Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic
Speaker 1: episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
Speaker 2: What up, y'all is Laiyah from Team Supreme. Okay, So
Speaker 2: it's June, and you know it is Black Music Monk
Speaker 2: now this month and its cause was started by my godmother,
Speaker 2: Dianna Williams, the legendary Kenny Gamble, and the great ed
Speaker 2: right back in nineteen seventy nine after being invited to
Speaker 2: the White House along with the Black Music Association. Now,
Speaker 2: the Black Music Association was a group of black folks
Speaker 2: that were the best of the best of the music industry.
Speaker 2: I'm talking record execs, I'm talking radio people, I'm talking artists.
Speaker 2: I'm talking to everybody from Clarence Avon and Frankie Crocker
Speaker 2: to Percy Sutton, everybody in the middle right. So they
Speaker 2: all get invited to this big party on the White
Speaker 2: House lawn June seventh, nineteen seventy nine. And before the
Speaker 2: performances started, President Carter said many things addressing and reminding
Speaker 2: people of the importance of Black Music Monk. And one
Speaker 2: of the things he said was end quote in many ways,
Speaker 2: the feelings of our own black citizens throughout the history
Speaker 2: of our country has been accurately expressed in the music,
Speaker 2: and it presents a kind of history of our nation
Speaker 2: when you go back and see the evolution of black
Speaker 2: music word. So we've spoken a lot about Black Music
Speaker 2: Month on Questloves Supreme, and this June we are running
Speaker 2: a different episode from the QLs archives every single day
Speaker 2: in the name, spirit and cause of Black Music Month.
Speaker 2: Next up, we are honoring a legend who has transitioned
Speaker 2: and so we continue to honor him, the amazing James
Speaker 2: M Two men.
Speaker 3: Suprema Supremo, Role called Suprema Supremo.
Speaker 4: Roll call Suprema su Supremo. Role call Suprema Supremo.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's not surprising.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: My sign is artichoke.
Speaker 5: Yeah, with the sparagus rise Supremo.
Speaker 6: Roll Suprema Son Supremo.
Speaker 1: Roll my name is Fante. Yeah, and I can't stop,
Speaker 1: won't stop. You are the key to my love life.
Speaker 3: Supremo Suprema Supremo, roll call, I Love Air toe Yeah.
Speaker 7: And Deodato Yeah, put this guy here. Yeah he played
Speaker 7: with Gotto.
Speaker 3: Suprema Son Son Supremo, roll call Suprema Son soun Supremo.
Speaker 6: Roll called I'm unpaid Bill. Yeah, you know who you are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't let it hold you down.
Speaker 6: Reach fold.
Speaker 3: Supremo, roll, Suprema Son Supremo role, don't be concerned.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Boss Bill's return. Yeah, vacation was great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, time off well earned. Suprema. I haven't been on
Speaker 1: the train for like a month.
Speaker 6: You yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we don't.
Speaker 6: Supreme.
Speaker 1: That was like turn Supreme roll.
Speaker 8: My name is Willie Yeah, oh really yeah. My sign
Speaker 8: is all the choke. Yeah with a green pea vison.
Speaker 3: Supreme roll, Suprema, Supremo, Role, Supremo, Supremo, Role Supremo So sore.
Speaker 5: Wow, gentlemen, welcome to another episode of Course Love Supreme.
Speaker 1: Let's welcome back our boss, Boss Bill.
Speaker 4: They're always calling the shots from Europe.
Speaker 5: Okay, but so long you also realized that we was,
Speaker 5: you know, taunting you while you was away.
Speaker 1: It was definitely while cats away. You really think I cared?
Speaker 1: I think I was thinking about this show.
Speaker 6: How was Amsterdam? Bill?
Speaker 4: I don't remember?
Speaker 6: Good answer was good answer?
Speaker 1: Good answer?
Speaker 5: Yeah, welcome to another episode of Quest Love Supreme. We
Speaker 5: got the team Supreme here, we got Boss Bill, unpaid Bill,
Speaker 5: uh fan.
Speaker 1: Ticolo and it's light Yah.
Speaker 5: Yeah we we we decided to commit on a name
Speaker 5: that's consistent, and this is the second week in row
Speaker 5: that like calling you. It's like, yeah, our distinguished guests. Oh,
Speaker 5: I'm sorry, and we got Steve.
Speaker 1: Don't take it personal. I'm sorry man. You know we're
Speaker 1: best friends.
Speaker 6: Man, I mean looking right at me, that was well played.
Speaker 9: Uh.
Speaker 1: I just think what yesterday, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 5: Uh has has achieved a lot, and in the world
Speaker 5: of jazz, in the world of pop music and soul
Speaker 5: music and R and B and uh, I guess inadvertently
Speaker 5: hip hop as well. You know, absolutely he has had
Speaker 5: his his his histories is just a who's who of
Speaker 5: of history.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe I went to Amsterdam.
