Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. What's Up.
Speaker 2: It's June and that means it's Black Music Month, and
Speaker 2: every year on Questlove Supreme and now The Quest Love Show,
Speaker 2: we honor it by bringing you an episode every day
Speaker 2: that celebrates black music, it's history and its impact. My
Speaker 2: team and I have selected episodes from our archive that
Speaker 2: we feel are specially relevant to the celebration, offering history,
Speaker 2: insight and.
Speaker 3: A little fun along the way.
Speaker 2: So be on the lookout for four brand new episodes
Speaker 2: throughout June, each connected to the past, president future of
Speaker 2: black music.
Speaker 3: We're going to highlight.
Speaker 2: Trail blazers, innovators, cultural conduits, and revolutionaries whose word continues
Speaker 2: to shape.
Speaker 1: The world around us. Happy June, Happy Black Music Month.
Speaker 3: Yo Yo, what's up?
Speaker 1: Y'alli?
Speaker 3: Is Fonte Fontigelow with this week's K Classic. Back in
Speaker 3: December twenty.
Speaker 4: Twenty, we interview my man jazz legend Branford Marcellus. You're
Speaker 4: gonna hear me laughing a lot in this episode because
Speaker 4: Brandon is the rat. He holds nothing back, he don't
Speaker 4: sugarcoat shit, and he is also wrapping my alma mater,
Speaker 4: ncc go filand the City University Eagle pride up in
Speaker 4: this thing. We have Overlappentie and this is just a
Speaker 4: guy that I truly just love and just admire his work.
Speaker 4: And we had a great time in this episode. Y'all
Speaker 4: enjoyed it?
Speaker 2: All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of
Speaker 2: Quest Love Supreme, your host Quest Love.
Speaker 1: We have Teams Supreme with us. We're right heelers. So
Speaker 1: this was he quieter episode, like he is on vacation.
Speaker 3: He took us.
Speaker 4: He's taking a pandemic vacation, a pandemic pandemication.
Speaker 1: All right, so we got a sugar Steve and I
Speaker 1: paid Bill.
Speaker 5: How's going live from the street.
Speaker 2: I saw your anniversary photo on Sesame Street today on Twitter,
Speaker 2: So congratulations.
Speaker 3: Or made congratulations on.
Speaker 5: Eleven.
Speaker 2: Dang oh year eleven for you, but fifty for the
Speaker 2: institution of Sesame Street.
Speaker 6: I get it.
Speaker 7: I said before that I hadn't held a job for
Speaker 7: like fifty hours, so it's good I can have that one.
Speaker 2: Well, bruh, I'm proud of you. I'm super proud of you,
Speaker 2: ladies and gentlemen. Uh, what can I say? Our guests
Speaker 2: really doesn't need any introduction, but he's so legendary. You know,
Speaker 2: this gentleman is part of one of the probably one
Speaker 2: of the most important musical dynasties music, second to the Jacksons.
Speaker 1: Yo, I mean yo, man, accept your flowers, yo.
Speaker 2: Like no cat, no cat, real takey flowers right now.
Speaker 2: He's trying to stop me already, you know. Saxophonist, Uh,
Speaker 2: jazz historian, hip hop aficionado, actor, late night band leader, composer, conductor, scorer, everything. Uh,
Speaker 2: this this, this, this man is a true renaissance gentlemen.
Speaker 2: We're very honored to have him on the show. Please
Speaker 2: welcome be great brand from Marcellos to Quest lof Supreme.
Speaker 1: Sir, Yes, how's it? Where are you right now? North Carolina?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 3: Okay, you're right round the way from me. I'm in Raleigh. Wow,
Speaker 3: all right, I didn't know if you were still in
Speaker 3: the area. I saw you. I think we saw each other.
Speaker 4: It was on a flight. This has been like pre
Speaker 4: rona times we saw you on a flight and run
Speaker 4: it to you for real.
Speaker 3: Right, But that's what's up.
Speaker 2: Okay, So you're you're still at You're teaching at NC
Speaker 2: State Central.
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 6: How many?
Speaker 1: How many?
Speaker 5: I one day?
Speaker 2: I want I want someone to properly explained to me.
Speaker 2: All the North Carolina institutions.
Speaker 6: North Carolina State is in Raleigh, is an engineering school
Speaker 6: in the triangle alone, I think we have.
Speaker 1: Three HBCUs, Shaw, Saint All and NCCU.
Speaker 2: Yes, North Carolina Central. I see, And how how long
Speaker 2: you've been at North Carolina Central?
Speaker 1: Since two thousand and five?
Speaker 6: I think?
Speaker 1: And what are you teaching there right now? Music?
Speaker 5: That's economics right right?
Speaker 6: You know, it's actually more of a philosophy course than
Speaker 6: anything else. It's not really a course, it's just how
Speaker 6: to think in musical terms.
Speaker 1: That's cool, Okay.
Speaker 2: Since since you've been there for fifteen years, do you
Speaker 2: find is it harder each increasing year to get people
Speaker 2: to understand a point of view of music that might
Speaker 2: have seemed easier, say when if you were teaching a
Speaker 2: class of like say nineteen ninety six, nineteen ninety seven,
Speaker 2: that's closer to the music that you were involved in,
Speaker 2: as opposed to dealing with gen Z in their way
Speaker 2: of life?
Speaker 1: Or are they teaching you? There was a point where
Speaker 1: I was teaching.
Speaker 2: My students, and then the last year of school, I
Speaker 2: slowly realized, oh, they're teaching me, And that was scary
Speaker 2: to me, right, but it's.
Speaker 6: Always in exchange. I teach them more than that they
Speaker 6: teach me. But almost all of the kids that are
Speaker 6: at the school are from the North Carolina area, and
Speaker 6: they all basically come out of the church. Okay, so
Speaker 6: their exposure to jazz per se is when they get
Speaker 6: to the school. Can grow up playing jazz and grow
Speaker 6: up listening to it.
Speaker 1: And I enjoy that.
Speaker 6: I enjoy that. And the goal is not to create
Speaker 6: jazz musicians, but to use jazz's kind of a template
Speaker 6: to develop a thought process regardless of what style of
Speaker 6: music you end up playing. Most of our students that
Speaker 6: are doing well don't play jazz.
Speaker 1: And that's that's okay with you. No, I'm horrified. It's terrible.
Speaker 3: What what's hard fining about it?
Speaker 1: What making I'm learning every bit.
Speaker 6: What I did for twenty years of my life. No,
Speaker 6: I can't.
Speaker 1: I get that. But people arrive at a different place
Speaker 1: in their life at different points in our life. And no,
Speaker 1: but I'm at a different place in my life. Okay.
Speaker 6: It doesn't mean that everybody else needs to be in
Speaker 6: a place.
Speaker 1: Where I am. All Right, I got to ask the
Speaker 1: hard questions I.
Speaker 6: Was talking to the students today, and it was about that.
Speaker 6: It was about like how I'm like, I'm sixty now,
Speaker 6: so I don't listen to the same music that I
Speaker 6: did when I was thirty, and I definitely would listen
Speaker 6: to it in the same way, Okay, And the idea,
Speaker 6: and the idea isn't a question of liking or hating.
Speaker 6: It's just just like, at various points of your life,
Speaker 6: without gradually knowing it, without knowing it, you very gradually
Speaker 6: just move away from things.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that you hate them, you just just
Speaker 1: move away from it.
Speaker 4: What's an example of something you listen to, say, when
Speaker 4: you were thirty, and you listen to now and you
Speaker 4: hear it in a different way. What's different about it?
Speaker 1: Oh? No, it depends on what it is. Okay.
Speaker 6: If I'm listening to like one of those old show
Speaker 6: biz in ag records, yess r, it sounds like it
Speaker 6: did then. I mean, it's not like, oh no, oh,
Speaker 6: I didn't never heard that before, you know, or one
Speaker 6: of like Premier's records, or just stuff that I was around,
Speaker 6: you know, Public Enemy or KRS. Just that whole style,
Speaker 6: Like what is hip hop now? It's like vastly different
Speaker 6: in general from what it was back then. Oh, you
Speaker 6: got to tell me right now, this is a whole
Speaker 6: different kind of thing. So when I hear it, it's like, oh,
Speaker 6: it brings me back to that time, and I enjoy it,
Speaker 6: but like like unlike a lot.
Speaker 1: Of my friends from high school, and they openly tease
Speaker 1: me about it, and I tease them. I am the
Speaker 1: person least likely that listens to listen to seventies classic.
Speaker 6: R and B radio.
Speaker 1: Okay, you know I did that, and I was there
Speaker 1: and I loved it, and then I move on to
Speaker 1: this other thing and I.
Speaker 6: Keep moving forward, even if the music is one hundred
Speaker 6: years old is new to me. I get exposed to
Speaker 6: things and I try not to. And it's not like
Speaker 6: I'm cool with nostalgia. If it comes on, I'm gonna
Speaker 6: listen to it and go, man, I love that, but
Speaker 6: I'm not going to actively put that on.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think the playlist, like culture now, the way
Speaker 4: people consume me music has really kind of made that
Speaker 4: even more pronounced because now there's really no such thing
Speaker 4: as music. There's no such thing as old music or
Speaker 4: new music. It's just either you know it or you don't.
Speaker 4: So if I'm listening to a playlist and it's a
Speaker 4: song on there from twenty fifteen. I don't know, you
Speaker 4: know what I mean. I could have been yesterday, you
Speaker 4: know what I mean.
Speaker 2: And I guess the temptation to not go to your
Speaker 2: default place, Like right now, I'm really trying to force
Speaker 2: myself to not go to the playlist I curate, because
Speaker 2: I'm gonna I fall in a rabbit hole of just
Speaker 2: the stuff that I'm used to And you know, I'm
Speaker 2: trying to discover new music and I'm kind of running
Speaker 2: the wells getting a little dry right now.
Speaker 1: So I don't know.
Speaker 2: There's a few friends that I trust in their playlist
Speaker 2: and I'll sneaker on their spotify is to see what
Speaker 2: they got, and you know, I might discover like five
Speaker 2: or six new songs I have. But now that the
Speaker 2: wells getting dry, like the temptation to just not go
Speaker 2: to my default comfort zone is that's a scary thing now,
Speaker 2: Like I'm running out of mute that I don't know about,
Speaker 2: and that's that's a scary thing to me because I
Speaker 2: know there's much more out there.
Speaker 4: What's the difference. I'll be curious to know. Branth or
Speaker 4: your take on what is the difference between music? What
Speaker 4: would you say is the difference between music that is
Speaker 4: challenging versus something that you just don't like, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean? Like Amir was talking about, you know,
Speaker 4: kind of getting out of your comfort zone. But where
Speaker 4: is that line for you between Okay, this is something
Speaker 4: that's challenging me a little bit versus this is just
Speaker 4: something that I just ain't I ain't really rocking with.
Speaker 6: Well, for me, the musicians have to sound like they're
Speaker 6: interacting with one another for me to like it. I
Speaker 6: can kind of tell when records are kind of produced
Speaker 6: in a way that one track was done on Wednesday
Speaker 6: and another track.
Speaker 1: Was done on Thursday. A lot of records are productions
Speaker 1: now right.
Speaker 6: All you have to do is put on just about
Speaker 6: any record in any style from the sixties and compare
Speaker 6: it to now. And there's an organic energy in those
Speaker 6: records because it was human beings in a room.
Speaker 1: That's the stuff that I prefer to listen to.
Speaker 6: But I don't really I don't really get with the like,
Speaker 6: you know, like I don't hear things and go, oh
Speaker 6: you know, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't like that.
Speaker 6: I'll listen to it first and then go, yeah, that's
Speaker 6: not my thing. But challenging music is interesting because it
Speaker 6: goes against kind of the tenets of popular culture. Because
Speaker 6: if it's something that's really challenging, really good, your first
Speaker 6: instinct is not to like it.
Speaker 1: You have to grow to like it. And we don't
Speaker 1: usually give music that much time.
Speaker 6: You know, It's not like it's like it's not like, yeah,
Speaker 6: this shit sucks, I'm gonna put it on tomorrow.
Speaker 3: It's like, no, it sucks. After that first listen, it
Speaker 3: is over.
Speaker 2: I mean, but sometimes I mean I might, I might
Speaker 2: get fomo. There will be something like I'll give an example.
Speaker 2: When the Chronic came out. I hated the Chronic right
Speaker 2: and I said, Yo, this shit sucks, man, hate this ship,
Speaker 2: and but I have FOMO because everyone else had this
Speaker 2: whole fifty million Elvis fans can't be wrong.
Speaker 1: And I felt like, well, what does it mean that's
Speaker 1: not accepting it?
Speaker 2: And I realized that, you know, sonically, doctor Dre was
Speaker 2: taking I wanted my hip hop dirty and nasty and
Speaker 2: kind of like this amateurist uh DIY thing, and he
Speaker 2: just made it sound so clean that you know, it
Speaker 2: took me a good decade to really open up and
Speaker 2: accept that.
Speaker 1: Okay, this is a really great piece of work.
Speaker 6: So it's a lot different than the East Coast sound.
Speaker 1: It really well at that time it was, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: it was I wasn't used to that cleaning cleanliness. You know, Hey,
Speaker 1: where do you where do you fall in your you're brewed?
Speaker 1: And and your brothers? Where do you? Are you the top?
Speaker 1: You're the oldest? Okay?
Speaker 2: So what the question we start with as far as
Speaker 2: like your musical discovery, do you remember the first album
Speaker 2: you ever purchased?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I remember the first two albums ever, pardon what is it?
Speaker 6: The Elton ghen record called Honky Chateau and a record
Speaker 6: by Shawn called The Big Bamboo Smokys told?
Speaker 3: Is that the one with Mona Lisa's and Manhatters on it?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 6: Maybe it did, bablay that's the one with a Honky
Speaker 6: Cat on Okay, okay, wait, maybe Mona Lisas is on
Speaker 6: that record.
Speaker 1: Maybe Mona Lisa's is on that record?
Speaker 4: Well, okay, you'll cover that. That was the first time
Speaker 4: I ever heard that song, Ireat.
Speaker 6: It's like one of them things for when I heard
Speaker 6: it as a kid. I said, one day, when I
Speaker 6: make a record, I'm going to record this song. And
Speaker 6: thirty years later we were sitting there with Premier said, man,
Speaker 6: what are we gonna do? I said, I got an idea.
Speaker 6: I want to do this song. I'll been wanting to
Speaker 6: do it since I was ten. Yeah, we kind of
Speaker 6: sketched out there, you know, the arrangement of it, and
Speaker 6: it was, you know, it probably is, you know, I
Speaker 6: don't that's a long time ago.
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 6: I know the songs, but I don't remember. And I
Speaker 6: had so many eton genre records, I don't know which
Speaker 6: ones was on.
Speaker 1: Which release is on that side too? Yeah, side too
Speaker 1: of that? Oh it's on side to Honky Chateau. Thank you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good record, man. But those are the first
Speaker 1: two records I have a bok.
Speaker 2: Okay, well this I guess I'm just going to dive
Speaker 2: in the fire. I was shocked because, you know, I
Speaker 2: guess the perception that most people have of anyone that
Speaker 2: comes from the Marcella's household is that you guys were
Speaker 2: intravenously breathing, sleeping, and eating anything jazz and nothing else.
Speaker 1: At least, that was the kind of perception that most
Speaker 1: of us have had.
Speaker 6: About That's fair enough because I mean a lot of
Speaker 6: people when you decided to play something that's not popular,
Speaker 6: people try to try to invent an explanation for why
Speaker 6: that is.
Speaker 1: Oh, you know, they've been doing it since they were kids.
Speaker 6: I hated jazz when I was a kid, just did
Speaker 6: not like it at all. Okay, went and started digging
Speaker 6: it when he was about twelve, and I was like, yeah,
Speaker 6: that's nice, man, keep listening to that shit if you
Speaker 6: want to. Yeah, you know that was My dad was
Speaker 6: a jazz musician. He was like, you know, to me,
Speaker 6: no different than the dude. You know, some dads some
Speaker 6: moms are lawyers, some moms some dads of carpenters. My
Speaker 6: dad played music, you know, and it wasn't like, oh, jazz,
Speaker 6: you know. My dad would put on these jazz records.
