed for a year. That's
Speaker 6: because I started gigging pretty much right after school started.
Speaker 6: As you well know, I got to know when Marcellus
Speaker 6: toward our last couple of years of high school, and
Speaker 6: knowing that all my jazz heroes lived in New York,
Speaker 6: I said, I got to get to New York somehow,
Speaker 6: some way. So I knew I was going to go
Speaker 6: to college. And well, I knew I was going to
Speaker 6: go to New York. But as cool as my mom is,
Speaker 6: I knew it wasn't going to be simple as hey, mom,
Speaker 6: I want to move to New York and become a
Speaker 6: professional jazz musician. So I went to I applied to
Speaker 6: the New School, Juilliard and the Manhattan School of Music,
Speaker 6: and one of those three. If I can get in
Speaker 6: any one of the schools, at least I'll be here
Speaker 6: in New York. And I started working with Bobby Watson's
Speaker 6: Horizon Quintet probably my first month in town. But that
Speaker 6: wasn't the first gig that actually took me on the road.
Speaker 6: The first time I went on the road was like
Speaker 6: on a steady basis was probably it was both Roy
Speaker 6: Hargrove's band and Freddie Hubbards band.
Speaker 1: And this is after Juliard yeah, So what point did
Speaker 1: you because I think everyone has that thing like I
Speaker 1: did like half a semester. Then it's like I got
Speaker 1: a record deal, I got a gig, So like for you,
Speaker 1: what was it? I mean, did your mom know? Like, okay,
Speaker 1: I think she.
Speaker 6: Knew because once, I would say, once May rolled around
Speaker 6: May of ninety, I was working a lot, so I
Speaker 6: knew the writing was on the wall. I said, my
Speaker 6: school work's going to suffer because I'm out playing every night.
Speaker 6: I'm either going to have to make a decision either
Speaker 6: really focus on studies or go gig. So I called
Speaker 6: mom from from a payphone exactly on fifty six then,
Speaker 6: right in front of Worldwide Plaza. I don't know why
Speaker 6: I was there, but I called her from there. I said, Mom,
Speaker 6: I don't think I want to go back to Juliard
Speaker 6: next year. And it was this long, like minute and
Speaker 6: a half pause over the phone, and I was like, Mom,
Speaker 6: you're there. She's like, yeah, I'm here, So what are
Speaker 6: you going to do? I was like, I was like,
Speaker 6: but Mom, I'm gigging. You know, I'm working a lot,
Speaker 6: and you know I'm making money. She said, where are
Speaker 6: you going to live? I said, well, my friend, Mark Carrey,
Speaker 6: Mark Carrey, who was Yeah yeah, he was playing in
Speaker 6: Betty Carter's band at that time, and he had a
Speaker 6: place up in Harlem and he had some extra space.
Speaker 6: He said, I can move in with him. Well, I
Speaker 6: don't know, Mark, carry, I got meet him, make sure
Speaker 6: he's cool. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I was is.
Speaker 6: You were always an adult to me, so seeing you
Speaker 6: having a yeah, man, well see man again, I'm gonna
Speaker 6: go go back to high school. I've always felt that
Speaker 6: both your parents, you know, even my dad wasn't living
Speaker 6: with us, you know, when I was growing up. But
Speaker 6: I'll never forget how much how tightly knit your family was, man,
Speaker 6: And I always thought of your dad. Both your parents
Speaker 6: and and my mom the same way. They did not
Speaker 6: let us get away with too much. Man. They weren't
Speaker 6: hear none of that, none of that crazy mess, you know.
Speaker 6: And my mom always loved you, man. She liked the
Speaker 6: fact that I think she also liked the fact that
Speaker 6: I now had a funk brother, you know, you know,
Speaker 6: she was like, God, finally somebody else you could listen
Speaker 6: to James Brown with boy. So what was you said?
Speaker 6: The first gig you did was with Hubbert? Well, I
Speaker 6: was like, that was like my first major major gig
Speaker 6: after I left Philly. What is that like?
Speaker 1: Like is it intimidating from you know, studying? I know
Speaker 1: that you guys like I didn't realize the point. You know,
Speaker 1: you guys are like reciting solos to each other, and
Speaker 1: I was like, ohh, I gotta now study. There's there's
Speaker 1: one point when you you enjoy were listening to I'll
Speaker 1: Never Forget you had Larry Jung's Unity, not Zultron. That
Speaker 1: was the first that is, but it's the it's the
Speaker 1: the second song.
Speaker 6: Yes, I think it was Monks Dreamy Monk's Dreams moon Train.
Speaker 1: But you guys were literally reciting every you know. Now,
Speaker 1: I know that's common in jazz music, but I'm was like, wait,
Speaker 1: why did they're studying?
Speaker 6: Man? Soul was like that's how far I got to
Speaker 6: go into this thing, and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you did that man, well see I did
Speaker 1: for survival because it's like if you can't get respect
Speaker 1: from I mean, it's like in jail, like you got
Speaker 1: to hit the biggest motherfucker, Like you see the biggest
Speaker 1: motherfucker that you.
Speaker 6: Hit him, like you had to speak their language. No,
Speaker 6: I think it's survival on on that on and too,
Speaker 6: because uh.
Speaker 1: Well, y'all used to also if the cat was sad,
Speaker 1: y'all would y'all would let y'all wouldn't even let him know.
Speaker 6: It's like, oh, Man's cat's so sad man. I didn't
Speaker 6: want to be the sad cat that well, you know
Speaker 6: what used to crack me up. Do you remember how
Speaker 6: Joey and Kurt used to see Joey defriend to see
Speaker 6: I feel bad because Joey's not here to defend himself.
Speaker 6: But well we were in high school. But Joey used
Speaker 6: to mess with Kurt like terribly, yes, because Kurt was
Speaker 6: you know, he was he was super serious and he
Speaker 6: was not a traditional kind of guy. He was playing
Speaker 6: great stuff, but it wasn't like straight traditional jazz. So
Speaker 6: he'd be in the in the practice room, and you know,
Speaker 6: he would be on the piano. I actually didn't even
Speaker 6: know Kurk played guitar because he played a lot of
Speaker 6: piano in high school. Really yeah, so the first during
Speaker 6: freshman and well, I knew he played guitar, but I
Speaker 6: thought that was a secondary instrument because I always just
Speaker 6: see him on piano all the time. So he would
Speaker 6: be on the piano. He be playing all these all
Speaker 6: these weird kind of you know, polychords and all this stuff,
Speaker 6: and Joey would come behind and be like, man, what
Speaker 6: is that ship? Man? Why don't you play some blues?
Speaker 6: And Kirk get out of here, man, leave me alone,
Speaker 6: and Joe's that's some bullshit, get out of here, all right.
Speaker 6: So this leads me to.
Speaker 1: I will say that with as far as Winton's concerned, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you've heard all the arguments.
Speaker 6: I'm certain that you've heard both sides. I've been. I've
Speaker 6: been deep in the eye of that hurricane.
Speaker 1: I understand that now. I mean part of me just
Speaker 1: from where I stand in hip hop. Were we standing
Speaker 1: hip hop? I mean, like no one wants to be
Speaker 1: seeing as the grumpy old traditionalists and the guy that's
Speaker 1: only hanging onto the flag and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: And you know, especially with hip hop, you got older
Speaker 1: cats that need to contextualize their coolness by co sign
Speaker 1: and something young, right, some progressive like Quincy's the king
Speaker 1: of that.