Speaker 6: It sounds like it sounds like, yes, ladies and gentleman.
Speaker 5: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome, uh the incomparable James m
Speaker 5: too maate to question.
Speaker 8: Yes, thank you very very much. Thank you want to
Speaker 8: be here, man, Thank you so much.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 5: We we know you have stories in history. We are
Speaker 5: live in electric lyad the studios right now. You're about
Speaker 5: to tell us you you've been here a few times.
Speaker 8: Man, that's the I think the first time I was
Speaker 8: in here was like seventy four. Wow, I remember been here,
Speaker 8: like I can't remember. You know, jazz. A lot of
Speaker 8: jazz records were done here in the seventh I think
Speaker 8: the last time I was here was.
Speaker 10: Would be Loud Yeah, yeah, yeah, with my son fire.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's something about this studio that makes artists forget who
Speaker 2: they were.
Speaker 6: That's the same question.
Speaker 8: He was like, I'm here, like my man just quoted
Speaker 8: I come in here, I look up there, gotto him.
Speaker 10: Yeah that was my Yeah, that was my mayor.
Speaker 1: So are you you know?
Speaker 5: Not many people know that you are a Philadelphia something?
Speaker 1: Does phil you know that you're a Philadelphia? You know what?
Speaker 8: That's a great question. Most people don't know that, although
Speaker 8: I've always made that clear. Brother was born and raised
Speaker 8: in South Philly. I left when I was eighteen.
Speaker 10: To go to college in Pasadena. But South Philly.
Speaker 1: Man, Yeah, but are you? Are you even in the.
Speaker 8: Nothing, I never got any wreckord. No, No, I will.
Speaker 5: It's crazy, I will probably I'm not playing Devil's advocate
Speaker 5: because you know, if you're if you're on a border
Speaker 5: committee like that, I would hope to think that you
Speaker 5: would do your thorough research.
Speaker 1: But I don't.
Speaker 5: I mean, based only that you don't do that much
Speaker 5: press or no, a lot of press, and I'm pretty
Speaker 5: much a sponge for this type of information. I truly
Speaker 5: didn't know that until maybe, you know, three four five
Speaker 5: minutes ago.
Speaker 8: You know what's deep about that? Brother? That's why into
Speaker 8: y'all when I heard that y'all was from Philly the roots.
Speaker 10: Really, yes, sir, it.
Speaker 1: Makes sense now. Yeah, so you're born in South Philly where.
Speaker 8: Uh fifteen twenty six Warton Street, right across the street
Speaker 8: from Barrett Junior High. I went to Overbrook High Overbrook.
Speaker 10: Yes, sir, Wait, year did you go to Overbrook? Damn
Speaker 10: you getting deep?
Speaker 8: I went. I graduated in sixty six, so I think
Speaker 8: was that sixty two? Because remember back then high school
Speaker 8: started in tenth grade. Okay, you know you had Junior
Speaker 8: High right and then high. So yeah, and I went
Speaker 8: to Overbrook because I went to school. I was a
Speaker 8: swimmer and over in the South and Southern didn't have
Speaker 8: a swimming team. And my uncle lived in the right
Speaker 8: around the corner from Overbrook, so I used this address
Speaker 8: and commuted every day.
Speaker 5: It's weird you say Southern, because my era of Southern
Speaker 5: was like Joe Clark's lean on me southern right rights.
Speaker 1: Matter of fact, West Philly High School is the same way.
Speaker 10: Like you know back in back in those day.
Speaker 1: But was it cool to go to southern if you
Speaker 1: wanted to?
Speaker 8: Well, you know, it wasn't that many bloods really, you know,
Speaker 8: it was a whole You gotta remember, South Philly wasn't
Speaker 8: what it was.
Speaker 10: I mean back then.
Speaker 8: I think my family when we moved there, we were
Speaker 8: probably about the second family black family that was in
Speaker 8: that area.
Speaker 4: What did your folks do?
Speaker 8: Uh?
Speaker 10: Well, let me let me get this this great question.
Speaker 8: Uh. My biological father is is a Jimmy Heath, Great Jimmy,
Speaker 8: yes sir, and.
Speaker 10: Of the of the Heath brothers, my uncles Percy my uh,
Speaker 10: of the uncle's two dy uh Coomber.
Speaker 8: The father that raised me was was was a great
Speaker 8: pianist named James heng Gates foreman.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 8: He played with Bird, he played with Dizzy, he played
Speaker 8: with Lester Young, you know. And as a matter of fact,
Speaker 8: Bill when he was Billy Billy Holliday paid for my parents'
Speaker 8: wedding with my mother and yes, sir, down in Washington
Speaker 8: is my sister's god mother. My sister's passed, but Dona
Speaker 8: who are we gonna go there? Brother, I'm seventy years old,
Speaker 8: but I've been in this thing. Man, when I was
Speaker 8: ten or eleven. I just briefly say this. I remember
Speaker 8: sometimes be at the table dinner. There's dizzey beless people. Wow,
Speaker 8: there's still lonely this monk, there's cold Trane. I'm not
Speaker 8: gonna say I knew how hip that was, but I
Speaker 8: knew I was in some special shit.