Speaker 1: I leave the room. So he tried to force like
Speaker 1: King Oliver on you guys, and it's just like, I.
Speaker 6: Don't even know that. He was mostly a post bop dude,
Speaker 6: you know. It's like, you know, all that late forties
Speaker 6: up until when he started having kids and couldn't afford
Speaker 6: to buy records. No more so from late forties to
Speaker 6: sixty that was more his thing, especially Coltran, fifty seven
Speaker 6: Coltrane all the way up to sixty seven Coltrane, and
Speaker 6: that was that was his That was fair.
Speaker 2: My introduction to your dad was via your brother's thank
Speaker 2: you at the Grammy Awards, right, and your your brother
Speaker 2: thanked your dad for forcing him to practice, which sparked
Speaker 2: a fire and my own dad, who was watching, you know,
Speaker 2: that was that was the year that Michael Jackson had.
Speaker 2: That was the year that Michael Jackson had, you know,
Speaker 2: won all those awards, and your brother had won for
Speaker 2: Classical in Jazz, and that was like kind of his
Speaker 2: his arrival party. And that moment was such a profound
Speaker 2: That was one of the worst moments of my life
Speaker 2: in eighty four. And my dad will say that was
Speaker 2: the most profound moment of his life because that's when
Speaker 2: he was like, all right, you're now going to come
Speaker 2: straight home after school and start practicing four.
Speaker 1: To five hours every day.
Speaker 6: Feel and so what.
Speaker 2: Like, was was practice mandatory in this household or was
Speaker 2: it just like, at what point were you guys to
Speaker 2: take your missicians?
Speaker 6: Well, specifically you as the oldest like that knows how
Speaker 6: to tell a good story. I mean, my dad didn't
Speaker 6: make anybody practice.
Speaker 2: Man, don't tell me that I freaking sacrificed my damn
Speaker 2: wife off of up in legend.
Speaker 6: Yep.
Speaker 1: Fuck it worked out well for yours. Don't worry about
Speaker 1: getting hurt.
Speaker 2: Man. This is this is this is worse than finding
Speaker 2: out the Sugarfoot Love roller Coaster scream wasn't a real thing.
Speaker 3: It wasn't real.
Speaker 1: I went up to him like, hey, wasn't a really
Speaker 1: stop boy, that wasn't a real thing.
Speaker 6: Yeah, y'all heard that. Yeah, it's actually it was actually
Speaker 6: FOP that was that girl getting murdered. No, I'm telling you,
Speaker 6: people think it's Love roller coaster. At the end of
Speaker 6: FOP on on side to was that murderous scream, and
Speaker 6: it was just there's this one I Love roller coaster too,
Speaker 6: in the second half after they break it down.
Speaker 1: There's the worst one on FIP. Trust me, I haven't
Speaker 1: heard the one on FU Yes, And I was just
Speaker 1: listening to a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 6: Man, I did a nostalgia run because for my kids,
Speaker 6: because they ain't never heard none of that stuff.
Speaker 1: They never heard it.
Speaker 5: Okay, okay, so your career is based off of a
Speaker 5: win Marceals Live. So there you go.
Speaker 1: Regularly. No, Winton was very self motivated. He practiced three
Speaker 1: hours a day on his own, and he did just
Speaker 1: three I was five.
Speaker 6: Well, Winton, he was an interesting specimen. He was a
Speaker 6: national a merit scholar, so you know, he had like
Speaker 6: you know, he got free ride scholarships from Stanford and
Speaker 6: from Harvard and all these places because he was academically.
Speaker 1: On the top of it.
Speaker 6: He was a national amrit scholar. And he would have
Speaker 6: to practice in increments. The practiced by half an hour
Speaker 6: day in the morning before school, and we would come
Speaker 6: home for lunch. We're practice a half an hour between lunch.
Speaker 6: Then we would go to the music school because we
Speaker 6: at this interesting thing. We had to go to academic
Speaker 6: school from eight to twelve.
Speaker 1: And the music school from one to six. So then
Speaker 1: we went to the New Orleans Andenter of Creative Arts.
Speaker 1: And you practice for an hour or so at school
Speaker 1: in between classes.
Speaker 6: It adds up to an hour, and then at home
Speaker 6: he practiced for an hour after the homework and then
Speaker 6: repeat that cycle every day. I was impressed, and I'm
Speaker 6: glad it wasn't but I was impressed. So what were
Speaker 6: you doing during this time here? Because I mean I
Speaker 6: was learning Bob. I was listening to Parliament Funkadelic, the Barcades.
Speaker 6: I was fourteen years old. I was in a R
Speaker 6: and B band with a bunch of men who had jobs.
Speaker 6: So I was basically the piano player in that band,
Speaker 6: and I was learning all the songs that wanted the
Speaker 6: radio and all their parts because they had real jobs.
Speaker 6: So I promised them, like when we had practice on Thursday,
Speaker 6: I wouldn't know all their parts too, so they wouldn't
Speaker 6: have to deal with it then, because if because what
Speaker 6: I noticed when I joined the band, we were playing
Speaker 6: like the same ten songs every week, you know, the
Speaker 6: Love I Lost, Wake Up Everybody. And I was like, man,
Speaker 6: are we going to do anything else? And they're like,
Speaker 6: we got real jobs. We ain't got no time for
Speaker 6: that shit. So I said, all right, I'll learn the songs.
Speaker 1: I learned the songs.
Speaker 6: I would learn all the songs that would hear a
Speaker 6: song on the radio. I go by the forty five
Speaker 6: ninety nine cents. Learned the songs and they didn't read music,
Speaker 6: so it's not like I write a chart. So I
Speaker 6: would learn the bassline, the guitar part, everybody's parks, and
Speaker 6: then I would sing the parts, didn't if they were
Speaker 6: questionable about anything.
Speaker 1: And my mother was pissed.
Speaker 6: She was like, you know, they just using you.
Speaker 1: And my Dad's like, man, that's good here training to
Speaker 1: lead the boy alone. Let him do it. So after
Speaker 1: about a year of doing that, it was hard at first.
Speaker 6: By the time I was fifteen, I could learn the
Speaker 6: song off the radio as it was coming off the radio,
Speaker 6: because you know, the whole point of those songs is
Speaker 6: that they're not hard to listen to.
Speaker 1: That's part of the appeal. So you just start writing
Speaker 1: the chord charts right there.
Speaker 6: They didn't read.
Speaker 1: I was nobody in the band read but me and
Speaker 1: my brother. So no, I wasn't writing nothing down.
Speaker 6: I was just learning songs and telling them what the
Speaker 6: notes were and singing the bassline, sing the guitar part.
Speaker 1: We put the forty five on.
Speaker 6: I bring the forty five to practice, put them on,
Speaker 6: and we learned songs that way, and that way we
Speaker 6: could play.
Speaker 1: More of a variety of songs.
Speaker 2: What was the level of musician, Like, I'm assuming this
Speaker 2: is New Orleans, correct, as in New Orleans, all right,
Speaker 2: So what was the level of musician, especially funk musicianship
Speaker 2: can I assume that for every meters there were forty
Speaker 2: other bands.
Speaker 1: That could kick their ass that we just never heard
Speaker 1: of or.
Speaker 6: They all know meters special man, okay, needed special There
Speaker 6: were you know, there were a lot of good bands
Speaker 6: in New.
Speaker 1: Orleans either meters, come on, that was something else.
Speaker 6: I mean we would always go and check them out.
Speaker 6: And there was a place called the Labor Union Hall
Speaker 6: on North Clayborne Street and they be playing that for
Speaker 6: five bucks, you know. So here the meters. Yeah, I
Speaker 6: was some special ship man, you know. And that's the
Speaker 6: music from their neighborhood. I grew up in their neighborhood.
Speaker 6: I grew ab up town. So I mean they you know,
Speaker 6: their neighborhood, they had that thing. But there were a
Speaker 6: lot of great musicians in town. You know, a lot
Speaker 6: of great musicians. We had brass band musicians, we had
Speaker 6: jazz musicians, we had trad musicians, R and B musicians,
Speaker 6: rock and roll musicians, R and B musicians. We had
Speaker 6: that New Orleans flunk.
Speaker 1: Like Professor long Hair and all that stuff. Yeah, Professor
Speaker 1: long Hair.
Speaker 6: And then then his his descendant was a James Jones,
Speaker 6: James doctor John too. See, by the time I was
Speaker 6: conscious Doc Mackett already moved to La body.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, gotcha.
Speaker 1: Mac gone by the time, like in the seventies.
Speaker 6: My my musical consciousness starts around nineteen seventy seventy one,
Speaker 6: and Macott already moved to La and you know he
Speaker 6: was doing like was that song that a big hit?
Speaker 6: Right place, wrong time, right wrong time?
Speaker 1: You know, And my dad would laugh whenever it came on.
Speaker 1: He goes, man, let's know, Mac, that's great.
Speaker 6: And that's what I loved about ving from war, like
Speaker 6: we didn't have you know, when I moved to New
Speaker 6: York and suddenly they were like jazz camp over here,
Speaker 6: r and b camp over here. But in New Orleans,
Speaker 6: I mean it's such a small city. All the musicians
Speaker 6: was just in there. So anytime anybody did well, everybody cheered.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Really in wait, Philly is that way too, though? No, No,
Speaker 1: we're the worst fans of all time. So come about
Speaker 1: as the musicians.
Speaker 6: Musicians and what with my outsider interpretation of Philly musicians
Speaker 6: don't really they don't, they don't.
Speaker 1: They're like the cross genre really easily. They're not trying
Speaker 1: to be especialist in a category.
Speaker 8: That's my perception in the little time that I spent there, Okay,
Speaker 8: because in New York it's very territorial and I kind
Speaker 8: of laughed at them, but uh, you know, New Orleans
Speaker 8: was just great that way.
Speaker 2: So if you're saying that at the time when you
Speaker 2: were in this band, how old were you were you
Speaker 2: like fourteen fifteen?
Speaker 6: I was twelve, so seven nineteen seventy two?
Speaker 1: Wait, how old were they? If you were twelve? There
Speaker 1: were men bad jobs? Oh okay.
Speaker 2: At this point, are you saying that this is what
Speaker 2: you want to do or I know what I wanted
Speaker 2: to be? So when did you take your musicianship seriously?
Speaker 1: I took that shit seriously then, but it didn't mean
Speaker 1: that I wanted to do it. Okay, you know, think
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 6: You know, it's like, you know, it's like playing sports.
Speaker 6: I tried to play football. I took it seriously. I sucked.
Speaker 1: I wasn't gonna be nobody's football player.
Speaker 6: But it's not like, well, I'm I'm not gonna take
Speaker 6: it seriously since I'm not gonna play it in college.
Speaker 6: I'm not gonna play in the NFL. It's just like,
Speaker 6: you know, you got there, try to play you out there? Trunk.
Speaker 1: So I was in this band, and I.
Speaker 6: Took it very seriously. I learned everybody learned everybody's damn parts.
Speaker 1: I's definitely not taking it seriously.
Speaker 6: I was like a musical director and I was thirteen,
Speaker 6: so you know, I took it very seriously.
Speaker 1: And I was prepared, and I learned all these songs
Speaker 1: and I did all my stuff, and that was where
Speaker 1: my head was, you know.
Speaker 6: And then went got Clifford Brown and classical music, and
Speaker 6: I thought it was great.
Speaker 1: I played classical music when I was younger. I play
Speaker 1: clarinet in.
Speaker 6: The youth orchestra. Right, I remember this is actually the
Speaker 6: most well it's as an old man, it's pathetic.
Speaker 1: As a young person, it's it's probably a very common story.
Speaker 1: Every said when you switch to play saxophone.
Speaker 6: I said, I was thirteen years old and I saw
Speaker 6: these girls and it was like the first time that
Speaker 6: I saw girls, and I went, damn, they fun. So
Speaker 6: they walking and I'm like filing behind them because I
Speaker 6: don't know what to do. And they walked into a
Speaker 6: dance and I went in and there was a band player,
Speaker 6: you know, And I looked in and I saw the
Speaker 6: band and I said, I got joined one of those bands,
Speaker 6: so I can mean girls. So I went home and
Speaker 6: said I want a saxophone. Said so I joined the band,
Speaker 6: and my dad laughed and said okay, whatever.
Speaker 1: That's you know. And then Christmas I got in saxophone.
Speaker 1: I was already in the band playing piano. I didn't
Speaker 1: want to play piano.
Speaker 6: I wanted to play saxophone in the band. So when
Speaker 6: I was fourteen, I convinced this friend of mine, Kerman Campbell,
Speaker 6: who's a really great piano player, because I was. I
Speaker 6: was not a great I was a functional piano player,
Speaker 6: you know, three note chords, the whole thing. I got Kerman,
Speaker 6: who was in this other band. I think it was
Speaker 6: like jam incorporator. I said, man, come join the creators
Speaker 6: man and he thought I was trying to double where
Speaker 6: and say, wait a minute, man, you played piano. I said,
Speaker 6: not really, I.
Speaker 1: Don't play the vienna. You're the vienna player. You should
Speaker 1: come join the band.
Speaker 6: Because I want to get a horn section because we
Speaker 6: had one horn player. John Roche was the trumpet player.
Speaker 6: Said I want to get a horn section, and I
Speaker 6: want to get me on alto and went into the
Speaker 6: other trumpet and we have this three piece horn section. Great,
Speaker 6: I don't know, bro, I don't know. I said, come on,
Speaker 6: Kerman and he did it. So then I played saxophone
Speaker 6: in the band and Kermit took over there. And then
Speaker 6: Kermit is a really musically knowledgeable guy. You know, he
Speaker 6: played in church.
Speaker 1: So we really got this music thing happening in the band.
Speaker 1: So the bass player was like, Okay, it's getting too
Speaker 1: heavy for me.
Speaker 6: I'm just gonna be the manager. Why don't you'll go
Speaker 6: get a better back.
Speaker 1: What the hell?
Speaker 6: Wow?
Speaker 1: He was right.
Speaker 6: I mean we were going to step the fire him
Speaker 6: if he didn't do that anyway, and he saw it.
Speaker 6: So he became the manager of the band and we
Speaker 6: got the Hamilton brothers. The drummer got mad at me
Speaker 6: and just quit Bertrane and said, you know, who do
Speaker 6: you think you are? Man?
Speaker 1: You know your little punk? I mean, I'm a grown
Speaker 1: ass man.
Speaker 6: I quit.
Speaker 1: Damn great, So he quit, and then we called the
Speaker 1: Hamilton brothers, Shannon and Anthony Hamilton.
Speaker 6: They joined the band, and that was pretty much what
Speaker 6: the band was for a long time. And you, it
Speaker 6: was you and your brother went in this band, me
Speaker 6: and Wynton and John Rochet with a horn section Anthony
Speaker 6: Hamilton on bass, Shannon Hamilton on drums, Michael As on guitar,
Speaker 6: Gavin Bell was the singer, Kermit was the keyboard player.
Speaker 1: Pretty much it.
Speaker 2: Wow, Okay, I'm glad I knew this story again, Like
Speaker 2: I guess my all time profession was that you guys
Speaker 2: were just born with these scepters and capes of want
Speaker 2: jazz world.
Speaker 6: And everybody wants to believe it.
Speaker 1: I don't know why they want to believe it.
Speaker 6: But it's fine.
Speaker 2: So I'm not the only person that comes to you.
Speaker 2: You're already flying, You're already swatting flies. All my questions, I.
Speaker 1: Know, do you know what's coming?
Speaker 6: No, it's just like you know, yeah, it's not true,
Speaker 6: but people need to believe. It's fine, you know, like, yeah,
Speaker 6: we're we're the black Von Trapps. You know, we've been
Speaker 6: singing dead stands over us and says, no, let's do it.
Speaker 6: That's great.
Speaker 2: So you're telling me that, like your brother knows a
Speaker 2: horn line that like pee wee from the Ohio players
Speaker 2: once did in this lifetime.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just refuse to believe that he knows anything
Speaker 1: outside of jazz.
Speaker 6: That. Okay, you're right, he doesn't know it.
Speaker 1: Well, I see that. Well, okay, well explain that to me.