Speaker 6: Quincy always talked about he has a cough drop in
Speaker 6: his mouth. Yeah, you know, I love Bro. But it's like.
Speaker 1: I've heard everything, and probably the best analogy I heard
Speaker 1: that Winton.
Speaker 6: Has more as far as hip hop comparisons.
Speaker 1: I've heard a jazz guy that I respect very much
Speaker 1: say that Winton is the Puffy of the jazz movement.
Speaker 1: In other words, there was a point where, I guess
Speaker 1: in seventy eight where you know, the N Base Collective
Speaker 1: and all those guys were trying to push forward.
Speaker 6: I mean, if you ask a cat like Dave Murray,
Speaker 6: David Murray, I mean, his thing is like, well, you know,
Speaker 6: he came in the suit and killed our movement. So
Speaker 6: but then, but I know that win is about tradition.
Speaker 6: And then when he did the.
Speaker 1: Documentary with on PBS, yeah, that really didn't help his argument.
Speaker 6: This is true much. I mean I appreciated it because
Speaker 6: there's stuff I didn't know about King. People got turned
Speaker 6: off by that, right, So it's like we're including jazz musicians, right,
Speaker 6: especially jazz musicians. So where do you stand as far
Speaker 6: as what he represents. I think when Marcellus was was
Speaker 6: absolutely necessary for what it was that he did. I
Speaker 6: do think, well, you know that that old saying about
Speaker 6: the you know, killing a flow with a rifle, you know,
Speaker 6: I do think that's deep. I do think that in
Speaker 6: his desire to uphold the traditions of jazz. I think
Speaker 6: he was quite divisive and harsh on a lot of
Speaker 6: musicians that came before and in some cases after him,
Speaker 6: came after Yeah, who really didn't see things the same
Speaker 6: way he did. I do find an interest in that.
Speaker 6: You know, you look at jazz in the seventies and
Speaker 6: you look at what was hot at that time. You know,
Speaker 6: the whole loft scene that was going on in New York. Uh,
Speaker 6: you know this this sort of I don't know what
Speaker 6: you would call it, this sort of post online guard
Speaker 6: kind of movement. You know, lest the Bowie was hot,
Speaker 6: Chico Freeman was hot, David Murray was hot, Oliver Lake,
Speaker 6: the AACM was doing great things. And then a lot
Speaker 6: of the jazz ledgends you know, your art, Blakie's, your
Speaker 6: heart silvers, they weren't getting the same kind of attention
Speaker 6: or the same kind of of respect that they had
Speaker 6: been getting in the fifties and sixties. There was this
Speaker 6: sort of unspoken uh, this, well, these guys are the
Speaker 6: old school, you know, I mean, they still play good,
Speaker 6: but they're not really contributing anything fresh to the cannon.
Speaker 6: And then here comes this young raw kid from New
Speaker 6: Orleans who can play the hell out of the trumpet
Speaker 6: like no one's ever heard before. And on top of
Speaker 6: everything else, he's brashing outspoken that he pretty much came
Speaker 6: up and said, wait, ho, hold hold of time. Up
Speaker 6: all the stuff that y'all think is great, this is
Speaker 6: all straight bullshit. And even if you didn't agree with him,
Speaker 6: you had to go, whoa, Yeah, this dude, it's got
Speaker 6: some balls on him, you know. And he's backing it
Speaker 6: up with backing it up with his trumpet playing. Now,
Speaker 6: add that he's got a brother almost more outspoken than him,
Speaker 6: but he was he in terms of jazz tradition, he
Speaker 6: was very much on the same page. And I see
Speaker 6: it's interesting that my manager and I always talk about this.
Speaker 6: You really, you do realize who actually changed the course
Speaker 6: of jazz forever in the eighties was not a jazz musician.
Speaker 6: It was Sting. When the police broke up and Sting
Speaker 6: decided to start his dream of the Blue Turtles band.
Speaker 6: The fact that he took two of Winten Marcellus's band
Speaker 6: members that caused a riff in jazz that to this
Speaker 6: day has never really been resolved. I think to think
Speaker 6: about something. In nineteen eighty five, Winton Marcellus had already
Speaker 6: won I think by that time he already won four Grammys.
Speaker 6: He had already he was already already acknowledged as like
Speaker 6: the seminal trumpet player of a of a generation, even
Speaker 6: though he was only like twenty four, a protege of
Speaker 6: Albert Murray and Stanley Crouch, you know. So like so
Speaker 6: he was known as an intellectual on top of a
Speaker 6: great trumpet player, and he was so well celebrated for
Speaker 6: his you know, embracing of the tradition and sort of
Speaker 6: resetting jazz's values. And he's got one of the greatest
Speaker 6: bands in jazz with his brother, the great Kenny Kirkland
Speaker 6: Seann at Mafino based on Jeff Taine Watts on drums.
Speaker 6: Sting comes around and says, hey, Branford, Kenny, y'all come
Speaker 6: with me. And so this almost seemed very much like
Speaker 6: a Cane and Abel because like people were like, you
Speaker 6: left your brother to go play.
Speaker 7: On a rock band, what you know, sound fun and right?
Speaker 6: And so people were kind of like, but Branford, I
Speaker 6: thought you how could you do that?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 6: Branford was like, look, I love straight ahead jazz, but
Speaker 6: I never said I wouldn't play anything else, you know,
Speaker 6: so imagine when he did Buck Shot La Funk that. Yeah.
Speaker 6: So I do know that there was a very very
Speaker 6: bad split between him for a long time. They've since
Speaker 6: made up. I know it's been all good, But musically speaking,
Speaker 6: I really don't believe Winton ever really recovered from that. Really,
Speaker 6: I don't think so. I think musically because that band
Speaker 6: was so killing musically, he wasn't going to find anybody
Speaker 6: else to replace, somebody like Bradford or Kenny Kirkin. So
Speaker 6: you're saying, now here's the word thing I just recently
Speaker 6: found in oral history on Live at Blues Alley. Yeah, and.
Speaker 1: To hear Wint and tear that album apart, I'm in
Speaker 1: an album that I studied.
Speaker 6: You know, that's a great album, So I thought, I
Speaker 6: think so, I thought, but to hear him and then
Speaker 6: read further.
Speaker 1: Because the thing is is that with with rock criticism
Speaker 1: and hip hop, as far as journalism is concerned, I
Speaker 1: never delve deep into how jazz records were perceived or
Speaker 1: you know, got a bunch of downbeat back issues to
Speaker 1: see how they were, you know, unless it was like
Speaker 1: looking up on the corner or something, you know by Miles.
Speaker 1: But I never knew because in my head when Jay
Speaker 1: Mood and sort of his eighty six to eighty eight period,
Speaker 1: I thought that.
Speaker 6: Period immediately after Branford Kenny went was thinking. See, but
Speaker 6: I didn't see that as a down period.
Speaker 1: But if you're trying to compare it, are you saying
Speaker 1: that that eighty six eighty eight period of Winton would
Speaker 1: be the equivalent of post payback James Brown?
Speaker 6: Like, No, I wouldn't say that. I would say that
Speaker 6: just mentally speaking.