Speaker 1: And I don't want to make this about like you
Speaker 1: can make it about whatever you want. I know that.
Speaker 2: I know it must be tired answering all these questions
Speaker 2: all this time, But you know, I always saw you,
Speaker 2: at least my perception. Again, this is like our first real,
Speaker 2: in depth conversation, and we've casually seen each other passing.
Speaker 1: By or whatever.
Speaker 2: But I mean, I always saw you as the king
Speaker 2: of yes, the king of open I'll do this, and
Speaker 2: i'll do that, and I'll do the other, whereas I
Speaker 2: would see your brother as the polar opposite, which I
Speaker 2: mean I respect it both because I guess in hip
Speaker 2: hop my true heart is kind of close to where
Speaker 2: your brother was, where I like tradition and I like
Speaker 2: people that are well skilled at their talent and that
Speaker 2: sort of thing. But you know, I also understand that
Speaker 2: I'm in a whole another generation now, and what I
Speaker 2: perceive is great might not be what someone born in
Speaker 2: two thousand things is great, So I mean, I get it,
Speaker 2: But like, what made you just.
Speaker 1: Stick to your guns to be open to things that
Speaker 1: we would otherwise think that I didn't have to stick
Speaker 1: to any guns. Went and stuck to his guns. I
Speaker 1: mean I always when I was okay, I'm telling you.
Speaker 6: I played with the creators, I played in youth orchestra,
Speaker 6: I played trad jazz, I played all of these things,
Speaker 6: and uh.
Speaker 1: You know, I mean I liked them and I was
Speaker 1: good at it.
Speaker 6: Went is one of the greatest trumpet players in the world.
Speaker 6: He played funk, but you know he didn't play it
Speaker 6: like you know, he didn't kill it.
Speaker 1: He just played it.
Speaker 6: And he was a great trumpet player. I mean John Roche,
Speaker 6: who was a more natural funk player, was like.
Speaker 1: Bro, I ain't even heard of fucking trumpet. Sound like that?
Speaker 1: What's wrong with him? But Went Lincoln play a.
Speaker 6: Kind of you couldn't even think of. Man just destined
Speaker 6: for other things, and you know it proved to be
Speaker 6: right for him. But for me, I mean I always
Speaker 6: had a knack I mean for playing funk. And I'm
Speaker 6: trying to find his picture. If you see my eyes
Speaker 6: a laundry, somebody.
Speaker 1: Sent me a picture of the band and wow, and
Speaker 1: Went's in it. And I'm trying to find his picture
Speaker 1: so I can send.
Speaker 6: It to you.
Speaker 1: Boy.
Speaker 2: Okay, what is your what's your preferred weapon of choice
Speaker 2: as far as your access concerned.
Speaker 1: And you know Bourbon.
Speaker 2: Well, okay, so I'm asking this only because I know
Speaker 2: that you're proficient on tenor and soprano, and like, no
Speaker 2: disrespect to you know, Sydney pochet Or or Shorter or
Speaker 2: Lacy or whatever. But I was just always on the
Speaker 2: impression that I mean, for like, as has Colturing sort
Speaker 2: of not not ruined the soprano, but has he made
Speaker 2: it a hard mountain to climb for people to pursue
Speaker 2: a career in soprano because you've stuck to soprano.
Speaker 1: No, not really.
Speaker 6: Coltrane wasn't really what I would call a good soprano player.
Speaker 1: What John did was he ran out a room on.
Speaker 6: The tennis, so he picked up the soprano because he
Speaker 6: wanted the notes to get higher. What made winn shortest
Speaker 6: soprano playing fascinating to me was that he didn't play
Speaker 6: the soprano the same way he played the tenor.
Speaker 1: The soprano wasn't a higher extension of his tenor playing.
Speaker 1: He treated it like it was a completely separate instrument.
Speaker 6: And that was the thing that I was more drawn to.
Speaker 6: One of the most incredible soprano players I've ever heard.
Speaker 6: John Coltrane is one of the most incredible tenor saxophone
Speaker 6: players I've ever heard, and he just transferred his tenor
Speaker 6: ship to the soprano because the.
Speaker 1: Tenor wasn't the right sound.
Speaker 6: But bishe, I can play you recordings of the set
Speaker 6: playing in a room in Paris in the thirties and
Speaker 6: you can hear the sound of the instrument.
Speaker 1: Double backing in the room. The sound was so I mean,
Speaker 1: I was like, that's the sound I want.
Speaker 7: So it was harder to find a sound on though
Speaker 7: I feel like the soprano. I grew up a player too,
Speaker 7: and I never got laid playing the clarinet also, and
Speaker 7: I switch like like I found the soprano that I could,
Speaker 7: I'm not you, but like I never found the It
Speaker 7: always it was easier to sound like someone else than
Speaker 7: it was to their own sound. Where I feel like
Speaker 7: the tenor, you're able to create your own sound. Maybe
Speaker 7: that's totally well.
Speaker 6: The thing for me was that when this is how
Speaker 6: I got a soprano was Grogo was playing played the
Speaker 6: soprano right, and I said, damn, I want a soprano.
Speaker 6: So my grandfather said Ramball I'll get you one of
Speaker 6: them things. So it was a company called California Music Instruments,
Speaker 6: and you call them, send them whatever was six hundred
Speaker 6: dollars or whatever, and they would send you a soprano
Speaker 6: in the mill.
Speaker 1: So I got it, and I was excited, but I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: why the hell am I gonna play it? So I
Speaker 1: just kind of had it, and all I would do
Speaker 1: is pick it up, and what I would do is
Speaker 1: use it.
Speaker 6: I could make it sound like a clarinet, So I
Speaker 6: would just pull out clarinet music and play the soprano
Speaker 6: and make the tone sound like a clarinet. I think
Speaker 6: a lot of people that played a soprano the only
Speaker 6: person they ever listened to is Coltrane, which has that
Speaker 6: real bright, pinched kind of whining sound on the soprano.
Speaker 6: They don't even listen to these other guys. So for me,
Speaker 6: just the idea of creating that clarinet sound on a
Speaker 6: soprano immediately gave it more of a woody sound than
Speaker 6: a tiny sound. And then listening to Wayne Shorter, who
Speaker 6: also had a more round sound than a bright, piercing sound,
Speaker 6: that kind of set me in a place whereas the
Speaker 6: majority of my colleagues were going straight from the train thing,
Speaker 6: so their soprano sound was real thin, kind of bright.
Speaker 1: I had the exact opposite sound.
Speaker 3: What was your in your opinion?
Speaker 4: You know, where does Pharaoh Sanders fit into all of
Speaker 4: this because he's like one of my favorite I mean
Speaker 4: just I'm not a jazz musician or like a jazz
Speaker 4: like nerd like that, but I just love his I
Speaker 4: just I just love his sound.
Speaker 6: I was just talking to that guy about that that
Speaker 6: had never heard about his Boby is incredible, like the
Speaker 6: way he sounds on the instrument, but he is completely out.
Speaker 1: Of coltraning school. As a matter of fact, he was
Speaker 1: playing with Johnny when he got so his whole thing
Speaker 1: is is he comes out of cold traning school. But
Speaker 1: the sound he has on the instrument, the hef of
Speaker 1: his sound, it is an amazing thing to listen to.
Speaker 6: And it was something that was very inspiring. And uh
Speaker 6: remember when uh feeling philips Hymen saying on that on
Speaker 6: on that uh on Gene Karn's Husband's record.
Speaker 1: I think it was maybe as you are when Pharaoh
Speaker 1: played that solo and as you are, yeah I don't
Speaker 1: want me, Yeah yeah, yeah, just flipped it, you know,
Speaker 1: and that's my first time checking him out.
Speaker 6: Man, that's killed it.
Speaker 1: Man, you know, other than you know, what's the other thing?
Speaker 3: Goog created a massive plan.
Speaker 2: So fante, I'm realizing now because he dropped a hot
Speaker 2: take in saying that Wayne Wayne is slightly not more
Speaker 2: advanced in his soprano playing than Coltrank, that I realized
Speaker 2: that Branford might be the f m W j of
Speaker 2: of jazz opinions. Wait, I just want to drop this
Speaker 2: gem in there. I didn't say that, Okay, okay, because
Speaker 2: that's right. I've misquoted you before.
Speaker 1: So let'sten. Let's let's make a cuche. But anyway, Wayne
Speaker 1: comes out of couldr WA know I got that. I
Speaker 1: know that Wayne soprano.
Speaker 6: Sound is molded in a different it's much rounder sound,
Speaker 6: the sound that I prefer, the totally preferred trained sound,
Speaker 6: and that they're they're entitled to that.
Speaker 1: But for me, Wayne was always the guy I wanted
Speaker 1: to sound more like.
Speaker 3: And just what the listeners, we're talking about Wayne Shorter.
Speaker 1: Just to be clear, that's about Wayne Newton.
Speaker 6: Sometimes we got to break it down, my homeboy, don't
Speaker 6: even get me started anyway.
Speaker 1: So wait, there's all right. So there's there's a good
Speaker 1: friend of mine that.
Speaker 2: Is well respected in the jazz world who kind of
Speaker 2: broke my heart when he told me that that Carter
Speaker 2: wasn't even in.
Speaker 1: His top five bass player Ron Carter, you know, okay, okay, right?
Speaker 2: And the thing was no, no, no, And I had
Speaker 2: to investigate this and everyone was like, oh yeah, Miles
Speaker 2: never let Ron solo on any.
Speaker 1: Of his things because he wasn't a good soloist. And
Speaker 1: I didn't for the base. I didn't realize that that
Speaker 1: was a popular like what what other the bassis the
Speaker 1: anchor of the band and not to be sold. The
Speaker 1: purpose of the bass.
Speaker 6: You can solo if you want, but the purpose of
Speaker 6: the bass is to anchor the band in any style
Speaker 6: of music.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
Speaker 6: I mean, like you take a song like Hocky good Time,
Speaker 6: what is the bass player? People of Dubo people do
Speaker 6: be beople dubb for seven minutes? Can he solo? I
Speaker 6: don't know, do like give a fuck?
Speaker 1: Not really know what I tell you.
Speaker 6: I love it the bass player's job. It's like, you know, okay,
Speaker 6: it's really nice if you have a seven foot guy
Speaker 6: who can dribble a ball like a point guard. But
Speaker 6: we don't need you to play point We need you
Speaker 6: to dump there in the paint and get your ass
Speaker 6: beat and take their bits. I need bass players that
Speaker 6: can play the bass, and whoever your guy is, all
Speaker 6: that is is it's like you know, the bassis.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like just regular people hearing jazz MH.
Speaker 6: One of the reasons they hate just because they say
Speaker 6: it all sounds the same. And one reason it all
Speaker 6: sounds the same is because everybody's playing the same ship now.
Speaker 6: So the bass players are playing the same ship the
Speaker 6: saxophone players play. If you listen to a record from
Speaker 6: the forties, the one thing that's good is that saxophone
Speaker 6: players sound different than trumpet players, who sound different than
Speaker 6: bass players, who sound different than rummers. Now they all
Speaker 6: playing the same two five one legs. So of course
Speaker 6: to an untrained ear, it all sounds the same. Because
Speaker 6: I have a trained deer, and the ship all sounds
Speaker 6: the same. To me, I would rather hear a bass
Speaker 6: player sound like a bass rather than go and you
Speaker 6: know another music to be like WHOA, I'm like, man, play.
Speaker 1: The guitar, Dad, So can I ask what does that
Speaker 1: mean for? Uh?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 2: Not even I'm like, what does that mean for Ray
Speaker 2: Brown's or Mingus legacy or mingas.
Speaker 6: Mingas didn't do a lot when he did, and when
Speaker 6: he did solo, he sounded like a bass player when
Speaker 6: he's solo peer.
Speaker 1: Boo boo pop boop, doooo peroo boo boo boo.
Speaker 6: Boo boo boo.
Speaker 1: He didn't go boo, but he didn't do that ship.
Speaker 1: He played bass solos and then he would just swing
Speaker 1: you to death.
Speaker 6: That means, come on, man, that's bass because the whole
Speaker 6: thing is all right because because my bass player we
Speaker 6: got into this thing ten fifteen years ago. It was
Speaker 6: more of like fifty where he started like wanting to
Speaker 6: take these big modern bass solers.
Speaker 2: I'm like, man, can you please not do that ship
Speaker 2: because he hears a pastorious head or like was he
Speaker 2: a jack ohead?
Speaker 1: Or like no, no, no way.
Speaker 6: He plays acoustics, so it's hard to play, like you
Speaker 6: can't play that on acoustic bass. You just can't.
Speaker 1: All right, well mcbridy, you know, well, no, he's older
Speaker 1: than Chris.
Speaker 6: I mean, we all love Christian so but it was
Speaker 6: just more like he's he's you know, because there's a
Speaker 6: legacy of that you know, Ray Brown and Oscar Pediford,
Speaker 6: all of these guys, right, I would appreciate it. If
Speaker 6: you wouldn't do it, You're like, man, you know, I
Speaker 6: got to express myself. I said, all right, tonight, when
Speaker 6: we play this song, rhythm changes, I'm like, go ahead,
Speaker 6: play whatever you want. And then the second night, I said,
Speaker 6: I want you to just walk a base baseline, walk
Speaker 6: a bass solo. So he's walking the bass solo, and
Speaker 6: if he's doing it, you hear the audience. Yeah. By
Speaker 6: the fourth course, they are ploding and screaming, and I said,
Speaker 6: he says, I don't even understand that. I said, you
Speaker 6: gotta think like people who don't know nothing about music.
Speaker 6: You're the only instrument that can do that. Like if
Speaker 6: I started solo and I started going, it sounds ridiculous
Speaker 6: for me to do that. It's not the function of
Speaker 6: the saxophone. But if you walk in the bass and
Speaker 6: walking with intensity, it's gonna d D the only only
Speaker 6: instrument on the stage that can do that. So when
Speaker 6: you do that, the audience has never heard anything like that.
Speaker 6: So an audience is sitting there trying to like the music,
Speaker 6: and they hear a piano player and a sax player
Speaker 6: and a trumpet player and not a damn BSS player's
Speaker 6: gonna sound just like them. There's no change in color,
Speaker 6: there's no change in anything. It's all these scene licks
Speaker 6: regurgitated over and over and over again. At song. Everybody's
Speaker 6: ready to leave. There's no changes in color, no changes
Speaker 6: in dynamics. All right.
Speaker 1: So I'm trying to now parallel this to my world.
Speaker 2: So maybe what I figure saying is the way that
Speaker 2: I sort of feel about gospel chop.
Speaker 1: Started.
Speaker 6: Man, that's just got nothing to do with it.
Speaker 3: Go in, go in, go in nothing.
Speaker 1: I get it now. So it's just like I'm more
Speaker 1: impressed with the pocket than I am with how.
Speaker 6: Many you know, except the musicians. I mean, this is
Speaker 6: what jazz has become. It's like a bunch of musicians
Speaker 6: playing for other musicians. And in a lot of ways
Speaker 6: in some of the classical music communities, that's what it is.
Speaker 6: Really adventurous, highly technical, high and skilled musicians playing for
Speaker 6: other musicians. And you know, gospel chops dot com is
Speaker 6: musicians playing for musicians. I mean, if I was able
Speaker 6: to get a band and they had some band full
Speaker 6: of young gospel cats and they all playing and I
Speaker 6: just started going, I'd win every time. Every time I win,
Speaker 6: the audience will start clapping, they start screaming, they start
Speaker 6: feeling the spirit I win. And that's what I'm talking
Speaker 6: about when I talked about the bass earlier, because that
Speaker 6: music has a function depending on the style of it
Speaker 6: is and the context it is, it is a function.
Speaker 6: And what modern musicians want to do is remove the
Speaker 6: function from their instrument because suddenly being a great instrumentalist
Speaker 6: is more important than being a great musician.
Speaker 4: I was gonna ask for you, braver, how do you
Speaker 4: determine as a musician kind of when to walk the
Speaker 4: line between just kind of you know, being you know,
Speaker 4: a musician and then kind of being more you know,
Speaker 4: a virtual So like when is it when is it
Speaker 4: time to show off?
Speaker 3: Or is there ever a time to show off?