Speaker 1: Because I thought he was trying to push even further
Speaker 1: experiment and then when he got to the nineties doing
Speaker 1: like the Little.
Speaker 6: The New Orleans, Yeah, the whole eighty six you know
Speaker 6: those albums he talked about j Mood live at Blues Alley.
Speaker 6: I mean, those are virtually only the two albums he
Speaker 6: made before he turned and kind of went straight traditions
Speaker 6: and went straight to his New Orleans thing. And you know,
Speaker 6: he helped build Jazz and Lincoln Center. So I always wonder,
Speaker 6: like how much of that was because of what happened
Speaker 6: with Branford and Kenny, Like, had Branford Kenny not left
Speaker 6: his band to go with sting. I'm sure Winton's career
Speaker 6: would have been a lot different different just for for context.
Speaker 5: So when jazz music is referred to straight ahead jazz,
Speaker 5: what is that referring to?
Speaker 6: Like, who are some of the artists most of the
Speaker 6: time they well, they're referring to a style of jazz
Speaker 6: that is kind of coming out of fifties hard bop,
Speaker 6: you know, l Heart, Silver, Cannonball, Atterley, danceable quote unquote jazz,
Speaker 6: you know, like blues based kind of jazz.
Speaker 1: Saying not bop as in because I knew that at
Speaker 1: a point when they started speeding it up right, it
Speaker 1: was to discourage the dancing, right, So yeah, fastbat was
Speaker 1: more like, hey just watch us and stop dancing, okay,
Speaker 1: So they were the DJ of the moment, you know,
Speaker 1: but they were still called that straight ahead you know.
Speaker 6: I think when things started changing, it's like when avant
Speaker 6: guarde movement started coming around, and it became less about
Speaker 6: it became less so much about overt or i should say,
Speaker 6: sort of recognizable traditional melodies or traditional four to four rhythms,
Speaker 6: you know, like on that Coleman kind of blew it
Speaker 6: out of the water in the fifties and Cecil Tailor
Speaker 6: came around, and Charles Mingus's music started getting a little
Speaker 6: more abstract, to the point where even some jazz fans
Speaker 6: were like, well I don't really quite know what this is,
Speaker 6: you know, Andrew Hill.
Speaker 1: And wait you're saying and now I'm like the shape
Speaker 1: of jazz to come was sort of like met with
Speaker 1: because now it's considered or at least beneath the under
Speaker 1: like those records are like considered.
Speaker 6: Yeah. No, there were a lot of people who initially, yeah,
Speaker 6: they felt it was like heroin music. They were like, well,
Speaker 6: you know, I'm not sure I can get with this
Speaker 6: on that Coleman dude, you know. Oh yeah, a lot
Speaker 6: of people felt that way. You know, I think, uh
Speaker 6: the masses did dig it, uh, but it was definitely
Speaker 6: a musical shift that it took a lot of people
Speaker 6: took some time to adjust to it.
Speaker 1: You came out as a young lion, like when I
Speaker 1: knew like, oh this means things some article on Time
Speaker 1: magazine where they.
Speaker 6: Were remember that.
Speaker 1: That was like whoa Jesus Christ, Chris this in Time magazine,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? So it was like there
Speaker 1: there was was were young lions only referred.
Speaker 6: To as the class of eighty five. Yeah, we were
Speaker 6: the Winton spin offs. So young Lions were referred to
Speaker 6: as post Winton jazz. Absolutely, yeah, yeah we were you know,
Speaker 6: we were considered the uh you know we we were
Speaker 6: the Jefferson's two Winton's all in the family.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, all right, So then how do you feel
Speaker 1: about the post generation.
Speaker 6: After us, or like the post generation post Winton, or
Speaker 6: like our generation or.
Speaker 1: From from after Europe period. There's probably two generations that
Speaker 1: have passed right now. I know me personally with musicians again,
Speaker 1: like the the the universal positioning, the universal quest love
Speaker 1: positioning of you know, whatever I represent, it's supposed to
Speaker 1: be all knowing, all accepting, and you know, kind of
Speaker 1: diplomatic about the ship. So I haven't like exactly been
Speaker 1: like there's some bullshit a lot of right, right, But
Speaker 1: there are a few musicians that are mad at me
Speaker 1: about my outspokenness of gospel chops.
Speaker 6: So in R and B play everything. But how is
Speaker 6: that in your world?
Speaker 1: Because there's some cats that I like, I know not
Speaker 1: the fall for the okie doke, and the okie doke
Speaker 1: is like if someone does more fancy ship than they
Speaker 1: do straight ahead ship, then that might be a problem.
Speaker 6: So I think oftentimes, you know, obviously, technique is it's
Speaker 6: a great thing to have. I think it's something that
Speaker 6: one has to strive for it if you want to
Speaker 6: be the best at what you do. Obviously, it's about taste.
Speaker 6: It's about when, it's about when you decide to pull
Speaker 6: your your flash card, you know what I mean. I
Speaker 6: think oftentimes, because not a lot of musicians have a
Speaker 6: lot of great technique, when you find a few that do,
Speaker 6: it can be intimidating. But on the flip side, if
Speaker 6: that person with the great technique just jams it down
Speaker 6: your throat all the time, it's gonna make it really
Speaker 6: bad for the ones that actually have good technique, who
Speaker 6: have taste, Like for me, Wayne Shorter. Wayne Shorter has
Speaker 6: just technically speaking on the saxophone. He has the fast
Speaker 6: He has some of the fastest guns since John Coltrane,
Speaker 6: probably the fastest since John Coltrane. But Wayne always picks
Speaker 6: the perfect spot to hit you with that He never
Speaker 6: that's never his numb. He doesn't come out here, it
Speaker 6: never comes out of the gate where you know, you know,
Speaker 6: it's just you know, you're like, oh, what was that
Speaker 6: you know what I mean. He makes you want to
Speaker 6: hear it again, you know what I mean? And I
Speaker 6: think the whole thing with the gospel chops. I'm with
Speaker 6: you all the way, bro, because I mean so many
Speaker 6: times I always tell young younger musicians, particularly drummers and
Speaker 6: bass players, Look, that stuff you're doing is great, all right,
Speaker 6: but do you want to have a million YouTube followers
Speaker 6: or do you actually want to work and talk about it?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 6: Do you want somebody to call you for a gig
Speaker 6: or do you want somebody to just pass around YouTube
Speaker 6: videos and tell tell you how fast your chops are?
Speaker 6: I would think in a practical world, you will want
Speaker 6: to gig. And if you want to gig, you're gonna
Speaker 6: have to learn to put put them put that shit away,
Speaker 6: you know what I mean? And I love using you
Speaker 6: as an example.
Speaker 5: Man.
Speaker 6: I was like, look, listen to quest Love. I mean,
Speaker 6: there's a reason why you are who you are. And
Speaker 6: now I gonna gash you up a little bit. Man.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 6: I can honestly say that after having played with so
Speaker 6: many of my drum heroes just jazz and funk, you know,
Speaker 6: having played with Bernard Purty, finally got a chance to
Speaker 6: play with Jabbo and Clyde, Mike Clark, Steve Gadd Yo, man,
Speaker 6: you are easily like one of the top ten of
Speaker 6: all time in terms of holding that pocket. Come on, bro,
Speaker 6: who who else plays that pocket like you? Man? Seriously,
Speaker 6: he's not good with though, he don't sorry, and I'm
Speaker 6: a homeboy. Little John Roberts, Little John, he just he
Speaker 6: been holding the pocket down. I know how much. I
Speaker 6: don't know how many chops he's got too, could my my? Okay,
Speaker 6: So part part he was.