Speaker 1: And the song requires no other time? Gotcha? If I'm
Speaker 1: planned with the Grateful Dead, that shit is never required.
Speaker 6: It.
Speaker 1: But who's that for?
Speaker 6: Right? That's just like a certain kind of self aggrandizement
Speaker 6: where you go in and you play all of this
Speaker 6: hardcore shit and they ain't but literally two people in
Speaker 6: a room full of eighteen thousand people that would even
Speaker 6: know what it is. You suddenly become so disconnected from
Speaker 6: what it is you're supposed to be doing. Like you
Speaker 6: playing a horn section, What does that mean? That means
Speaker 6: you in the background. That's what it means. You're gonna
Speaker 6: have your horn parts, You're gonna be dancing, You're gonna
Speaker 6: be doing all your things. I mean, you know, you
Speaker 6: go to Earth Wind and Fire concert. They had a
Speaker 6: great horn section. You know, Don Mack was playing alto
Speaker 6: killing didn't nobody in the audience know the name of
Speaker 6: the horn section. Didn't even notice it.
Speaker 1: You know, everybody knew who Verdeine was, everybody knew who
Speaker 1: Maurice was.
Speaker 6: You know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Everybody knew Philip Bailey was. They didn't know what the
Speaker 1: horn section was. But that's the thing.
Speaker 6: We always function in the background. So I come from
Speaker 6: that and then I start playing jazz. I'm still cool
Speaker 6: with being in the background. I don't need to be
Speaker 6: the center of the attention, even though the nature of
Speaker 6: what it is, I wind up being the center of attention.
Speaker 6: But when I would play, people would say, why do
Speaker 6: you always walk to the back of the stage when
Speaker 6: you ain't soloing? I said, because if I stand there
Speaker 6: people are gonna look at me, and I want them
Speaker 6: to look at whoever else is solo. So if I
Speaker 6: walk to the back of the stage behind the piano
Speaker 6: and I've become a shadow, They're gonna look around and deduce.
Speaker 1: Oh the piano players plan let me check him out.
Speaker 6: I'm not just gonna stand there in preen imposture because
Speaker 6: I'm not that insecure. I don't need the attention to
Speaker 6: be on me. You know, I remember Sting was doing
Speaker 6: this this. You know, he did these Rainforest Foundation concerts.
Speaker 6: He do these Rainforest Foundation concerts for twenty years. He
Speaker 6: did them at Carnegie Hall once a year, and they
Speaker 6: would always have run team. And he called me.
Speaker 1: He says, I need some help. I need a horn section.
Speaker 1: We're gonna do Stack to Night. And I said, all right,
Speaker 1: I'll get back to you.
Speaker 6: So I said, uh. I called Lou solo Off, who
Speaker 6: was the trumpet player with Blood Sweating Tears and played
Speaker 6: in the Saturday Night Live band.
Speaker 1: I said, look, let's do this gig.
Speaker 6: Called this trombone player from Berkeley, Tim Williams, and I said,
Speaker 6: I got It's a three piece horn section. Lou sol Off,
Speaker 6: Tim Williams and me and this think says, now, wait
Speaker 6: a minute, Mane. You know we don't have diden need
Speaker 6: these step off performances, and said, man, I grew up
Speaker 6: in a horn section. I don't need a step up performance.
Speaker 6: I just want to be in the horn section. I
Speaker 6: have never played these tunics. I love these tuness. Just
Speaker 6: leave me alone, let me do my thing.
Speaker 1: You know I'm not.
Speaker 6: We're playing these horn parts and we just having a
Speaker 6: good ass time. And then there were a couple of
Speaker 6: sax solos. It's like them eight ball little things like
Speaker 6: I'll put a spell on you.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, screaming hawkins I put.
Speaker 6: From me.
Speaker 1: I used that once in the beat. That was great anyway,
Speaker 1: I know y'all know so.
Speaker 6: And then it came for the solo and I'm playing
Speaker 6: the solo and Steve Cropper turns around says, God.
Speaker 1: Damn somewhere.
Speaker 6: You're from New Orleans.
Speaker 1: He goes, yeah, figures. Then we got back to play.
Speaker 6: With me.
Speaker 2: Wait, that's the first time you met Steve Cropper the
Speaker 2: first time you met me? Ah yeah, I was about
Speaker 2: to say you were bringing from Marcellas.
Speaker 6: I don't mean to ship down. He's just older boy
Speaker 6: from Alabama playing some funky ass tunes. He was like
Speaker 6: when he turnd me playing he turned away. It was
Speaker 6: more of a compliment that he's like, damn, man, that's
Speaker 6: how good.
Speaker 1: Where are you from? You know?
Speaker 6: Vietnam was the fact that he didn't know made it
Speaker 6: hipper and.
Speaker 1: That was our games.
Speaker 6: That was it.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I never got a chance to really chop it up
Speaker 2: with someone who was of age at the time when
Speaker 2: jazz was really going through its eighties transition, you know,
Speaker 2: with Miles sort of going on his terrain, trying to
Speaker 2: refine or redefine himself, and just at the time you
Speaker 2: were twenty, I assume by the age of twenty you
Speaker 2: were serious about your craft and you were at least
Speaker 2: in the young Lions category by this point, Like, at
Speaker 2: what point are you no good? All right, come on, Brant,
Speaker 2: will you work with me?
Speaker 1: At What age were you? When when you arrived? What
Speaker 1: age were you? Because I'm asking this because for myself.
Speaker 2: Yes, when did you feel that? When was your arrival?
Speaker 2: When when your father was like, yeah, my son's killing it.
Speaker 2: As far as that, my father never said that, but
Speaker 2: uh okay, I did. Just so the whole point was
Speaker 2: that with two thousands with cats, with cats, like, well,
Speaker 2: I'm just saying with cats like Crouch and George Butler,
Speaker 2: Sony and all that, with them sort of as the
Speaker 2: old jazz guard. And you know, I've talked to like
Speaker 2: David Murray and all those cats like an mbase trying
Speaker 2: to do their thing, Like what what was the environment?
Speaker 2: Was it a civil war environment of people wrestling trying to.
Speaker 6: Figure out I guess it may have been a civil
Speaker 6: war for those who gave a fuck, but uh I
Speaker 6: wasn't one of them, so.
Speaker 1: I don't know civil war for me.
Speaker 3: No, I love it.
Speaker 7: I love it.
Speaker 1: Well, that's my question, Like what was it in that environment?
Speaker 6: Like you just didn't care about jazz critics and jazz
Speaker 6: critics please, it was a simple environment.
Speaker 1: There's a simple question for me. Right, that's the young
Speaker 1: man in nineteen fifty seven.
Speaker 6: You got all these dudes that can play all these
Speaker 6: sixteenth notes, they can't play a fucking eighth notes solo.
Speaker 6: You can't play a lesser young solo with the right
Speaker 6: tone in the right style.
Speaker 1: And that included me.
Speaker 6: So my thinking is is that if we're moving jazz forward,
Speaker 6: how come we can't play none of this other shit? Because,
Speaker 6: like I have a friend who's a physicist, right, Physicists
Speaker 6: are really good at math. If my friend Barry Abart
Speaker 6: flew in here from the Jet Proportion laboratory where he works,
Speaker 6: and I said, hey, man, my daughter is a sophomore
Speaker 6: and high school.
Speaker 1: Can you help her with this math?
Speaker 6: He wouldn't say, well, you know that's cool, man, but
Speaker 6: you know we're working on this new thing here, and
Speaker 6: I think it's way more advanced that was who back
Speaker 6: in this day. He would say, yeah, no problem, I'm
Speaker 6: a physicist. Now you think about modern music, that old shit, Yeah,
Speaker 6: that shit was cool, but you know that's that we've
Speaker 6: gone beyond that.
Speaker 1: I say, is that French for you can't fucking do it? Paralleough,
Speaker 1: that's friend for you can't play it cool? Well, you
Speaker 1: know what. I can't either, But I'm gonna learn how. Man,
Speaker 1: when you listen to that old shit, fuck, do your think?
Speaker 1: Do your think y'all? You know the critics say, what
Speaker 1: do the critics play? M h.
Speaker 6: It's like a friend of mine listens to these sports
Speaker 6: you know, saxophone player friend named Paul Carry listens to
Speaker 6: these sports radio shows which.
Speaker 1: I'll listen to sometimes.
Speaker 6: A guy who's five foot six, who has strong opinions
Speaker 6: about people who play a game that he was never
Speaker 6: good enough to play. How much freedoms can I take
Speaker 6: in that? Seriously?
Speaker 3: Facts?
Speaker 1: You know, when when Jim Rohme.
Speaker 6: Decided to call Jim Everett, who was a football player,
Speaker 6: Chris Everett because he plays like a girl, Jim made
Speaker 6: him famous by beating his ass.
Speaker 1: On the studio. What Jim should have done? It said,
Speaker 1: you know what, you got a point.
Speaker 6: That's why I'm gonna set it up so that you
Speaker 6: can come to training camp and I'm gonna get you
Speaker 6: a uniform. We're gonna film you, and you're gonna show
Speaker 6: us how to do it.
Speaker 1: And I imagine if he had said that. Magine if I.
Speaker 6: Mean, this guy from San Francisco is ripping Sting saying
Speaker 6: Sting ain't shit, band sucks blah blah blah. Sting writes
Speaker 6: him a letter in the newspaper. Yeah, this is a
Speaker 6: lot harder than you think. That's why when we come
Speaker 6: back in six months, I'm gonna reserve ten minutes for
Speaker 6: you and you can come on stage and you can
Speaker 6: do whatever you want.
Speaker 9: You can read poetry, it don't matter. You ain't got
Speaker 9: to sing a song. Yeah, the ten minutes are yours.
Speaker 6: And he received the universal condemnation from all these critics
Speaker 6: because they know, because they know, and they're like, you're
Speaker 6: the one who's rich in famous, take your lumps, and
Speaker 6: he's like, no, I ain't about taking lumps. You are
Speaker 6: trying to make yourself an authority on some shit you
Speaker 6: don't know how to do, so come on up here
Speaker 6: and show me how to do it.
Speaker 1: And that's our feel and it ain't like im because.
Speaker 6: Like people say, you know and critics are really killing
Speaker 6: I'm like, so most of my real critics are like
Speaker 6: these dead dudes, and I'm trying to learn how to
Speaker 6: play like I got good enough years.
Speaker 10: I know if I can play this ship well or
Speaker 10: if I can't play it well. And if I can't
Speaker 10: play it well, I have to figure out how to
Speaker 10: learn how to play it well. And about me, they're
Speaker 10: not going they're not gonna help me learn how to
Speaker 10: do that.
Speaker 4: It was an example of something that if it's an
Speaker 4: older style or older music, something that you had to
Speaker 4: learn how to play well.
Speaker 6: Dude. There's so many of those, but I think the
Speaker 6: easiest one is playing balance. Most modern players don't know
Speaker 6: how to play. But I tell you, what do you
Speaker 6: I told y'all, So they you know, because they listen
Speaker 6: to train, you know, because train would play the melody
Speaker 6: and then you go into a two field and start
Speaker 6: playing all this shit.
Speaker 1: So in there like I want to do that. But
Speaker 1: the thing is is that if you.
Speaker 6: Listen to train chronologically, he could also play a ballot
Speaker 6: very simply and very beautifully. So what they do is
Speaker 6: they listen to train at the end of his process,
Speaker 6: and that's where they start their process. And I was
Speaker 6: the same different gotcha? So part Blakey was like, man,
Speaker 6: you can't play a ballad where the ship you know,
Speaker 6: You're horrible.
Speaker 1: I'm like, great, okay, you know true, but that's all
Speaker 1: you got. Is there a solution in there? Any reason?
Speaker 6: Yeah? Go check out Ben Webster, all right. I listened
Speaker 6: to it a little bit. My brother Delphia, we would
Speaker 6: we would always talk about music. I said, man, I
Speaker 6: got to get some more Ben Wester. So I was
Speaker 6: getting ready to go on stings first two in eighty five.
Speaker 6: My brother says, I got a package coming for you,
Speaker 6: and it was two cassettes. Back in the good old
Speaker 6: days we got cassettes, right, and a package. Yeah, two
Speaker 6: cassettes because the Walkman was that they didn't have Discman yet.
Speaker 6: They weren't out yet play c D yet, they weren't
Speaker 6: there yet.
Speaker 1: It was two Ben.
Speaker 6: Webster records, one with the Oscar pedis and trio and
Speaker 6: the other.
Speaker 1: One with strings.
Speaker 6: I listened to these ships every day for a year
Speaker 6: and a half.
Speaker 1: Now I was playing with things. I was rocking out, but.
Speaker 6: Every day at least once, sometimes I'm playing twice a day.
Speaker 6: I would listen to both of these cassettes, and a
Speaker 6: year and a half later, I could play like Ben
Speaker 6: without even trying to play. It just came out the morn.
Speaker 1: I'm like, damn, that works, okay, great.
Speaker 6: And that was just the beginning.
Speaker 1: But in the break in the middle of it.
Speaker 6: We were off for six weeks and I went to
Speaker 6: the Vanguard and I was playing with some people and
Speaker 6: this old tenor man, Buddy Take, he played with Basie's
Speaker 6: band in the thirties.
Speaker 1: I said, Tate, you know you got.
Speaker 6: An advice from me. He says, Son, you're the worst
Speaker 6: ballet player I ever heard in my life. And I said,
Speaker 6: I know, I know, I'm working on it. He says, really,
Speaker 6: you're working out of what you're doing. I said, I'm
Speaker 6: listening to these two ben Websters see things. He goes,
Speaker 6: that's gonna take care of it. You just keep listening
Speaker 6: to them. I said, but I've been listening for a
Speaker 6: year and it sounds like shit. He says, son the
Speaker 6: only way to get better is to keep sounding like
Speaker 6: shit till it don't sound like shit no more.
Speaker 1: There ain't no shortcuts.
Speaker 6: And I said, okay, cool.
Speaker 1: And then when I came back there it was, you know, and.
Speaker 6: Then I would start playing all these old songs and
Speaker 6: guys say, man, why are you playing that old ship?
Speaker 6: And I'm like, why is a dog lickors balls? Because
Speaker 6: he can't?
Speaker 1: You know. It's just like why did I do it?
Speaker 1: Because I learned how to do it? Why can't you
Speaker 1: do it? I don't want to do that, Sure you
Speaker 1: don't like And it was just like sing.
Speaker 6: After thing I tried to learn, you know, I practiced
Speaker 6: Sonny Rollins, trying to play like Sonny for two years nothing,
Speaker 6: and then like eight months later, the sunny stuff starts
Speaker 6: coming out.
Speaker 1: And then after Sonny, you just learned how to play like.
Speaker 4: I was gonna ask you. I was gonna ask you
Speaker 4: about ornate Coleen. He was someone that I never could
Speaker 4: get into. It was just so it seems so far
Speaker 4: out from me, like what was his thing?
Speaker 6: That's the only that's the only time Stanley Crouch and
Speaker 6: I ever had a conversation with. At the end of it,
Speaker 6: I'm like, thanks, man, because you need to check out.
Speaker 6: I know.
Speaker 1: Stanley was one for always wanting to fight out.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 1: He gave me this record, The Shape of Chats to Come,
Speaker 1: and I listened to it for a week. I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: this just sucks, man.
Speaker 6: He goes, yeah, you need to keep listening.
Speaker 2: You didn't like to save the Jackson Come when it
Speaker 2: first came out, But I know when it first came out,
Speaker 2: when you first heard three years old.
Speaker 6: When I first heard it, it was like, this sucks.
Speaker 6: Two weeks in, three weeks in, I'm like, okay that man.
Speaker 6: It took four months of listening to this record every day,
Speaker 6: and then in the fourth month suddenly I heard what
Speaker 6: it actually was and I'm like, holy shit, it's not
Speaker 6: even out.
Speaker 1: It's all in. It's all based on standard song for him.
Speaker 6: And I came back and started telling Cat y'all said, going,
Speaker 6: that's out. This shit's in. It's sands the man, You're crazy.
Speaker 6: That's not standing song for him, standing song for standard
Speaker 6: song for you just have to listen to it enough
Speaker 6: to figure it out.