Speaker 1: In All City, bab, little John was younger than me,
Speaker 1: so part of me felt like, okay, as an eleventh.
Speaker 7: Grader drummer, foret guys not yeah, yeah right.
Speaker 1: It's funny because the first time I met that little John, yeah,
Speaker 1: back in ninety four, I was like, wait, what happened
Speaker 1: to your hair?
Speaker 6: Like I'm because both of them having to Atlanta, right,
Speaker 6: John Roberts.
Speaker 1: But no, it's funny about John Roberts is because he
Speaker 1: was I think two years younger than me. So when
Speaker 1: I got to All City, I mean, he looked like
Speaker 1: his name was little John Roberts, Like he looked.
Speaker 6: Like a kid.
Speaker 1: He just so naturally I just thought like, oh, motherfucker's
Speaker 1: playing the tambourine or something, and you know, I'm on
Speaker 1: the drum set and he was cool, like I'm on
Speaker 1: his drum set, but I'm getting aything, tuning stuff up
Speaker 1: the way I want it, you know. And then who's
Speaker 1: the the all City Hi?
Speaker 6: Yeah, mister Whittaker. I was like, okay, uh, what's what's
Speaker 6: his name? Am Omar? He was like, yeah, you can
Speaker 6: play a tambourine on good News or he'll or he
Speaker 6: gave me throwaways on my Hill with the Lord Hides
Speaker 6: or yeah, old Maynard ferguson songs whatever, And to.
Speaker 7: Watch this little did you have to get your ass up?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 6: That was my martin pretty ricky what they call it.
Speaker 6: That was my moment. That's when like I was dead serious.
Speaker 6: I now have to shed.
Speaker 1: Five hours, which is like usually the neighbors would start
Speaker 1: bitching around ten pm.
Speaker 6: Yes, right, so you know that leaves me limited space
Speaker 6: from like four to ten pm to do.
Speaker 1: But even then I'm like, okay, practice on my pad
Speaker 1: and all right, don't wait that up, hit hit the bet.
Speaker 6: You know, the mattress is something silent.
Speaker 1: But it was like I gotta get I gotta get
Speaker 1: some technique and get like that pressure came on me
Speaker 1: at sixteen seventeen, but little John Roberts was like he
Speaker 1: when I saw him running, That's when I knew I
Speaker 1: had to get my ship together and get it right.
Speaker 1: But the weirdest thing about it is my approach was
Speaker 1: to actually do less yause I know every drummer, like,
Speaker 1: there was a point where you know, here's the gospel
Speaker 1: group what commissioned? Yeah, oh yeah, so commission Like those
Speaker 1: cats started get more technique into their playing and stuff,
Speaker 1: and all, like all Tristate area musicians just started following suit.
Speaker 1: And you know, and you know, by that point, James
Speaker 1: Brown like his his music was starting to come alive
Speaker 1: more in Hip Hop eighty seven eighty eight. So I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a lot for you to just what I what
Speaker 1: I would call use the force and just damn like,
Speaker 1: all these guys want to show how fancy they are,
Speaker 1: and I got to play less to get attention.
Speaker 6: And it's it was hard. You navigated that brilliantly though,
Speaker 6: like for the first.
Speaker 1: Four years to just do nothing while all these other
Speaker 1: cats are just dancing around me getting all.
Speaker 6: The woo's and and stuff.
Speaker 5: And you know, even now like, no, it's the equivalent
Speaker 5: of in hip hop, the dude that can freestyle and
Speaker 5: get all the oohs and ah's and whatever.
Speaker 6: I can't make a record to save his It's like
Speaker 6: too short.
Speaker 1: It's like too short versus cannabis exactly right in the air. Yeah, man, yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's But I also feel my dad taught me
Speaker 1: a trick. Whenever he would audition a musician, He's like,
Speaker 1: make him play the ballot. Yeah, like the slowest, easiest
Speaker 1: song ever, and I will watch mini musician trip.
Speaker 6: Do you got to go to? Well?
Speaker 1: I mean my dad's songs were ballots, so like I
Speaker 1: would want to do like the fast, funky, you know,
Speaker 1: stuff to see like how they adjust.
Speaker 6: And Dad was like, no, you're you're.
Speaker 1: Gonna find out the truth about a musician. Always make
Speaker 1: him play the ballot. You give him the simplest things ever,
Speaker 1: and they will always mess up because discipline.
Speaker 6: Is one to be hardest things.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, So okay, And I'm not lying about you being
Speaker 1: technically proficient as far as in my opinion, one of
Speaker 1: the greatest musicians.
Speaker 6: Working right now music.
Speaker 1: How do you, I mean, what's the conversation in your head?
Speaker 1: Because a lot of times, I'll hear references like it's
Speaker 1: like you still have hip hop techniques to your soloing,
Speaker 1: right in terms of like I'll hear references like oh, okay,
Speaker 1: that was the theme that the Jeffersons.
Speaker 6: Right right, right right, or whatever.
Speaker 1: But it's like, what's in your head? Because for me,
Speaker 1: the pressure of soloing is one of the hardest things.
Speaker 1: It still gives me anxiety to this value. But like,
Speaker 1: do you get anxiety to solo or is it just.
Speaker 6: Like it depends depends on the song, it depends on
Speaker 6: the whole whatever circumstances that happened at that time. I
Speaker 6: still have head trips about playing the electric bass and
Speaker 6: I shouldn't. And I'll tell you why I have hit
Speaker 6: well because even after all these years, I still get
Speaker 6: the I didn't know you played electric bass, you know.
Speaker 1: I'm like, damn, so uh wait, even after nine albums
Speaker 1: absolutely yeah yeah, yeah, yeah no, people still see me
Speaker 1: with an electric bass and they're like what really, I'm
Speaker 1: just like, oh yeah, totally and so like, and I
Speaker 1: see like because I don't play the electric bass every
Speaker 1: day like on GAT.
Speaker 6: I mean, I play enough electric bass where I think
Speaker 6: my technique is still respectable, But I know that you
Speaker 6: get like some cats out here, like our homie Derek Hodge,
Speaker 6: who really does it. Uh, you know, all these legends
Speaker 6: like Victor Wooton and Marcus Miller and cats who really,
Speaker 6: really really do it on a regular basis. And I
Speaker 6: don't know. Every now and then I put the electric
Speaker 6: base on, I'm thinking somebody out there and the audience
Speaker 6: is going, he's not as good as Marcus Miller, which
Speaker 6: is true, But I still get really uptight about playing
Speaker 6: the electric bass now now houses for irony, except when
Speaker 6: me and you were playing together.
Speaker 1: Well, that's weird though, because of the gazillion times I've
Speaker 1: seen you. Most of the times it's like you're electric,
Speaker 1: like when your Family Fair project came out, right, I've
Speaker 1: seen you a lot, like I always felt that you
Speaker 1: You've devoted half of your projects to That's what I've
Speaker 1: tried to do, tradition and right pushing forward, you know.