Speaker 4: Him and the other cat rossn Roll and Kurt out there,
Speaker 4: it was the same kind of thing I was trying.
Speaker 4: I'm just like, all right, maybe I just don't I'm
Speaker 4: not advanced enough to get it.
Speaker 6: There's a there's a documentary on Rassiana that you should
Speaker 6: check out. I can't remember the name of it, The
Speaker 6: Three Sided Dream, Thank You Face, The.
Speaker 1: Three Sided Dream.
Speaker 6: And he did an eight minute performance on The Ed
Speaker 6: Sullivan Show at a time when jazz was not on
Speaker 6: Ed Sullivan at all, And that is some of the
Speaker 6: most electric shit you will see. Like some of the documentary,
Speaker 6: it slows down, it's kind of boring. And but then
Speaker 6: this makes like if you you check out on Rassiana
Speaker 6: and that you're.
Speaker 3: Good, you know, then I promise you I got it,
Speaker 3: I got it down.
Speaker 1: You'd be like, oh, I get it.
Speaker 6: Was there?
Speaker 1: Was your tenure? Was your tenure with Blakeie your first time.
Speaker 2: In a professional like established jazz unit, And was that
Speaker 2: also in the studio or just on the road?
Speaker 1: Well we did. It was all it was mostly on
Speaker 1: the road.
Speaker 6: Yes, it was my first established I did some things
Speaker 6: in New Orleans would established musicians and my dad and
Speaker 6: we had this regular gig these uh, these older New
Speaker 6: Orleans cats, I mean older, like ten years older than me.
Speaker 6: John Badakovich was on drums, David Torkanowski was the pianist.
Speaker 6: His dad was the conductor of Louisiana Philharmonic, the New
Speaker 6: Orleans and uh and uh Jim Singleton on base. And
Speaker 6: they called me and went and said, hey man, we
Speaker 6: got these gigs at Tyler's Beer Guard march y'all come
Speaker 6: play with us. So we had this one gig a
Speaker 6: week where we would come in and play tunes with
Speaker 6: these cats, and you know, went was firing and I
Speaker 6: was just playing a pentatonic scale on everything because that
Speaker 6: you know.
Speaker 1: But it was great.
Speaker 6: We had a great time. I mean everybody looked out
Speaker 6: for us. I mean we had really cool experiences, you know,
Speaker 6: playing in bars when we were not legal age, and
Speaker 6: it was great.
Speaker 3: Did you ever do anything anytime the New Orleans ever
Speaker 3: do anything with Alan Tucson?
Speaker 1: No, No, no he didn't. They didn't. You know, they
Speaker 1: got to call me. It's not like I'm gonna yo
Speaker 1: you always be me.
Speaker 3: Well, well that's what I was thinking that did he
Speaker 3: ever call you?
Speaker 1: That's what I meant because by the time I left
Speaker 1: me on a seventy.
Speaker 3: Nine, Oh okay, gotcha.
Speaker 1: And then when the whole when it all started happening,
Speaker 1: I was in New York. He didn't. They were plenty
Speaker 1: of sax players he could use at home, but I
Speaker 1: mean here, yes, Art Blake.
Speaker 6: It was my first professional organization and it was mostly
Speaker 6: on the road. Even the record we did wasn't a
Speaker 6: studio record. It was a live record at the Keystone
Speaker 6: Corner in San Francisco.
Speaker 2: Okay, what was your brother's debut album, your first time
Speaker 2: in a studio setting as far as jazz was concerned,
Speaker 2: or yes.
Speaker 1: As far as jazz was concerned.
Speaker 6: Yeah, no, that's not true, because we had done this
Speaker 6: record called Fathers and Sons with me and Winton and
Speaker 6: Dead and uh Chico Freeman and Von Freeman on one
Speaker 6: side and Mean and went and Dead with some new
Speaker 6: with James Black and uh Charles Family Yo Homie on base.
Speaker 6: That was the first thing, Like with Winton's record, Yeah,
Speaker 6: that was the first. Yeah, the second one, you know,
Speaker 6: in the first time in the studio I was a kid.
Speaker 6: There was a guy named a Guy. He did a
Speaker 6: song called Mad Mad Mardi Gras. He hired me Winton
Speaker 6: and this saxophone player, Donald Harrison to play the part.
Speaker 6: And I wrote the arrangements because that was my I've
Speaker 6: been listening to that stuff. So we didn't have a
Speaker 6: baritone sax, so we took an alto and dropped it
Speaker 6: in octave so it sounded like a Barton. We did
Speaker 6: all these crazy things, so we made like a six
Speaker 6: or seven piece horn section on this song, Mad Mad
Speaker 6: Madira from this from this guy in New Orleans.
Speaker 1: It was It was cool and I played a little
Speaker 1: corny ass so with I guess that debut record.
Speaker 2: Whose idea was it to use the classic Davis quintet
Speaker 2: as the background at least with Us Shorter and your
Speaker 2: brother's moles?
Speaker 1: But Ron Carter and Well Wenton was playing with them.
Speaker 1: Wenton was doing a tour with them as a quartet
Speaker 1: with Ron Herby and Tonio. Okay, he was playing. Was
Speaker 1: that by design or just like.
Speaker 6: Yeah, they hired him to play on the on the
Speaker 6: road with so I'm saying yeah, it was by design.
Speaker 6: So he was on tour with them when they recorded
Speaker 6: that part of the record, it was in Tokyo, and.
Speaker 1: So went and called me and said, hey, man, you're
Speaker 1: doing the record.
Speaker 6: Fly to Tokyo. I flew to Tokyo.
Speaker 1: I see just growing up listening to.
Speaker 2: Your records, I have to personally say that, you know,
Speaker 2: I got your The first album I've got of yours
Speaker 2: was Scenes in the City, and the thing that struck me,
Speaker 2: Like I was thirteen when it came out, So the
Speaker 2: one thing that struck me about that record was the
Speaker 2: title cut and the fact that you kind of predated
Speaker 2: Doctor Dre Prince Paul as far as like, you know,
Speaker 2: the way that you crafted that song as a sketch
Speaker 2: or as more like I don't know how to describe it,
Speaker 2: like Stevie Wonderre's the only person.
Speaker 1: I know that used like.
Speaker 2: Dialogue or Marlena Shaw, she did it a little bit
Speaker 2: on that Uh uh, who'se bitch is this? I forget
Speaker 2: that album and Blue Note, But what was at least
Speaker 2: with the title cut with Scenes of the City, what
Speaker 2: was in your mind frame when you were crafting that
Speaker 2: like as far as presenting a story of poetry and
Speaker 2: the way that you weave in different music genres in
Speaker 2: and out like it's not mine.
Speaker 1: That was unheard of an eighty four, at least for
Speaker 1: me as a thirteen year old. I never heard anything
Speaker 1: like that.
Speaker 6: If you passed the prolog that was a mingus mingus
Speaker 6: did it? I heard in the city, Yeah, that would
Speaker 6: be great to do that. And I used my homeboy.
Speaker 6: Wendell Pierce was the narror on it.
Speaker 1: That was Wendell p Wow. Wende it just after New York.
Speaker 1: He was at Jui Yord like, hey, bro, come.
Speaker 6: Do this for me.
Speaker 1: I'll pay you. Yeah, man, I'll do it.
Speaker 3: That's what's up.
Speaker 1: I'll pay you.
Speaker 6: You know. He's a student, he's struggling. I'm like, yeah, man,
Speaker 6: you're gonna get paid for this shit. I mean like,
Speaker 6: it's not like in New Orleans where you do me
Speaker 6: a solid, you know, and I write some music for
Speaker 6: your movie.
Speaker 1: It was like, no, you're gonna get paid to do it.
Speaker 1: Come do this thing.
Speaker 2: Steve Holman, Delta play on that. Steve Coleman, Yeah, oh
Speaker 2: mom boy, okay, stee, all right. So you had some
Speaker 2: inbased ties in there, but yes, and a four in
Speaker 2: base wasn't established.
Speaker 6: It was eighty three. Oh. It was recorded in eighty
Speaker 6: two out of the Vanguard, and I'm like, I'm doing
Speaker 6: this song, man, come do this hit with me. Okay,
Speaker 6: it was him in your Home where Robin you Banks.
Speaker 1: You know, Smithy was on it, you know, and it
Speaker 1: was just it was yeah, it was just it was
Speaker 1: a cool thing to do. So yeah, it was a
Speaker 1: it was an old Mingus tune called scenes in the City.
Speaker 2: And I'm talking about those cats because like, I idolized
Speaker 2: those cats growing up like taine uh Kirkland uh even
Speaker 2: staring at Moffett, like what what were those cats like?
Speaker 2: Like in general, he described their musicianship or I get
Speaker 2: the I get the already, I already know.
Speaker 1: You're you're you're, you're you're deflating my balloon of the
Speaker 1: romanticized musicians thing.
Speaker 6: So no, what I mean, you know they were they
Speaker 6: were complete musicians. It's like that thing everybody heard Tan
Speaker 6: playing with. When I met Tange when.
Speaker 10: I got to Berkeley, I was R and B saxophone player,
Speaker 10: and I'm like, I'm interested in this jazz thing.
Speaker 1: When Tange got to Berkeley, he was basically a fusion.
Speaker 6: Okay, you know Billy cobbham Nerod and Michael Walden, he
Speaker 6: was out of that camp, right, and uh yeah, you know, yeah,
Speaker 6: yeah early well, yeah, when he was playing with so
Speaker 6: it was like we both got there and started checking
Speaker 6: out jazz at the same time, different things, but our
Speaker 6: bass was something else.
Speaker 1: And then we started listening to jazz and he got
Speaker 1: heavy into the oven thing, and I was listening to
Speaker 1: Wayne playing with Miles Davis and Lester Young and he
Speaker 1: was just a brilliant musician.
Speaker 6: There were a couple of musicians because I had never
Speaker 6: played with Jeff and there were a couple of musicians, So.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, Jeff Man, I don't know what he's playing.
Speaker 6: That ship's not happening. So I'm like, damn, it must
Speaker 6: be happening then, because if they think it's not happening.
Speaker 6: So I'd say, hey, man, let's do a session. And
Speaker 6: I heard him playing, I'm like, oh, it's killing because
Speaker 6: it was so melodic and it defied what you thought
Speaker 6: the drummer was supposed to do because he was so
Speaker 6: used to hearing him and then playing in the middle of.
Speaker 1: Song, you know, so he was kind of bringing that
Speaker 1: y you know, along with the tony thing. And his
Speaker 1: timing is immaculate. Yeah, and his musicianship is like we
Speaker 1: would like k Kurt Ellen was was doing a record.
Speaker 6: Called The Question about three years ago. Yeah, I was,
Speaker 6: I was thinking about using Tange. It's like some musicians
Speaker 6: said that he's just the kind of cat that's just
Speaker 6: going to play what he wants to play. And it's
Speaker 6: really funny when you have musicians that don't really understand
Speaker 6: jazz language and they airtain play, that's what they think
Speaker 6: he's doing.
Speaker 1: They think he's just playing whatever he wants.
Speaker 6: And I just told Kurt Man Tane is one of
Speaker 6: the best musicians on the planet, and he's gonna play
Speaker 6: your music and hook it up to the degree that
Speaker 6: you will be depressed anytime you hear another drummer trying
Speaker 6: to say And when the record was done, he's like,
Speaker 6: I can already tell I'm going to be depressed a
Speaker 6: lot because changes everything he plays is based on what
Speaker 6: the melody of the song is.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, his logic, his brain was unbelievable.
Speaker 2: How much rope do you give him as a drummer too,
Speaker 2: because what I last storing to him is just his
Speaker 2: ability to change time, signature and reconfigure a song a
Speaker 2: different way that you don't hear it and that's the
Speaker 2: one thing I borrow from him the most, where I'll
Speaker 2: be in the pocket, then I'll, you know, I'll switch
Speaker 2: something in that's still in the pocket, but a different
Speaker 2: time signature, like when the songs, when you're writing these
Speaker 2: songs and you're arranging these songs, like how much leeway
Speaker 2: are you giving him?
Speaker 6: At least in the studio. I know that live is
Speaker 6: a different thing, and you guys just go from your gut, but.
Speaker 1: No studios like what you hear? What you hear make
Speaker 1: it better? All right?
Speaker 2: I can nerd out on your jazz career a lot,
Speaker 2: but there's other areas of your life and we gotta
Speaker 2: kid on. I got to get to film before you
Speaker 2: even get to your hip hop part. The first thing
Speaker 2: I saw you and was on probably one of the
Speaker 2: blackest episodes of Saturday Night Live I've ever seen, Malcolm
Speaker 2: Jamar Warner episode with run DMC, and that's back in
Speaker 2: eighty six when they would let filmmakers do these shorts.
Speaker 2: And I guess Spike Lee, yeah, Spikey yeah, ho Warner
Speaker 2: plenty Is that the first time you met with Spike
Speaker 2: or like, how did you how are you even available
Speaker 2: or open to even be in that lane.
Speaker 1: I did some theater in high school and I was
Speaker 1: not afraid that. But I met Spike. Spike. It's really
Speaker 1: funny story. Spike was going around the neighborhood trying to
Speaker 1: get people that she's gotta have it. She's gonna have
Speaker 1: that's right. So he rings the doorbell me and went.
Speaker 6: Now. They were living in Brooklyn on Washington Avenue, basically
Speaker 6: six box from Spikes.
Speaker 1: He says, hey, you know, hey, man Brandon witness, my
Speaker 1: named Spike Lee.
Speaker 6: I'm a filmmaker. You know, my dad's a musician, you know,
Speaker 6: And it's just like I just want to welcome you
Speaker 6: to the neighborhood. He didn't have the courage to take
Speaker 6: throw us some money for the movie.
Speaker 1: He never brought it up.
Speaker 6: He never brought it up. He says, you know, my
Speaker 6: dad's a musician. I said, really, what's his name? Bill Lee?
Speaker 6: Went to the bass player. Yeah, how you know that?
Speaker 1: He says, man, we heard your dad when he was
Speaker 1: we were little kids.
Speaker 6: He had this band with like a folk band. And
Speaker 6: I said, oh, ship the descendant of Mike and Phoebe.
Speaker 6: And he goes, oh my god, y'all know that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but we didn't want to go, but my Dad's aid, yo,
Speaker 1: golf this concert. This guys from New York. And it
Speaker 1: was fun.
Speaker 6: I mean, you know, it was.
Speaker 1: Storytelling, it was little jazz in it, little folk lore.
Speaker 1: It was great. It was a great little concert. I
Speaker 1: was like eight or nine, like if I was eight,
Speaker 1: Winton was seven.
Speaker 6: I was nine, Winton was eight. And they came to
Speaker 6: New Orleans and the sending to Mike and Phoebe and
Speaker 6: that really freaked him out, you know. And and we
Speaker 6: just hung out and had a great time and we
Speaker 6: would see each other on the stupid. And he never
Speaker 6: asked for any money for the ask O you should have.
Speaker 1: I would have got a return then some I would
Speaker 1: have done it. But we just hit it off, you know.
Speaker 1: And I go to his house and we would just
Speaker 1: sit around. And then he told me one day I
Speaker 1: had had to shoot this short. You want to be
Speaker 1: in it.
Speaker 6: I'm like, yeah, whatever you want, man, you know. And
Speaker 6: he's playing explaining what it was, and I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 6: I'll stand on the corner in Brooklyn and play.
Speaker 1: Stand on the corner and play and crack jokes on
Speaker 1: people that went by.
Speaker 6: He's like, just insult people when they walked by. I say, yeah,
Speaker 6: I'm from newmans.
Speaker 1: Unpressure on me. I hope it's still on YouTube. Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's basically short of Branford needed to rustle up some
Speaker 2: money for for you know, diapers and be a.
Speaker 1: Man formula, carry your child and the great And I
Speaker 1: walked outside. I'm an musician. What do you want me
Speaker 1: to do? Go be a man?
Speaker 6: So I walked outside. I started playing for chains. Wait
Speaker 6: who who was the on Fulton Avenue?
Speaker 1: It was like the premise of it, if you know
Speaker 1: Brooklyn is hilarious.
Speaker 6: What kind of money you're gonna make?
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's also so how did you get and throw
Speaker 1: Mama from the train? And like, at this point, are
Speaker 1: you damn?
Speaker 5: I forgot about.
Speaker 1: Yes. I think it was after they saw the Sting movie.
Speaker 1: I was just talking all kind of crazy shit in
Speaker 1: the movie. Wait, I do have one Sting question.
Speaker 2: Can you please tell me what you and Sting were
Speaker 2: laughing at at the end of the title track of
Speaker 2: Dreaming of the Blue Turtles?
Speaker 6: Anyway, please please, because.
Speaker 1: You know what someone asked me. Someone asked me, what
Speaker 1: is the genesis of my laugh?
Speaker 2: And I think hearing you two laugh and that goofy
Speaker 2: laughing what like, I can tell there's an inside joke
Speaker 2: so obvious that I.
Speaker 1: When this ship ain't rolling, I'll tell you stink won't tell.
Speaker 6: Me, you'll I'll tell you.
Speaker 1: That's how you do. It's good, it's not.
Speaker 6: Really, it's mundane.
Speaker 1: Really, but still it ain't gonna come from me on record.
Speaker 1: All good, No, I get it. I just when whenever
Speaker 1: that laugh breakdown happens, I just you know, all right,
Speaker 1: you know we've had Spike on the show.
Speaker 2: We've we've we've talked about the scene for five minutes,
Speaker 2: and then after the show was edited and completed, I
Speaker 2: went back to look at this clip, and I believe
Speaker 2: that you had.
Speaker 1: A hand in that fight scene in school days. He
Speaker 1: told you didn't know it wasn't it wasn't. Okay, Well.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, when we I asked him because someone
Speaker 2: told I think I talked to Ernest Dickerson.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Ernest told me that when that step show happened,
Speaker 1: Uh when when the fight occurred?
Speaker 2: That was a real fight. And then I asked Spike
Speaker 2: about it. He was like, yes, that was a real fight.
Speaker 2: And when I went back to look at the.
Speaker 1: Tape, you instac lady went to He's sipping tea right now.
Speaker 1: He's literally I wish I was sipping bourbon.
Speaker 6: Then I tell you the story.
Speaker 1: So I was, what was the deal with school days?
Speaker 1: And was the tension that real?
Speaker 6: For some? It was?
Speaker 2: For some it was.
Speaker 6: I mean, Spike tried to create this environment so the
Speaker 6: light skinned people were in a better hotel and we
Speaker 6: went a raggedy ass hotel. But the reality is is, man,
Speaker 6: he's a professional actress, you know what I mean, you
Speaker 6: didn't have to create that kind of tension. I mean,
Speaker 6: they can create it on command. I really don't remember
Speaker 6: us being mad because we win one hotel and they
Speaker 6: want another one.
Speaker 1: I don't remember that at all. Maybe some people felt
Speaker 1: that way.
Speaker 6: But not the crew I was hanging with. And the fight, well,
Speaker 6: the fight was it was mostly in character. It had
Speaker 6: nothing to do with off set anything. Is we were
Speaker 6: ridiculing the g fi gs throughout the whole movie. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So then they were doing.
Speaker 6: Their little song and we came out with this daddy
Speaker 6: longstroke thing without we're gonna do our step We're gonna
Speaker 6: do our step show, you know, wo daddy, So we're
Speaker 6: coming on onto the stage. Oh yeah, off of that stage.
Speaker 6: I don't really remember and T. C. Campbell's character said
Speaker 6: something to me, so I said something to her. I
Speaker 6: ain't gonna tell you. I don't even remember what I said,
Speaker 6: but it wasn't Connie whatever. And Carlo says, don't you
Speaker 6: talk to about woman like that? So I slapped him
Speaker 6: upside his head and said, shut up, blankety blank, and
Speaker 6: then he bum rush me, and then everybody just bum rushes,
Speaker 6: and then it starts.
Speaker 1: And it's on.
Speaker 3: So like with Spike Yell's cut, are y'all cool after that?
Speaker 3: Or how does it? How does it go?
Speaker 1: What is going on?
Speaker 6: That's all it does all and Fishburn is absolutely furious
Speaker 6: because he says fight scenes need to be choreographed. This
Speaker 6: is how people get hurt. And I didn't disagree with him.
Speaker 6: I didn't think that would happen. It was just we
Speaker 6: were I was in this character and I was the
Speaker 6: whole movie. I was poking and priding at the g FIDS,
Speaker 6: you know, we were all doing it, and it just
Speaker 6: went and it escalated to this thing.
Speaker 1: How long did it take to alleviate that situation? I
Speaker 1: don't know.
Speaker 6: A minute, maybe, I mean just a minute. It wasn't
Speaker 6: think about fighting. I mean, it's like It's hard to
Speaker 6: fight for three minutes. I mean, you ever tried boxing
Speaker 6: for three minutes?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Your arms get tired.
Speaker 6: So it was just all that screaming and all in
Speaker 6: a minute men and a half and Spikes laughing his
Speaker 6: ass off and rolling, keep it rolling. You know.
Speaker 2: There's a scene in Nobetta that I always wanted to know.
Speaker 2: First of all, was the music created before the film
Speaker 2: was shot?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 1: It had to be because they had to choreographed it. Okay.
Speaker 2: So that said, I was really impressed with the authenticity
Speaker 2: of that first moment when Denzel comes to interrupt Wesley
Speaker 2: solo on stay Hey, and on the soundtrack, you actually
Speaker 2: recreate that moment where you're mid solo and then when
Speaker 2: it comes to the head and you stop. I always
Speaker 2: thought that shit was so genius because I heard the
Speaker 2: soundtrack first before I saw the movie and wanted to
Speaker 2: know why was that mistake there? So, even even way
Speaker 2: before then, Spike asked you to create a moment in
Speaker 2: which Terrence interrupts your playing and you.
Speaker 6: Take yeah, wow, okay, Yeah, it was choreographed, totally choreograph.
Speaker 6: They had to be that way because he wanted it
Speaker 6: to be that way. In the film, so we had
Speaker 6: that count for that.
Speaker 2: I see we got to jump to My Rainie because
Speaker 2: I got Eves by question all other ship.
Speaker 3: Yes, oh I love that.
Speaker 1: That was fun.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So My Rainy is very similar because the musicians
Speaker 6: had to choreograph. They had the choreograph, you know, and
Speaker 6: and and my my thing was always about and that's
Speaker 6: the look real And it's really not that hard to do.
Speaker 6: You have to erase any notions of what you think
Speaker 6: musicians are like, and to look at films, you have
Speaker 6: to have.
Speaker 1: A physical presence where you're playing the instrument physically.
Speaker 6: And the most important part is that when there's no
Speaker 6: sound on the on the recording, your fingers should never
Speaker 6: ever be moving. So you need to learn it.
Speaker 1: You don't need to learn how to play the instrument.
Speaker 1: You just need to make sure that windows no.
Speaker 6: Sound, your fingers on moving and you want to close
Speaker 6: in your eyes and do this and there's no sound coming.
Speaker 1: That's the giveaway.
Speaker 6: So when we went to UH to do the filming
Speaker 6: in Pittsburgh, I saw some of the early things and said, look,
Speaker 6: I need to meet with the musicians. You know, everybody
Speaker 6: has their handler and they're like, look, you know, the musicians.
Speaker 6: It's like a big thing. It's like a city. So
Speaker 6: the movie people were like, Oh, these guys are the
Speaker 6: stars and they don't have time for this. I'm like, well,
Speaker 6: I'll be honest that The Pirates are playing at one today.
Speaker 1: I'm getting baid. I'm good, you know. So if you
Speaker 1: want them to look like shit on the film, that's
Speaker 1: on you, fine with me. So I went to The
Speaker 1: Pirates Irque?
Speaker 2: Does it irque when directors are sort of dismissive of
Speaker 2: musical authenticity because I am a cat that will watch
Speaker 2: to see what the fingering is to make.
Speaker 1: Sure that I think it's to their detriment.
Speaker 6: Because you want people to believe that something's real, it
Speaker 6: needs to look real and it and it's not super hard.
Speaker 6: Like this was the whole thing that I was telling
Speaker 6: the guys are more better.
Speaker 1: It's like, you don't need to learn how.
Speaker 6: To play an instrument, you just need to under standing
Speaker 6: answering physically. So when Chadwick was playing, for instance, like
Speaker 6: they finally told me where you can have him for
Speaker 6: half an hour following day, so I had already seen them,
Speaker 6: so I knew what all of the problems were like.
Speaker 6: So Chadwick was playing and he was marching his back
Speaker 6: and playing like that like Miles, And I said, yeah, man,
Speaker 6: first of all, you playing a cornet number two.
Speaker 1: Miles Davis is two years old. You can't right like
Speaker 1: Miles in nineteen twenty nine.
Speaker 6: Go get some YouTube videos and watch Louis Armstrong play cornett,
Speaker 6: not trumpet, but watching there a couple of videos.
Speaker 1: From him in the early thirties and watching it he
Speaker 1: holds his body and he came back the next day
Speaker 1: he had it, wowd it down.
Speaker 6: He was just a consonant professional and with each musician,
Speaker 6: like Glenn Turnaman was playing piano, and you know piano
Speaker 6: players back then played stride and strid canos. You know,
Speaker 6: so your hands go from left and right to the center.
Speaker 6: That's essentially what it is. Think I think that's what
Speaker 6: you know. So your hands are going out and then in.
Speaker 6: So when he was doing that, his hands were.
Speaker 11: Going into out. So I'm like, bro, no, no, yeah,
Speaker 11: out in, not into out. And there's certain rhythms.
Speaker 6: You have to know. And then the piano player who
Speaker 6: did the recording was great. He kept it simple.
Speaker 1: So a lot of the music he had this little
Speaker 1: this little rhythm where.
Speaker 6: He's gonna bumped bomp bump bump, bump bom the whole time,
Speaker 6: through all of the changes. And I said, that's your rhythm.
Speaker 1: Sing it every day, and then when you sing it,
Speaker 1: play and he says, but you know, I don't. I said,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter.
Speaker 6: When they shoot you, they're going to see your shoulders,
Speaker 6: and if you're not playing the piano, your shoulders won't move.
Speaker 1: So you have to play the piano. They're not going
Speaker 1: to show your fingers. You just have to play that rhythm.
Speaker 1: And he got in. They all got into it, and
Speaker 1: when you see them it looks like they're playing. It
Speaker 1: made a difference.
Speaker 6: And then Michael Pots re acted, well, he just had
Speaker 6: to show everybody up and learn how to play the
Speaker 6: damn bass. So he was actually playing the bass.
Speaker 1: Really, you're how long did it take them to nail
Speaker 1: his parts?
Speaker 6: He could play the damn bass.
Speaker 1: It took him no time. He played the BASSA made
Speaker 1: me sick. All right, you go away. And then Coleman
Speaker 1: playing trombone. He was great. I mean, they were great,
Speaker 1: they really, you know, they took to you know, and
Speaker 1: you know, and then I had a little station away from.
Speaker 6: The set because the set was closed, right, and it
Speaker 6: was inside of this big sound stage and we were
Speaker 6: just outside of that with a little keyboard, so they
Speaker 6: would come in if they had any issues with rehearsals
Speaker 6: or questions about things.
Speaker 1: And uh, where would you record? We recorded in New Orleans? Oh, okay.
Speaker 6: New Orleans musicians are perfect because they're the only musicians
Speaker 6: left in the country that had outside voices. I mean,
Speaker 6: speaking generically, but.
Speaker 1: More often than not, I see.
Speaker 4: Oh, there was a scene in the movie where Chad
Speaker 4: his characters talking about Buddy Bolden, and he's someone that
Speaker 4: there was a movie made about him, like a couple
Speaker 4: of years ago, but there's not a lot that's known
Speaker 4: about him, Like what what was kind of his importance?
Speaker 6: Buddy Bolden is kind of considered to be the father
Speaker 6: of traditional jazz.
Speaker 1: Trypic playing in New Orleans.
Speaker 6: Everybody that heard him says he had the biggest sound
Speaker 6: they ever heard in their lives. There are no recordings
Speaker 6: of him, and there's only one picture of him. He
Speaker 6: had some sort of breakdown, so he didn't you know,
Speaker 6: sometime in his thirties. But Louis armstrong and got swear
Speaker 6: by man, you should have hear everybody, sure It's actually
Speaker 6: a good subject because then you can mythologize all of
Speaker 6: it because no one knows anything.
Speaker 3: He was like the jazz or Manago.
Speaker 1: Everybody talks. All the old guys used to talk about him.
Speaker 3: Okay, Buck shot the funk, dude, we got the funk.
Speaker 1: Go ahead and do it.
Speaker 5: People waited, fucking premiere books, all the funk.
Speaker 3: Go Come on, man, No, no, you're good. You're it's
Speaker 3: your show. You're the you're the co leader, dude.
Speaker 6: I just wanted to this movie and scoring field welcome
Speaker 6: here you go.
Speaker 1: All right? Anyway?
Speaker 2: Anyway, look, you're for raising the hip hop. Uh have
Speaker 2: been legendary. I mean, you know we can name them all,
Speaker 2: fight the power?
Speaker 1: Whatnot? What was your attraction to it?
Speaker 2: And again, like coming from the traditional base that you
Speaker 2: kind of entered our our consciousness, Like how easy was
Speaker 2: this to explain? Or I guess I can hear the
Speaker 2: answer already. You're saying I didn't give a fuck, but
Speaker 2: correct it was there any blowback from like your your
Speaker 2: your inner circle of New Orleans cats or or by
Speaker 2: then you left New Orleans, or your family or any
Speaker 2: thing about you know.
Speaker 1: My family. We got into it.
Speaker 6: It was the whole thing were going on the road,
Speaker 6: and so that wasn't that wasn't encouraged or I mean
Speaker 6: it was more about it was more philosophical. It was
Speaker 6: more like, you know, he could get anybody to do
Speaker 6: that job. Jazz is really unique and needs you out there.
Speaker 6: And I say, well, way you're wrong, is he can't
Speaker 6: get anybody do to that job. I do that shit
Speaker 6: bet than anybody, So right, and.
Speaker 1: Then it was over. It was like, you know, y'all
Speaker 1: do what y'all do.
Speaker 6: I'll be back.
Speaker 1: I'll see you in a couple of years. It's great,
Speaker 1: I'd agree.
Speaker 2: So weird man, because I maybe I'm just shocked at
Speaker 2: the perception of that being so short sighted, because that
Speaker 2: would draw me in seeing you in spaces that quote
Speaker 2: you weren't to us to be in.
Speaker 1: Well, it's not short.
Speaker 6: It brings me back to the base that you came
Speaker 6: from because well not most people. That might be you
Speaker 6: because you're a musician, but most people will not make
Speaker 6: that journey.
Speaker 1: I already knew that.
Speaker 6: I watched, you know, as a as a big you know,
Speaker 6: headhunter fan and a big Weather reporter fan. I used
Speaker 6: to hear all the musicians, oh yeah, you know, we're
Speaker 6: just bringing jazz to the masses. No, I didn't even
Speaker 6: know you guys played jazz. I went up Berkeley and
Speaker 6: Smittie Smith put on a never t D record and
Speaker 6: he says, I said, man, who the hell is that?
Speaker 1: He goes man, that's the great Mom's name with Wayne Short,
Speaker 1: I said, Wayne Shorter, like the.
Speaker 6: Guy who plays with weather Report. He give me it's
Speaker 6: the same guy. I'm like, it is no idea, Herbie Hancock,
Speaker 6: the guy from Headhunters. And I'm a musician, so no,
Speaker 6: I mean, that's like, I don't even know why musicians embark.
Speaker 1: On that line that they always come back to their base.
Speaker 6: If you feel like doing some shit, do it. If
Speaker 6: you ain't no good at it, maybe you learn how
Speaker 6: to be better at it. But I was always good
Speaker 6: at it. I was good at it as a kid,
Speaker 6: so it wasn't so traumatic for me.
Speaker 1: I was just going home.
Speaker 6: So when the machines started in the seventies late seventies.
Speaker 1: That whole sound was so milk toseed to me.
Speaker 6: Remember the old tr and all the R and B
Speaker 6: songs were suddenly going like from hitting, you know, from
Speaker 6: fop to.