Speaker 6: You know, speaking of that that recording a family Affair,
Speaker 6: I think that was when there was a couple of
Speaker 6: things that happened between ninety eight and two thousand and one.
Speaker 6: That was when I started to and in retrospect, I
Speaker 6: wonder if this was wrong of me to have, or
Speaker 6: if it was reactionary. But by ninety seven it was
Speaker 6: kind of like, oh, the young lion Christian McBride, Ray
Speaker 6: Brown protege went Marcella's you know, little brother club. You know,
Speaker 6: it's just like you wanted to be your old man.
Speaker 6: I'm like, come on, you all, damn. I mean, obviously
Speaker 6: I loved Ray Brown, you know, Ray Brown. For me,
Speaker 6: it was like the Muhammad Ali of jazz bass of
Speaker 6: all time went Marcella's great you know mentor big brother
Speaker 6: to have. But I knew my musical view was a
Speaker 6: lot wider than that. So I thought, wow, I'm getting
Speaker 6: painted into this corner. I want to do this other stuff,
Speaker 6: and I think they're going to start tripping once I
Speaker 6: decided to do that. So ninety eight I knew that
Speaker 6: I see, I want to do something a little more,
Speaker 6: a little more electric, a little more on this side,
Speaker 6: you know. And so I hooked up with George duke Man.
Speaker 6: A lot of people in the jazz world they were like,
Speaker 6: I took it. Took it like this, Christian, we really
Speaker 6: love you, so we're just gonna let you have this one.
Speaker 6: We're not even going to acknowledge we're just gonna be like.
Speaker 1: Because when I saw the fonts, when I okay, so
Speaker 1: the day the album usually on the first week of
Speaker 1: your album's coming out, Yeah, I'm buying it. And when
Speaker 1: I see in it and saw the font at first,
Speaker 1: I was like, wait, didn't do a funk record and
Speaker 1: not call me, I mean my feeling. So you knew
Speaker 1: from the font it was it was from the front, right.
Speaker 1: But then I was like, because I know, I figured
Speaker 1: that your entry into the music world was the same
Speaker 1: as my entry in high school, right, And I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: because I know that you got a side of you
Speaker 1: that wants to reference Bootsy and James Jamerson and Jacobin
Speaker 1: Stores and all these you know, Lewis Johnson, Like there's
Speaker 1: a whole other side.
Speaker 6: Of you that you have you have to express.
Speaker 1: I mean, you'll, you'll, you'll salt and pepper, some ship
Speaker 1: and a cut or two with with with your record.
Speaker 6: But then when I saw that, I was like, Okay,
Speaker 6: he's this is going to be his his flag planting
Speaker 6: right now. I never read the reviews of that record.
Speaker 6: There were none. What was the general because again like.
Speaker 1: And what was the name of the record, what was
Speaker 1: the family which is weird because you you swung and
Speaker 1: I love that interpretation of it. He did a swing
Speaker 1: interpretation of of of Fair of a slyest song, so it's.
Speaker 6: Also wait, I forgot to tell you. Is that the
Speaker 6: one that opened Sesame? Dude?
Speaker 1: You ever talked to Ronald Bell about that? He loves
Speaker 1: you forever for that? Really yes, because he in his
Speaker 1: head he envisioned all that stuff as serious jazz. For
Speaker 1: you to interpret open Sesame the way that you did, Oh, man,
Speaker 1: that made it. That made I always wanted to know
Speaker 1: if you ever knew that you made his life with that.
Speaker 6: I'll tell you what. After the family Affair, I got
Speaker 6: a call from verdein white and uh, I'll never forget,
Speaker 6: like like almost being frozen for a couple of days,
Speaker 6: you know, like, man, we just wanted to tell you
Speaker 6: we got your we got family, we got getting to
Speaker 6: it and family affair on the tour bus and we're
Speaker 6: checking you out. Man, we love I'll write a song
Speaker 6: for you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, Elizabeth, wait, I know, I know
Speaker 1: you have crazy stories. Uh, I know that if she's
Speaker 1: on your record, you have a crazy vested story. I
Speaker 1: was about to ask, I.
Speaker 6: Actually don't man.
Speaker 5: She was.
Speaker 6: She was pretty mellow. Man. I actually didn't know her.
Speaker 6: George Duke knew her. I brought in these songs that
Speaker 6: I wanted to record, and uh now Shaka was originally singing, okay, stands.
Speaker 7: Walked famously and then she'll send her best girls.
Speaker 6: Though that was.
Speaker 1: Supposed to do don't look any further real you mean
Speaker 1: with with Dennis Edward, Yes, no, kidding him up.
Speaker 6: Was supposed to do the power with snap them up.
Speaker 6: She's famous, bless her. Penny Ford didn't pretty.
Speaker 7: She said, I'll send the best girls.
Speaker 6: Yes. I met Penny Ford through Shaka. She was singing
Speaker 6: background at that time. Yes, like so, George, So I
Speaker 6: brought in these songs, a couple of vocal tunes and uh,
Speaker 6: George said, well who you want? I said, uh, well
Speaker 6: I want to get Shaka. He was like, you want
Speaker 6: to make the call or you want me to make
Speaker 6: the all. I was like, well, you know I know Shaka,
Speaker 6: but your George du you know, so you make the call.
Speaker 6: So uh he said, all right, I'll call her. He's like, uh,
Speaker 6: shock us down. You know she wants to do it.
Speaker 6: I guess maybe a week later he said, man, something
Speaker 6: went down shock ain't gonna be able to make it now,
Speaker 6: all right. Uh, He's like, how do you feel about Vesta?
Speaker 6: I was like, oh ship, yeah great. So Vester came
Speaker 6: in and and nailed it. And Will Downing came in.
Speaker 6: Uh George dude gave him the greatest nickname I've ever
Speaker 6: heard for Will Downing. Just take a while. I guess
Speaker 6: what he called him based on his initials w W
Speaker 6: D forty.
Speaker 5: What was the story behind your tribute for James Brown
Speaker 5: and the aftermath of that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna say, give it us the tribute. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was your James Brown story is the k Yeah.
Speaker 1: So getting to you finally working with working with Yeah Brown.
Speaker 1: Oh man, you got to let our audience here. I
Speaker 1: know the story, but I'll do my best to give
Speaker 1: you a condensed version because it's long. But the gist
Speaker 1: of it is, we got today, all right, we got today.
Speaker 1: Right on the gist of it is that you know,
Speaker 1: as this man knows. Uh, you know, James Brown has
Speaker 1: been like my bone marrow. So by the time I
Speaker 1: leave Philly to move New York, James Brown was in jail,
Speaker 1: and so I'm writing James Brown letters like once a month.
Speaker 1: You know, I know he's not getting them, you know,
Speaker 1: because I'm sure he's getting hundreds of them per day.