Speaker 1: Like post sexual healing. Yes, I know. So I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm like, the ship's over, it's over.
Speaker 6: So for me, sampling started, I'm like, ship the hits back,
Speaker 6: you know, the vibe is back, the attitude is back
Speaker 6: to beat the.
Speaker 1: Swag, you know, and and that was the thing that
Speaker 1: I liked about it the most.
Speaker 2: So have you tried to explain to your family that
Speaker 2: you know, the music that the Bomb Squad was doing
Speaker 2: was just as urgent as something that they just.
Speaker 6: Because I wouldn't spend any time trying to tell the
Speaker 6: Bomb Squad that they need to check all the love Supreme,
Speaker 6: I wouldn't even waste my time.
Speaker 1: Jazz cats wouldn't come to you. I know Premiere must
Speaker 1: have because half the stuff that he's sampled, Premiere is
Speaker 1: let's see what I'm saying, is dead.
Speaker 6: Like look, a lot of guys sampled a lot of
Speaker 6: jazz stuff. They put the album on and they skip
Speaker 6: across until they find something that they like. PROMI you
Speaker 6: would actually listen to the records. Premier is different.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you can't use him as a
Speaker 1: metaboor for everybody else. But like most people who are
Speaker 1: good at the thing, that's the thing they're interesting.
Speaker 6: It's like there was this. There was this musician magazine
Speaker 6: or Rolling Stone the eighties and it's like, give me
Speaker 6: your top ten records or top twenty or whatever it was.
Speaker 6: I think it was top and with all these musicians,
Speaker 6: and they stuck me in. And the hip hop guys
Speaker 6: picked ten hip hop CDs, the rock and roll guys
Speaker 6: picked ten rock and roll CDs.
Speaker 1: I had all kinds of shit in there. That's just me.
Speaker 6: So my thing is is that, all right, I'm already weird,
Speaker 6: Like I listened to all these different styles of music.
Speaker 6: I just think that a lot of people that gave
Speaker 6: went and shit for not liking pop music, but nobody
Speaker 6: gives pop musician shit for not liking anything other than
Speaker 6: pop music. I've never heard an interview where they say, oh,
Speaker 6: you know that shit, it's cool, but do you sing opera?
Speaker 6: Doesn't that but a jazz guy, well, do you play
Speaker 6: anything contemporary? Do you play anything pop? Why does he
Speaker 6: have to do that?
Speaker 1: Prince, I mean, Prince said like, look, left handed things
Speaker 1: about jazz.
Speaker 6: But I never took offense to it, because you know,
Speaker 6: the ship is daunting to a lot of people, it's intimidated.
Speaker 6: We universally thought that Prince was a genius, and you know,
Speaker 6: he didn't really know a lot about jazz, so he
Speaker 6: would always say, oh jazz whatever.
Speaker 1: Man, music's still great. It don't matter to me. He
Speaker 1: would do us for a raising to it.
Speaker 3: They tried with Madhouse versions of it.
Speaker 1: I know, I know, I don't want to shot anyway,
Speaker 1: shot that she was insult.
Speaker 3: Okay, So like Madhouse, I mean, the first eight was cool.
Speaker 3: I mean, the song was that Albue was kind of sad.
Speaker 1: But those guys the song.
Speaker 3: The song was, but I mean, I wouldn't have them.
Speaker 1: Eric Leeds is my boy, right, it ain't got nothing
Speaker 1: to do with jazz.
Speaker 6: He will tell you that hisself, you know what I mean.
Speaker 6: Like Eric Lee's brother is like that James Brown, fucking authority.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm saying, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So I mean, and I'm good with that. It's just
Speaker 1: that this people have this weird relationship with jazz. But
Speaker 1: the thing is that they don't know this shit.
Speaker 6: They have these opinions about the music that they have
Speaker 6: barely heard or barely listened to. And I'm not saying
Speaker 6: that they should because you know, when you do strange
Speaker 6: shit for a living, you.
Speaker 1: Really something's really got to be wrong with you.
Speaker 6: When you it's like, you know somebody who's a poet,
Speaker 6: not a slam poet, but a poet. They know what
Speaker 6: that shit means. It means obscurity, and you feel compelled
Speaker 6: to do it anyway. And you have colleagues who are
Speaker 6: just as strange as you are. And there are books,
Speaker 6: there are magazines about poets. Poets talk to other poets.
Speaker 6: They have awards for poetry, and they win these awards,
Speaker 6: and nobody in the world gives it damn.
Speaker 1: You know, I sat on a plane with a guy
Speaker 1: who got.
Speaker 6: An award because in the in the atom chain it
Speaker 6: was already Einstein theorized that there was seven quarks in
Speaker 6: the atom chain. They only found six. But I was
Speaker 6: on a plane with the guy who found the seventh court.
Speaker 6: Don't nobody know his name. Don't nobody give a damn.
Speaker 6: You think he's sitting around saying I'm pissed off that
Speaker 6: I'm not recognized. You love what you do. None of
Speaker 6: that other shit matters. And that's how I feel about
Speaker 6: all of this. I don't you know, how do you
Speaker 6: feel that people don't like this?
Speaker 1: I like it. I don't give a damn I don't care.
Speaker 1: I like it, you know, well, I like you when
Speaker 1: you play with the Dead Great. I like that shit too.
Speaker 1: This thing was great, Yes, he was great. I like
Speaker 1: that too.
Speaker 6: What's the point, It's like, what are you trying to say?
Speaker 6: If I didn't like it, I wouldn't do it.
Speaker 2: You have you met up a collaboration that you were, Man,
Speaker 2: I should have done that because I don't do those?
Speaker 1: Can I time in here? Now?
Speaker 12: Ive in So I'm collaborated with the late Great Rob Washerman.
Speaker 12: We had Bruce Hornsby on the show a few weeks ago.
Speaker 12: I forgot to ask him about this a song called
Speaker 12: White Wheeled Limousine.
Speaker 6: For on an album called Trios, and no one's ever
Speaker 6: heard of this album, Like.
Speaker 12: Like, no, people don't care whatever, But you have any
Speaker 12: recollections of that session or of playing with Rob Washington?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 6: Well Rob was always kind of shy. He didn't he
Speaker 6: wasn't a real rose cat. Like I was still living
Speaker 6: in La then, and uh, and Bruce was living in
Speaker 6: La then. He spent a lot of time he was
Speaker 6: staying at Springsteen's house. So Rob kind of said, hey, man,
Speaker 6: don't you come down one of my tubes? And it
Speaker 6: was assumed because I think Bruce sang on the tune.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So uh, Bruce said, hey, man, let's go do
Speaker 1: this thing with Washington.
Speaker 6: I'm like, yeah, cool, let's go do it met up,
Speaker 6: you know, And I always tease him because you know,
Speaker 6: he's really he wasn't very shy cat.
Speaker 1: He didn't really and I would always like get in
Speaker 1: his face and be all from bost. I said, what
Speaker 1: do you think about that?
Speaker 6: He goes, come on, man, you had a good time.
Speaker 1: I mean we did one rehearsal take and then the
Speaker 1: real thing and then we hugged and we split. But
Speaker 1: you had known Rob Washman prior to that. Yeah, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: you know. I made him through how Wilman because Hal
Speaker 1: had him doing some stuff and then I met Rob
Speaker 1: and I did some other thing with Rob. Yeah yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I knew all the cats.
Speaker 6: Man.
Speaker 5: So, what what did you think of his bass playing?
Speaker 6: It's kind of where where where do you? You don't,
Speaker 6: I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't try to place people.
Speaker 6: But the thing is is that Rob's bass playing was
Speaker 6: greatful the music he was doing. Yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 6: mean I like the way he plays bass in the
Speaker 6: stuff that he was doing, Like if he was trying
Speaker 6: to play a love supreme. It probably wouldn't have worked. Yeah,
Speaker 6: very well.
Speaker 1: He was playing upright, but it was more like a.
Speaker 6: Stick base, you know.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like an acoustic upright base. It was like this.
Speaker 6: It was like this solid body electric thing.
Speaker 1: It's like a stick. I think they called it the stick.
Speaker 5: Chapman stick, that Chapman stick.
Speaker 6: Okay, cool, Yeah, he was playing the Chapmain stick.
Speaker 12: Is that the only time you recorded with with with
Speaker 12: Bruce Hornsby?
Speaker 6: No.
Speaker 1: I played on a couple of Bruises records, the one
Speaker 1: with the Talk of the Town. I played on that record.
Speaker 1: Aren't you on shadow Lands too? Is that your soprano
Speaker 1: or is that someone else's? Probably? Okay, Yeah, I was
Speaker 1: about to say, I think you are which record shadow Lands?
Speaker 1: Spike always uses that, Okay. I do want to know.
Speaker 2: Have you properly scored a Spike movie at all? Or
Speaker 2: is that just always Terrence's lane? Like I thought that
Speaker 2: would have been a natural progression for.
Speaker 6: You asked me to do it, and I was on
Speaker 6: the road, you know, really funny thing is is dead,
Speaker 6: you know digital audio workstations around then I would have
Speaker 6: done it, but I just said, man.
Speaker 1: I can't do the music justice.
Speaker 6: I'm not here.
Speaker 1: Terrence is here.
Speaker 6: Chance plays keyboards. He's a piano player and a trumpet player.
Speaker 6: He writes great stuff. Just get Terrence, get Tea, that's
Speaker 6: your man. It would be great.
Speaker 1: And it's been great because we lived four blocks from
Speaker 1: one another. Okay. I would see Terence all the time.
Speaker 4: We had premiere on the show a while back, and
Speaker 4: he would always talk about the time y'all living together.
Speaker 3: He said, y'all live together for our brother. What was
Speaker 3: that like his premiere a while dude?
Speaker 1: Ain't that wow? Son? Well, first of all, we were
Speaker 1: we were doing spite, wanting me to work with them
Speaker 1: on that jazz.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we just hit it off.
Speaker 6: We just hit it off.
Speaker 1: And you know they cool kid, did you know?
Speaker 6: They cool cats and funny and they just mentioned, you know,
Speaker 6: ship man, we just got evicted and say, well, ship man,
Speaker 6: you know I got this big.
Speaker 1: Ass house in Brooklyn, me and my wife and my kid,
Speaker 1: come on, come hang out. And it wound up being
Speaker 1: six months. What was that last? And it was it
Speaker 1: was like jaw the damage it back then it was
Speaker 1: just and little dap, you know, from a.
Speaker 6: Y you know.
Speaker 1: So, so I got hang with the whole crew. You know.
Speaker 1: It was good. It was fun.
Speaker 4: There was a song on on buck Shot, the first
Speaker 4: book shot, not the music evolution when the first one,
Speaker 4: ain't it funny? I can't remember who's the girl singing
Speaker 4: on that?
Speaker 3: And what Tammy town Tammy Townsend? What's she up to now? Like,
Speaker 3: what's her story?
Speaker 6: Do you?
Speaker 3: I really liked her voice.
Speaker 6: She was She still lives in la and she has
Speaker 6: a couple of shows. She was recently on some show
Speaker 6: on one of those Disney Channel shows. Okay, I don't
Speaker 6: remember which one it was, but she's been on that
Speaker 6: show for a while.
Speaker 3: That's what's up.
Speaker 6: I saw.
Speaker 1: Disney Channel shows.
Speaker 3: Okay. I always loved that song.
Speaker 6: Man. That that one of them things where it's like,
Speaker 6: you know, I used to you know, I grew up
Speaker 6: listening to del Phonics.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 6: I always wanted to write something like it. It was
Speaker 6: a really great thing too, because I said, you know,
Speaker 6: I'm never gonna do another record like this, so I'm
Speaker 6: just gonna put all kind of shit.
Speaker 1: You wanted to be. I said, that's the great question.
Speaker 1: Why do we have to answer that question? And everybody
Speaker 1: that was on the project, I would call him and say, hey, man,
Speaker 1: come you on this project and say.
Speaker 6: What is I said, I have no fun idea what
Speaker 6: it is?
Speaker 1: Come play?
Speaker 6: You know Bill was Lofkin guitar player who was at
Speaker 6: that time playing with Springsteen. I said, hey, I got
Speaker 6: this song for you to come play. What is it?
Speaker 1: I don't know, just come played on one song.
Speaker 6: And this is great.
Speaker 1: You have the other songs.
Speaker 6: I'm like, yeah, I play on this one.
Speaker 1: Greg villain Gains came in.
Speaker 6: Greg, I need doing this thing.
Speaker 1: He says, what is it? I said, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's just this thing, and you got another song. And
Speaker 1: we was just like we would make ten minute tracks.
Speaker 1: Every song was ten minutes long. And they said, well
Speaker 1: when we figure what the hell it is, then we
Speaker 1: can whittle it down.
Speaker 6: But we didn't know what it was. Who's going to sing?
Speaker 6: Who's gonna do this?
Speaker 1: We would put these tracks together except for that song,
Speaker 1: Ain't it funny?
Speaker 6: And uh?
Speaker 1: I got Tammy to sing it? And I used, when
Speaker 1: was it? Claire fish who wrote the string whoa?
Speaker 3: Clairefris read the strings?
Speaker 6: Claire Friser bro so Claire raised the string arrangers and
Speaker 6: you know Claire's a hard ass.
Speaker 1: Yes, so he writes the string arrangers, and he has both.
Speaker 6: He has Arco bass, so I'm like, okay, Claire, yeah,
Speaker 6: I don't need the Arco bass because we have a
Speaker 6: bass player playing in the classes with the bass. He's
Speaker 6: so used to doing these productions with these producers that
Speaker 6: don't know shit, so he says, well, why don't you
Speaker 6: come out here and show me the parts that you're
Speaker 6: talking about passive aggressive?
Speaker 1: And I said okay, And I walked out there and.
Speaker 6: I looked at the score.
Speaker 1: I took a pencil. I said from here to here,
Speaker 1: and he says, oh, oh no, it's fine, no problem.
Speaker 1: As soon as he realized I could read.
Speaker 3: The score, he realized you knew what it was.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I didn't have to deal with this ship anymore.
Speaker 1: But he's just he you know, he would like to
Speaker 1: like get these poor producers in there and hire me,
Speaker 1: and he would like humiliate and I'm like, nah, I
Speaker 1: know what I'm talking about here, get the base out
Speaker 1: of there. And he struck the base and yeah, not,
Speaker 1: We're good, you know, And it was a good It's
Speaker 1: a great arrangement, except you know, the bases. But I
Speaker 1: enjoyed that whole project. It was great.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was I was fifteen in the camp and
Speaker 4: that was like my sophomore year high school when it
Speaker 4: came up.
Speaker 3: You know, no, man, I was not you.
Speaker 1: I'm just telling you, like, like, right man, this record sucks.
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, okay, what is it?
Speaker 6: I don't know. That's the good bro. I'm just telling
Speaker 6: you what.
Speaker 1: Happened, right you. You weren't the one. I wasn't talking
Speaker 1: to you. Okay. You have these writers and they say, well,
Speaker 1: there's a rapper on it, so it must be hip hop.
Speaker 1: No it's not right, it's not it's.
Speaker 6: Just like not what you're trying to make it. And
Speaker 6: even on Colombia. Columbia, they they had this meeting with
Speaker 6: them and they said this. You know, it's like they
Speaker 6: have this this is what they do with black people.
Speaker 6: Think so we got a street team out there. I'm like,
Speaker 6: your street team? Are you fucking crazy? This is not
Speaker 6: a street team record.
Speaker 1: No, it's gonna buy it. They're not gonna buy this record.
Speaker 1: And they said, so we have our.
Speaker 6: Street team and we put up stickers. All of us said,
Speaker 6: oh my god, this is not that kind of record.
Speaker 6: But they didn't have a plan B for a black
Speaker 6: person that wasn't making a jazz record. It's like they
Speaker 6: have this machine and they're gonna stick you in the machine,
Speaker 6: and they're gonna put the record in the in the
Speaker 6: hands of DJ's and I'm like, who aren't gonna play it?
Speaker 1: And they're like and they just but they didn't. They
Speaker 1: couldn't conceptualize the idea that they couldn't put it into
Speaker 1: the box that they put all the arts?