Speaker 6: I was like, it's all good. I just want him
Speaker 6: to know that I love him, you know. So, Uh,
Speaker 6: nineteen ninety three, that's a very CHRISTI and so Uh
Speaker 6: in nineteen ninety three, I'm on my first tour with
Speaker 6: Pat mctheeny and uh, We're playing the Montreal Jazz Festival
Speaker 6: and I'm backstage and I'm walking around and I didn't
Speaker 6: look at the schedule. So I walked by one of
Speaker 6: the production doors and it says James Brown stage plot
Speaker 6: what So I knocked on the door. I was like,
Speaker 6: excuse me, Uh, is James Brown performing? It's like, yeah,
Speaker 6: when tonight It's like what he said, Yeah, he's coming
Speaker 6: on after y'all. Oh shit. And so that's how you
Speaker 6: know you're a busy jazz musician. I am. We were
Speaker 6: opening for James Brown. So uh that night, Uh, yeah,
Speaker 6: I see Saint Clair Pinckney and Danny Ray and Martha
Speaker 6: High all the jazz Brown.
Speaker 1: This is the first time you're seeing them? Yeah, how
Speaker 1: do you even well, enter give me first time? I well,
Speaker 1: I mean I'm sure that in your travel you saw
Speaker 1: like macy O and hearing that right right because of
Speaker 1: your level of stand them, how do you how do
Speaker 1: you approach? How do you nuance the approach to let
Speaker 1: them know right without freaking them out?
Speaker 6: I got lucky, and I'll tell you why. Because, out
Speaker 6: of all them guys that were standing in the wings
Speaker 6: ron last year, I knew I knew them all. They're
Speaker 6: standing in the wings and they're watching us, and I'm thinking, oh, man,
Speaker 6: this is my shot. There was one brother who I
Speaker 6: didn't recognize. He was a young dude. It turns out
Speaker 6: he had just joined James Brown's band like three months before,
Speaker 6: and it was obvious that, you know, he had that
Speaker 6: rookie look about him. You know, he was kind of
Speaker 6: like standing by himself and you know, kind of with
Speaker 6: the band but not really you know. And he was like, man,
Speaker 6: you sound great, man, you know, pleasure to meet you.
Speaker 6: I said, yeah, man, you too. What's your name? Brother?
Speaker 6: He said his name was Robert Thompson, also known as
Speaker 6: MOUSEI Molsie Thompson is his name? He said, y'all just
Speaker 6: started playing drums with mister Brown a couple of months ago,
Speaker 6: and so I think he was relieved to meet somebody
Speaker 6: close to his age that he could kind of roll with.
Speaker 6: So me and mouse started rolling that night. We started
Speaker 6: hanging and talking and I found a little bit of
Speaker 6: his history. He played with Chuck Brown, He's from DC.
Speaker 6: He played with Chuck Brown, he played with Wilson Pickett
Speaker 6: before he got with James Brown. Uh, only because James
Speaker 6: made him. But he is very funky. And so I
Speaker 6: got into the James Brown crew initially through Mouseie.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 6: So Mousie was kind of, you know, metaphorically, kind of
Speaker 6: took my hand and said, hey, guys, this is Christian McBride.
Speaker 6: Is the brother y'all just saw and said, oh, Christians.
Speaker 6: I met Saint Clair and Danny Rain and I started
Speaker 6: kind of working my way in and the the final
Speaker 6: straw came the next year in ninety four, when James
Speaker 6: played the Apollo and he did his final would turn
Speaker 6: out of his final live at the Apollo Record. Uh,
Speaker 6: that's where I met Martha High. Martha High was the
Speaker 6: mother hen of the entire James Brown crew. And so
Speaker 6: Mousey introduced me into Miss High. And then once I
Speaker 6: met Miss High, that was pretty much you know, here's
Speaker 6: your VIP pass, you know. And then do they know
Speaker 6: you're Christian Bride? They did shortly after the Apollo gig
Speaker 6: Getting to It came out, and so then they started
Speaker 6: putting two and two together. They were like, well, wait
Speaker 6: a minute, Oh, that's that's who that is, you know.
Speaker 6: So ninety five, I'm on tour with this Verve Records
Speaker 6: All Star band with Jimmy Smith. Would you say stand
Speaker 6: up my level? So I knew that one of James
Speaker 6: Brown's jazz heroes was Jimmy Smith, great jazz organist. Jimmy
Speaker 6: Smith was on this Verve All Star our tour. So
Speaker 6: I said, uh uh, James Brown. We were all playing
Speaker 6: the Vienna Jazz Festival and James Brown was staying in
Speaker 6: the same hotel. And I said, if I ever get
Speaker 6: to meet James Brown today, I'm a drop that I'm
Speaker 6: playing with Jimmy Smith. And so by that time I
Speaker 6: knew mister Brown's bodyguards. And he says, hey, man, you
Speaker 6: just plotted yeah, oh man, dude, slow and methodical. I
Speaker 6: knew it was a little smooke SI don't like all right, right,
Speaker 6: and then once you heard the track, you were like,
Speaker 6: wait a minute, that's good at it right? Right exactly exactly,
Speaker 6: So Uh yeah, So Reginald Simmons was his name. Mister
Speaker 6: Simmons introduced me to James Brown and uh, it's mister Brown.
Speaker 6: How you doing. I briefly met you at the Apollo
Speaker 6: last year. I'm friends with Mouses and A oh that's
Speaker 6: right son. Yeah, yeah, you're the bass player, Yes, sir said,
Speaker 6: I'm playing with Jimmy smith tonight. Like what, well, you know,
Speaker 6: I love Jimmy smith Man and so, uh, you know,
Speaker 6: we just he just sat there and wrapped and just
Speaker 6: talked about jazz and still then it was still not
Speaker 6: like you know, just I was just geeking out. We
Speaker 6: didn't really have any real meaningful conversation. So I think
Speaker 6: everything finally took shape. Uh. Right after that, I said, okay,
Speaker 6: I got to stop all this all this fan stuff
Speaker 6: and actually come up with something. What do I want
Speaker 6: to do with James Brown? What's my dream? I said? Well,
Speaker 6: I know I'm not going to ever be in his band.
Speaker 6: He's not going to ask me to do that. I'm
Speaker 6: not sure do it. I don't know, man, just just
Speaker 6: I've heard too much. Yeah, I mean I'm like, you know,
Speaker 6: I mean it was almost like you told me, because
Speaker 6: I remember once asking you had you ever met MJ.
Speaker 6: And You're like, yeah, nah, I'd rather just right. Well,
Speaker 6: I thought, if I have, If James Brown actually ever
Speaker 6: in the in the unlikely event he actually did call
Speaker 6: me to join his band, I'm thinking, what would I do.
Speaker 6: I was like, I just don't know, man, I don't
Speaker 6: want to be putting on them red red tails every
Speaker 6: night and in blue times and uh ms High asked
Speaker 6: me that one time, and she said, would you join
Speaker 6: the band of James Brown? Asked you? And I went,
Speaker 6: she said you better not yes, ma'am Okay. So anyhow,
Speaker 6: I said, I want to do a jazz project with
Speaker 6: James Brown because I know how much he loved jazz.
Speaker 6: He's always name dropping the jazz cats. Uh, maybe we
Speaker 6: could do that soul on top record live he did
Speaker 6: this really uh with it soulo and something. Yeah, because
Speaker 6: I figured I would. I figured he wouldn't do it
Speaker 6: unless I let him do that. You know, that's right,
Speaker 6: no matter what song on the actual key is in
Speaker 6: you know, so down, I said, let me ask James
Speaker 6: Brown if he'll be interested in doing soul on top
Speaker 6: with a big band. You know, I would write new
Speaker 6: arrangements of his favorite jazz standards and he could play
Speaker 6: organ and sing, you know, and uh, it would be
Speaker 6: like a soul on top two point. Oh. You know,
Speaker 6: so I'll go back to writing letters. You know, so
Speaker 6: writing on these letters, send them to his office. I'm thinking, okay, yeah,
Speaker 6: I know letters are kind of kind of effective, but
Speaker 6: not really, you know, keep sending the letters, keep sending
Speaker 6: them letters. And uh, finally he came to New York.
Speaker 6: This is in ninety seven, and mister Simmons sees me again.
Speaker 6: I'm backstage head Radio City and uh, mister Simmons says, oh,
Speaker 6: mister Brown, mister McBride is here. You remember mister McBride, right,
Speaker 6: And James Brown said, yes, I do, mister soul on top.
Speaker 6: And that's when I realized he had started getting these letters,
Speaker 6: and so he invited, uh, he invited me out to
Speaker 6: dinner with his entourage that night. So now now the
Speaker 6: rubber's hitting the hitting the ground, you know.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 6: Oxtails, that's right, the oxtails and Champagne. I love it,
Speaker 6: I love it, I love it. We went to Victor's
Speaker 6: Cafe on fifty second and Broadway. He ordered oxtails all around.
Speaker 6: He ain't ask anybody what they want everybody that's the
Speaker 6: song say. Oh man. So uh, that night we actually
Speaker 6: started talking about maybe doing the Soul on Top project
Speaker 6: and uh. A couple of months later, actually a couple
Speaker 6: of weeks later, because this was Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving to ninety seven,
Speaker 6: I'm sorry ninety six. He invited me down to Augusta
Speaker 6: for his Christmas party and I said, oh man, I
Speaker 6: can't believe how good this is going. I'm like, I'm
Speaker 6: in the James Brown crew. This is trippy. And things
Speaker 6: went really bad at the Christmas party. Wait, let me
Speaker 6: get it ready right there you go. Yeah. So I'm
Speaker 6: sitting there at the party hanging with Mouseie because that
Speaker 6: was my dog. He was my entry into the James
Speaker 6: Brown What year is this? This was? This was Christmas
Speaker 6: of ninety ninety six. Oh wow. And I'm sitting there
Speaker 6: at this table with Mousie and Martha Hyde and Danny
Speaker 6: Ray all these people sitting at the table and James
Speaker 6: was he was cool. You know. When I got there,
Speaker 6: he was like, Miss McBride, wasn't an Augusta glad to
Speaker 6: have you his son? Love everything you do. You know,
Speaker 6: thank you, sir. Get to the end of the party.
Speaker 6: We're all taking pictures and I'm sitting there posing with
Speaker 6: mister Brown and Miss High and just before the camera clicks,
Speaker 6: James Brown leans over. He says, so, I'm empty you son.
Speaker 6: I know what you're doing. You can't fool me. I said,
Speaker 6: what are you talking about, mister Brown? Nah, I don't
Speaker 6: get me that. I know what you're doing. I got
Speaker 6: my eye. You trying to infiltrate my organization. Oh you
Speaker 6: trying to take Miss High and my drummer from me.
Speaker 6: Mister Brown, what you're talking about? You know? And then
Speaker 6: he like kind of walks off like pisted right, and
Speaker 6: I thought he was playing right. And so I looked
Speaker 6: at Martha How I was like, uh, you want to
Speaker 6: help me out? You know. She was like, I don't.
Speaker 6: Don't pay him no mind. You know, he's just tripping.
Speaker 6: I was like, I don't know, he looks he looks
Speaker 6: really mad. And so, uh, I tell Malsie what happened.
Speaker 6: I'm freaked out, like my childhood heroes pissed at me, right,
Speaker 6: and so uh he was like, oh, man, don't worry
Speaker 6: about Brown. You know, see you're just getting in too close.
Speaker 6: I said, yeah, apparently, so you know, And so I
Speaker 6: call him on the phone a couple of weeks later.
Speaker 6: We're in the new year now, and uh, I said,
Speaker 6: mister Brown, you know, I just wanted to check back
Speaker 6: in make sure everything was cool about that incident at
Speaker 6: the party, and you know about those letters I sent
Speaker 6: you with the sold on top thing. He's like, uh so,
Speaker 6: let me explain something to you. I was like, oh,
Speaker 6: I could just feel it coming. I was like his
Speaker 6: voice was tense, you know. He was like, first of all,
Speaker 6: I ain't making no record with you. He's like, I
Speaker 6: think you got some mixed up son. If we're gonna
Speaker 6: make a record, that it's gonna be my record. I
Speaker 6: don't make no guest appearances on nobody's record. You understand
Speaker 6: this's gonna be a James Brown record. I ain't singing
Speaker 6: on your record. Who you think you are?
Speaker 7: I was like, what your stomach feel like at this moment?
Speaker 7: Like you on the phone, what do you I.
Speaker 6: Was like, I was well, I was I was too
Speaker 6: shocked to feel anything, you know. And he was just like,
Speaker 6: uh uh, you think you're gonna write some arrangements for me?
Speaker 6: So I don't need nobody write no arrangements for me.
Speaker 6: I ain't doing no record with you. Secondly, bullet yeah,
Speaker 6: he was like, I listened to your record all the
Speaker 6: way through, and uh, that record ain't nothing. No, no, no,
Speaker 6: you can't play you can't play no bass. You got
Speaker 6: everybody telling you a great bass player. You can't play
Speaker 6: no bass. In fact, I'm gonna sue you forgetting to it.
Speaker 6: I would have well. I was about to break out
Speaker 6: in tears until he until he went here he says, uh.
Speaker 6: He said, you just like everybody else, you're stealing my
Speaker 6: music and and and trying to get rich. And then
Speaker 6: I was like I had the audacity to stand up
Speaker 6: for myself. I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,
Speaker 6: wait a minute, mister Brown, he said. I said, sir,
Speaker 6: do you have the CD? Because he was like rambling,
Speaker 6: you know, I was like, sir, do you have the
Speaker 6: CD handy. He's like, nah, I don't have it nearby.
Speaker 6: I said, look, when you get the CD, will you
Speaker 6: please open up the liner notes and read the entire
Speaker 6: paragraph I wrote about you. And you know how much
Speaker 6: you've been in inspiration to me and how much Get
Speaker 6: It Together inspired this tune, and you know all this
Speaker 6: other stuff. And it's weird because he paused he went,
Speaker 6: you wrote about me in the line of notes. I said,
Speaker 6: mister Brown, all you have to do is read it.