Speaker 3: Was it a little better for the second album of
Speaker 3: Music Evolution? Did they get it?
Speaker 1: But by then I was like, Okay, I already know
Speaker 1: what this shit is.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you know what I mean, I'm not even I'm
Speaker 6: just if they try to have a publicity meeting with me,
Speaker 6: I'm just not even gonna attend. Because we had a
Speaker 6: band by then, and we were touring and we were
Speaker 6: having a good time, and we started some of those
Speaker 6: what do they call it jam bands, like String.
Speaker 3: Seasons, Keller Williams Government, you know, we.
Speaker 1: Start playing with these bands and like it was going
Speaker 1: to be its own thing.
Speaker 6: I don't know. I just decided, yeah, I don't know
Speaker 6: if I want to be doing this when I'm fifty. So,
Speaker 6: you know, we got to that last tour Frank wanted
Speaker 6: to go out. The singer wanted to go out and
Speaker 6: do his own thing.
Speaker 3: This is Frank McComb.
Speaker 6: Frank McComb, Frank mccolly, his own thing. The trumpet player,
Speaker 6: Russell Gunn wanted to go do his own thing. So
Speaker 6: it all kind of just I said, well, if y'all
Speaker 6: ain't doing it, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't even want to do this.
Speaker 3: And were you doing Tonight Show as well around this time?
Speaker 1: I didn't want to ask you questions. I want this
Speaker 1: to be to be Tonight's Show, free interviews. Oh it's fine,
Speaker 1: I was doing it.
Speaker 6: So I was doing it Tonight Show when we were
Speaker 6: producing the first buck Shot record.
Speaker 1: Okay, but I left the show at ninety five.
Speaker 6: I left the show in ninety five tour with the
Speaker 6: band that you know that became Buckshot.
Speaker 1: I can dig it.
Speaker 3: Did you just enjoy that more than doing being on TV?
Speaker 1: I think that, which is what I told you.
Speaker 6: If Tonight Show we're in New York, I probably would
Speaker 6: have stayed. But there's no way living in Los Angeles,
Speaker 6: there was no consistent creative musical outlet. So if I
Speaker 6: was going to stay, I was basically gonna be saying
Speaker 6: that I was giving up playing music because there was
Speaker 6: no place to play and there was no audience for it,
Speaker 6: so we were playing gigs and restaurants. It was just
Speaker 6: really and then and then I could start a feeling
Speaker 6: slipping away. So it really wasn't about the show or
Speaker 6: Jay or any of those other things. It's just my instincts,
Speaker 6: you know. I just it was a simple question. If
Speaker 6: you stay here, you're gonna make a lot of money.
Speaker 6: So is that okay that you make a lot of
Speaker 6: money and you do this show and you cease being
Speaker 6: a function musician on the level that you're accustomed to
Speaker 6: on the and the and the answer was no. But
Speaker 6: if it had been in New York, where I could
Speaker 6: go still like play gigs at night and keep my
Speaker 6: chops up and keep that whole music and get that
Speaker 6: musical input. But it is a very isolating place. It's
Speaker 6: a very isolating place. So I was really excited for
Speaker 6: you all, especially when Jimmy was gonna move to New York.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, this is great, man. You get to be,
Speaker 1: you know, in the city, and you can play gigs
Speaker 1: afterwards if you want to.
Speaker 2: Do that, you're around. He wanted to come to l
Speaker 2: a for a second what they were they were trying
Speaker 2: to consider it, like maybere'd you go to l A.
Speaker 2: But that's when the other that's when the other Jimmy
Speaker 2: was starting to pick up some heat.
Speaker 3: Ah got you.
Speaker 6: You didn't want to do it.
Speaker 2: You've done everything I forgot. You're on Chinese's like, I
Speaker 2: love your smile.
Speaker 1: All this shit. So I get paid for that ship
Speaker 1: either Noda got you?
Speaker 6: Damn man, I don't really care because all out what
Speaker 6: I got was like two undred fifty bucks.
Speaker 1: Anyway, right, He's like, you know, you're like, do you
Speaker 1: know the union rate? Whatever it was you need whatever
Speaker 1: we were playing.
Speaker 6: We're playing a gig at this jazz club Caesars East
Speaker 6: in Memoryville, and Narady came to the gigs Man, I
Speaker 6: need you to play on this too. I went, okay, yeah,
Speaker 6: sure when tonight. I'm like, bro, come on, He goes.
Speaker 1: Please creaking singer Shitise Wilson, it's gonna be a big hit, said,
Speaker 1: I don't care if it's gonna be a big hit.
Speaker 6: Man, I don't want to get to sleep.
Speaker 1: He said, man, can you assus that? Fine?
Speaker 6: So we went over the bridge to Marine County, where
Speaker 6: his crib was and he said, this is her rough track,
Speaker 6: and I played at the rough time. I never met her.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, never met her. I thought you negotiated that
Speaker 1: shout out, so you know, no, I asked him not
Speaker 1: to do it.
Speaker 3: He said wow.
Speaker 6: He said, yeah, man, I'm gonna get it to say
Speaker 6: blow brand for go. I said, please don't do that because, okay,
Speaker 6: I won't.
Speaker 1: Comes out. I'm like, no, I knew it was. I
Speaker 1: knew everywhere I went I was gonna hear that.
Speaker 3: First Miss bell Air.
Speaker 1: His cameo, oh yeah, I forgot. Yeah, well we were
Speaker 1: in the same studio. That's what made it work. Oh okay,
Speaker 1: that's right, NBC. I forgot.
Speaker 2: Was there a collaboration opportunity that was presented to you
Speaker 2: that you couldn't do that wound up being something significant?
Speaker 6: Not that I can think of, Okay, okay, like what
Speaker 6: I don't even know, like no, no, no, I just meant.
Speaker 2: Like a chance to do like a I don't know,
Speaker 2: playing on a track called quest record, Like someone requesting
Speaker 2: you to do something and you weren't able to do
Speaker 2: it because of scheduling reasons they were they would never.
Speaker 4: No, okay, I don't think that, man, Yo, So I
Speaker 4: didn't realize have you and Dave Matthews done anymore?
Speaker 3: Because I saw that you would play.
Speaker 4: It was a live version of Loverly Down, which was
Speaker 4: like one of my favorite Dave Matthew songs.
Speaker 1: We did that in rally.
Speaker 6: But yeah, well, you know Jeff Coffin, the guy who
Speaker 6: pleted the saxophone player in the band. Yeah, I guess
Speaker 6: h Leroy really liked me. I didn't really get to
Speaker 6: know Larroy that well. The one time that they played
Speaker 6: in New York, They're playing at Jones Beach and I
Speaker 6: want to take my son, so they're like, come sit
Speaker 6: in with the band. I said, nah, my son's ten,
Speaker 6: We're just gonna go to a concert. And they have
Speaker 6: like a you know, falling sun night out. Go hear
Speaker 6: the music, you know. And then I wrote them a
Speaker 6: nice letter because they hooked up the tickets and I
Speaker 6: wrote them a nice letter to the man in the
Speaker 6: saying thanks. It was great, you know.
Speaker 1: And the next time I come play, and then Leroy
Speaker 1: had that weird ATV accident and died.
Speaker 6: It was wild. But I know Jeff Coffin really well,
Speaker 6: so Jeff will call me and say, hey, man, the
Speaker 6: guys want you to come play, and I'm like going, shit, okay, yeah,
Speaker 6: sim Rawley, that's forty minute drive from me, so I'll
Speaker 6: come through.
Speaker 1: And then it just started to do they say, hey,
Speaker 1: can you make this gig?
Speaker 6: And you do this? And you know, yeah, anytime I
Speaker 6: could do it, I'm happy to do it. That was
Speaker 6: I mean, it's a great band. I love the band
Speaker 6: so and they write great songs.
Speaker 2: How how long does it take you, especially when you're
Speaker 2: doing a Dead and Company or even when you were
Speaker 2: doing Grateful Dead. Their catalog is so damn expansive. How
Speaker 2: long does it take you to study that? Or like
Speaker 2: did they just tell you to get in where you
Speaker 2: fit in? Or like how does that work?
Speaker 6: And I do? Then I go in to play and
Speaker 6: they just they call that something like unlike a lot
Speaker 6: of men. Those guys used to just call the songs
Speaker 6: on the stage. They didn't have any set list. I
Speaker 6: would always kind of you lay back in the first
Speaker 6: churse I wouldn't play, And I was learning the form,
Speaker 6: learning the forum and listening to the ideas that they
Speaker 6: play in the little motifs and where can I play
Speaker 6: and where is it fit in?
Speaker 1: So then on the second course, if I can get
Speaker 1: in there. I'll get in there, and if I can't,
Speaker 1: I just won't play.
Speaker 4: I see, man, I want to know. I want you
Speaker 4: to talk about your time a Central. That's my alma
Speaker 4: mad I graduated in one. What brought you this Central?
Speaker 3: And what is the climate?
Speaker 6: Like?
Speaker 4: You know you're talking earlier about all the gospel players.
Speaker 4: It was very much like that when I was there
Speaker 4: as well. Everybody came out of church.
Speaker 3: What's it like now?
Speaker 6: They're great? I mean this some of the most. I
Speaker 6: mean there's some of the most. They're just great. They're
Speaker 6: just great kids, and they're not ambitious. And that's perfect
Speaker 6: for me because when you go to those regular music schools,
Speaker 6: so many of the musicians are ambitious. You know.
Speaker 1: Like we had a situation where one of our students
Speaker 1: had some problems.
Speaker 6: She had to go to the hospital, and all of
Speaker 6: the kids start texting and saying, you know, we need
Speaker 6: to go to the hospital. We need to be with
Speaker 6: our girl. I mean, men, men, the whole thing. Everybody,
Speaker 6: when you're gonna tell me when you go into the hospital,
Speaker 6: like that happened at Berkeley, they'd be like, well, yeah,
Speaker 6: that's too.
Speaker 1: Bad, you know.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So what time is the hit? I mean it
Speaker 6: was just like a whole different kind of thing, you know,
Speaker 6: the uh we uh Joy Calgarazzo and I went to
Speaker 6: this restaurant and they were a lot of the singers
Speaker 6: from the vocal on some and so, what are y'all
Speaker 6: doing this? Because of COVID, we can't meet the freshmen,
Speaker 6: so we just meet him here and we sit around.
Speaker 6: So you got upperclassmen needing freshmens to just have lunch
Speaker 6: with them because they can't be together under the normal circumstance.
Speaker 6: So I just love the camaraderie and the energy. I mean,
Speaker 6: it's it's it's it's an amazing place. Ara Wiggins runs
Speaker 6: the program and eat.
Speaker 3: Yeah it was there when I was there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Wiggans, you know, he's my boss.
Speaker 6: So I mean, they've just set up such a great
Speaker 6: environment there and the kids are really curious and really smart,
Speaker 6: and some of them are super talented too, you know,
Speaker 6: and they just use the material and then move on
Speaker 6: and do other things.
Speaker 4: Do you have to have the talk with you know,
Speaker 4: being who you are, do you have to kind of
Speaker 4: have that talk with the students? Like I watched the
Speaker 4: actually a elling like master class he was doing where
Speaker 4: he just told the kids straight up. He was like, look,
Speaker 4: this is not your big break, Like, we ain't here
Speaker 4: for that. Do you have to do something similar with
Speaker 4: the kids now? So do they understand this education and
Speaker 4: not I'm trying to get on impress Branford.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it's different. It's a different thing because
Speaker 1: it's not a masterclass.
Speaker 6: I mean, I'm there, they see me all the time,
Speaker 6: and I dog them when they first get there, so
Speaker 6: I scared the hell out of them.
Speaker 1: So it takes them almost a whole year to figure
Speaker 1: out that I was just fucking with him.
Speaker 6: You know, the upper clansmen know what it is because
Speaker 6: they went through I don't say nothing, and the kids
Speaker 6: are scared down, egg shells and.
Speaker 3: All of it, you know.
Speaker 1: And then eventually they realized, man, he's just playing me.
Speaker 1: So then the whole thing it opens up and it's cool,
Speaker 1: you know, it opens up and it's cool. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's uh. I take it very seriously, and I kid
Speaker 1: around with him.
Speaker 6: We joke. I mean, we have a good time, but
Speaker 6: it's a serious thing and it's more about thought process,
Speaker 6: Like I don't even really want to hear him play,
Speaker 6: you know. And once they and I told him, I said,
Speaker 6: the lessons ain't gonna get good till it ain't about playing.
Speaker 1: And what the upper classmen do is because they are
Speaker 1: half hour lessons.
Speaker 6: You know, before COVID, there would be half hour lesson
Speaker 6: starting at ten thirty, So three people would sign up
Speaker 6: for ten thirty, eleven, and eleven thirty, and then it
Speaker 6: would all come at ten thirty and we would just
Speaker 6: play music.
Speaker 1: And talk for an hour and a half.
Speaker 6: Wow, gotcha, you know so, and then it became this
Speaker 6: thing where the lesson wasn't your private lesson. It was
Speaker 6: like a class that other students were monitoring you. And
Speaker 6: sometimes people just come in to check out the lesson.
Speaker 6: I'm like, yeah, come on in. And then some of
Speaker 6: the students would say, well, you know, man, I didn't
Speaker 6: think he was going to be I said, man, you
Speaker 6: want to play for people for a livid you better
Speaker 6: get used to the idea.
Speaker 1: Of criticizing you and checking you out and all this
Speaker 1: other shit. You know, you don't have secret lessons. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was the big deal you bad at something.
Speaker 6: Shit, what's wrong with him knowing? And then they're like
Speaker 6: all right, cool, yeah, so you have kids coming and
Speaker 6: sitting on other kids lessons this is a great it's
Speaker 6: a great situation.
Speaker 3: That's what's up.
Speaker 6: Man.
Speaker 1: See, I'm waiting for a black version of which Lash
Speaker 1: to come out in the movies.
Speaker 6: You had an experience like the experience in Whippers.
Speaker 1: I said, no, I'd beat it if he touched me.
Speaker 6: Like the writer was like, he was like, really, trust me,
Speaker 6: trust me.
Speaker 1: They get me in the class.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's happening.
Speaker 1: It's going down well.
Speaker 2: I mean, but do you come from a place where
Speaker 2: you feel like this generation might be too used to
Speaker 2: praise and but.
Speaker 6: I don't care. I guess they are used to praise,
Speaker 6: but I don't care. I mean, so you don't use
Speaker 6: the tough teacher approach like or to the to the
Speaker 6: JK approach. They would call it a tough teacher okay,
Speaker 6: like throwing ship and all of that. But I'm not
Speaker 6: gonna throw something on it. They suck, they suck. I
Speaker 6: just tell him they suck. But I'm gonna tell him
Speaker 6: why they suck. I'm not gonna sit there. It's not
Speaker 6: like I'm gonna have to.
Speaker 1: I'm not.
Speaker 6: I'm not trying to establish my dominance over you because
Speaker 6: I don't have this deep tragic thing where I was
Speaker 6: on a bandstand and I was humiliated. So I'm going
Speaker 6: to act that on on every student that psycho trauma
Speaker 6: that you know JK. Simmons character had. Then they've been
Speaker 6: my experience. Oh okay, okay, it's not been my experience, No, band,
Speaker 6: I appreciate it. And you know I've been dying for
Speaker 6: this moment. But I know that you hate when cats
Speaker 6: be nerd out on you. I do, you know, every
Speaker 6: second of the day, so I really appreciate you taking.
Speaker 1: The time out. I appreciate you. Thanks for inviting me
Speaker 1: to speak to me.
Speaker 3: No, thank thank you man.
Speaker 4: And just as a as a as a central graduate man,
Speaker 4: it really means a lot that you're like, you know,
Speaker 4: at my university, man, like.
Speaker 1: That can't imagine being nowhere else. It's awesome.
Speaker 2: Well on behalf of unpaid bill Sugar, Steve uh bigelow uh.
Speaker 2: This quest Love with the great Grandpa Marcellus Quest Love
Speaker 2: Supreme and we will see one of the next around.
Speaker 6: Thank you very much. Yo.
Speaker 3: What's up? This is Sponte.
Speaker 4: Make sure you keep up with us on Instagram at
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