Speaker 6: He was like, he was like, well, in that case,
Speaker 6: I still love you, but I ain't making no record
Speaker 6: with you. So but see, all of this is so
Speaker 6: strange because a couple of days later, I get a
Speaker 6: call saying mister Brown wants you to perform at his
Speaker 6: birthday bash. And I'm like, Yo, this is trippy, and
Speaker 6: I'm thinking I should say no because I don't want
Speaker 6: this drama, you know, but I'm an idiot. So I
Speaker 6: took the gig, right. I said, I'm gonna go down
Speaker 6: and play with James Brown for his birthday bash because
Speaker 6: he asked me, right, and so I go this. This
Speaker 6: is May of ninety seven. He had me play with
Speaker 6: some house band down there and at the Bell Auditorium
Speaker 6: where the Sex Machine album was made. And so when
Speaker 6: I get there, Mossie, you know it was it was
Speaker 6: funny because like the whole band was like, yo, man,
Speaker 6: we heard what happened. Sorry, you know, we told you
Speaker 6: he's crazy man, you know. And so Mossie said, man,
Speaker 6: Brown is backstage, you want to say hi, wish you
Speaker 6: may happy birthday. I was like, all right, I guess
Speaker 6: I'll go with torture. I know, right, So I go
Speaker 6: back to say say hello and wish my happy birthday.
Speaker 6: I was like, happy birthday, mister Brown, Miss McBride, great
Speaker 6: to see you. So what song you're gonna play tonight?
Speaker 6: You're gonna play that song you stole from me? And
Speaker 6: so I was just like, you know what, I should
Speaker 6: go to the airport right now, but no, but no, right,
Speaker 6: I gotta I gotta be loyal. And so h I
Speaker 6: played my one little song. And at the end of
Speaker 6: the night, James Brown up on stage. He says, uh, ladies,
Speaker 6: y'all want you to give a big round clause all
Speaker 6: of the performance this evening. Uh let's hear it for
Speaker 6: the Blues Brothers. Uh, let's hear it for Kenny Wayne Shepherd.
Speaker 6: Uh Kenny Wynd and the Blues Brothers. Is here for
Speaker 6: Eddie Floyd, brother Eddie Floyd. Uh let's hear for mother
Speaker 6: of two? Uh what Yeah, it was out. Let's hear
Speaker 6: for my daughter Yama. Uh let's hear for Roosevelt Johnson.
Speaker 6: And so he left me out. And so this is
Speaker 6: when I knew that Martha Hyde and and Mousie were
Speaker 6: real friends. Mousie I was waving the sticks like even
Speaker 6: as herd as I am at this point like beyond insulted,
Speaker 6: like I donet got cussed out by the man, threatened
Speaker 6: to be sued, told me I couldn't play. Toy wasn't shit.
Speaker 6: Even with Mouseie going like this, I'm backstage looking at
Speaker 6: Mousie like, don't don't you get yourself fired? No, stop it.
Speaker 6: So Molseie's playing, He's like mister Brown, mister Brown. Martha
Speaker 6: High physically walks up to James Brown in the middle
Speaker 6: of his ranting and like James b said, oh Lord,
Speaker 6: have mercy, I forgot How could I forget the great
Speaker 6: Christian McBride, Oh please forgive me the fugus bass player
Speaker 6: in the world. And and Martha Hyde looks back, She's like,
Speaker 6: you know, I got you. I was like all crazy,
Speaker 6: and so at that point I had no contact with
Speaker 6: James Brown for nine years. I ran into him on
Speaker 6: the road somewhere and I was just kind of like, yo,
Speaker 6: what's happening? You know, kept walking. But in two thousand
Speaker 6: and five I was named the creative chair for the
Speaker 6: La Philharmonic for their Jazz series my job was to
Speaker 6: curate twelve jazz concerts every season, eight at the Hollywood
Speaker 6: Bowl and for at Walt Disney Concert Hall. And so
Speaker 6: I said, with this new position, I got to at
Speaker 6: least see if I can make this happen. I said,
Speaker 6: nine years should be long enough. And so I called
Speaker 6: Charles Bobbitt, the late Charles Bobbitt, and I said, mister Bobbitt,
Speaker 6: you know I'm doing this thing with the La phil Harmonic.
Speaker 6: I'm curating shows at the Hollywood Bowl. And you know,
Speaker 6: I won't know if mister Brown would be interested in
Speaker 6: doing a jazz big band concert. And he's like, oh yeah,
Speaker 6: I don't know. You know, it might be hard to
Speaker 6: make that happen, but let me put the word in.
Speaker 6: See what happens. By the week later, Charles Bobbitt called
Speaker 6: me back. He said, mister Brown said it's a green light.
Speaker 6: What did you believe it? I actually did believe it
Speaker 6: because when he came to New York, mister bob says,
Speaker 6: we want to meet with you at at our hotel.
Speaker 6: It's hard for me to say what hotel they stayed at.
Speaker 6: It starts with a T, but uh he said, yeah,
Speaker 6: you know that that guy in the White House. Yeah,
Speaker 6: but yeah, come by there and uh and we'll talk
Speaker 6: about it. So that's when I knew serious. I said, man,
Speaker 6: James Brown, we're actually going to do this. So on
Speaker 6: September sixth, two thousand and six, three months before, months
Speaker 6: before he died, yep, we played at the Hollywood Bowl.
Speaker 6: James Brown, how much rehearsal went into that. We had
Speaker 6: pretty much just one one full day of rehearsals at
Speaker 6: Center staging out in Burbank, and we only wound up
Speaker 6: doing I think he sang five songs, five or six
Speaker 6: songs with the big band, and then he did Man's World,
Speaker 6: I Feel Good and Sex Machine with his own So
Speaker 6: it was the stage was was packed because his entire
Speaker 6: band was on this side of the stage. The big
Speaker 6: band was on this side of the stage. A string
Speaker 6: section was in the middle, and we had a drum
Speaker 6: perch for Louis Belson because we had him come out
Speaker 6: and play one song with us since he was on
Speaker 6: the original song on top album. So you love Risks, man,
Speaker 6: There's there's a risk with older cats that you know,
Speaker 6: Lord knows I know that. I mean, you got a
Speaker 6: nuance it perfectly. It's not hurt their feelings even when
Speaker 6: they're wrong, they're right, that's so. And he never sued
Speaker 6: you though he never you didn't even remember.
Speaker 1: The angels talking, all right, So I nominate Chris the
Speaker 1: second to h d N used to be repeat guests
Speaker 1: because I knew you got yeah, this is this is
Speaker 1: gotta be it fifty more we have not yeah, we
Speaker 1: even cracked the surface.
Speaker 6: Well see bro, you first of all, I will always
Speaker 6: say it on the record and off the record, but man,
Speaker 6: so proud to call you my homeboy and my friend.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 6: You you breaking barriers left and right. Man, so proud
Speaker 6: of you. I'm trying to keep up with you. Man,
Speaker 6: and I still and I still remember. One of my
Speaker 6: favorite slang terminologies was one of his dad coined, uh,
Speaker 6: and that was cake cake. I never heard anybody use
Speaker 6: cake for money.
Speaker 1: Money before that was that was your pop can white man.
Speaker 1: I got nineteen jobs, Man, you're going and get some cake, yo, Chris.
Speaker 6: I thank you for coming on the show man, Thanks
Speaker 6: for having me.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 6: Yo, Man, this only beginning. I got shared on my
Speaker 6: freestyle and next time next go around, you.
Speaker 1: Would have it yes or v apple font tickeloaf, unpaid
Speaker 1: and uh Boss Bill. Yes, I wanted to say very
Speaker 1: paid Bill and Sugar Steve. This is Questlove Quest Love
Speaker 1: Supreme and we'll see you on the next go round.
Speaker 6: Thank you, West.
Speaker 1: Love Supreme is a production of My Heart Radio. This
Speaker 1: classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.