Speaker 6: What was the dinner conversation like with those kind of people?
Speaker 8: Nine man, I just knew it was like wow, you know,
Speaker 8: And as I got older, the deep part is that
Speaker 8: I ended up playing with some of these people.
Speaker 1: When did you appreciate it?
Speaker 10: The intellect and the humor.
Speaker 8: One of the funniest people in the world was Miles
Speaker 8: Dats and a lot of people don't because you know.
Speaker 4: You see him as just the serious sky.
Speaker 8: Man, funniest cat in the world. All jazz cats are funny.
Speaker 8: I think Dave Chappelle, uh you cats were played on it.
Speaker 8: I think when he had that block party and I
Speaker 8: saw him sit down and he started playing around midnight,
Speaker 8: I said, Lord, and he was talking about the humor of.
Speaker 10: Monk and timing, you know, man, it was.
Speaker 8: It was very special. Uh, Sonny violence, I played with
Speaker 8: all these cats. Well, I'm sorry, I was going to
Speaker 8: add this. Well, I'm like, I'm old, so I get them.
Speaker 6: You already take it out.
Speaker 8: My father, Jimmy Heath and and myself are the only
Speaker 8: father's son historically that ever played with Myles.
Speaker 10: Father played, and the son played with Mars.
Speaker 4: And when you when you were with Myles, what were
Speaker 4: you playing?
Speaker 8: Percussion?
Speaker 4: Placussion?
Speaker 8: But I was.
Speaker 10: I also played.
Speaker 8: You know, obviously I didn't write songs or scored, but
Speaker 8: I'm a keyboardst Okay.
Speaker 5: So can I ask, well, first of all for the
Speaker 5: Heath brother's question, yes, sir, because they mean a lot
Speaker 5: to us.
Speaker 1: For another reason, who was playing?
Speaker 6: Who's playing?
Speaker 8: Uh?
Speaker 5: Colimba on Danny Cow that wash?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Okay, so that even makes more sense keyboards.
Speaker 9: Do you care to elaborate for the people that that
Speaker 9: don't listen to Nas.
Speaker 6: I don't care to welcome back?
Speaker 5: Okay, okay, So basically for hip hop heads that care
Speaker 5: about the artist sampling? Uh A well loved Heath Brothers
Speaker 5: song called Smiling Billy was sampled by Nas. Uh q
Speaker 5: Tip sampled it on NAS's One Love and so, and
Speaker 5: the beating that's also sampled, of course, yes, the beating
Speaker 5: on style.
Speaker 1: But silely cow. I didn't, Yes, I that's that one.
Speaker 1: I didn't know.
Speaker 5: I didn't know that he was in the crew, and
Speaker 5: I didn't know they were from Philly. But I was
Speaker 5: saying that when these luminaries are like coming to your
Speaker 5: house and and just hang with you, no one, yeah,
Speaker 5: no one appreciates it when they're young.
Speaker 10: I did, well.
Speaker 5: I was saying, like, so you instantly knew and appreciated it.
Speaker 8: Like I said, I'd be lying to say that young,
Speaker 8: I just knew it was something special.
Speaker 10: I knew it was something special.
Speaker 8: And sometimes the cats would stay with it, like if
Speaker 8: they were working Philly, like Sonny Stick would live with
Speaker 8: us for that week. And I remember one day waking
Speaker 8: up he was in the backyard practicing playing afato. Barry Harris,
Speaker 8: a great jazz pianist, stayed with us. He's with Cannonball
Speaker 8: back then, and they come and play. I was going
Speaker 8: in the clubs when I was fourteen and fifteen. I
Speaker 8: couldn't buy no drink, but I you know cats, you
Speaker 8: know said, you know, get a little little punk a
Speaker 8: coke us up you know, but I used to go
Speaker 8: there and hear yousef PEPs and the show.
Speaker 10: But oh yeah, man, so.
Speaker 6: What was the okay?
Speaker 5: So described the Philly cabaret music scene, like, what was it?
Speaker 5: Where could you where could you go see? What was
Speaker 5: the typical lineup like? And to see these shows?
Speaker 10: Well, you know there were especially in Field.
Speaker 8: Well back in them days, every city had a ton
Speaker 8: of jazz clubs and that's where them you know, obviously
Speaker 8: you notice, you know as as well as I do.
Speaker 10: That's where you went to hear the music.
Speaker 8: It wasn't until Miles came along that jazz started breaking
Speaker 8: on the concert. You know, you go pay money and
Speaker 8: sit in the in the in the you know, Lincoln Center,
Speaker 8: you know, and in places like that. But the clubs, man,
Speaker 8: you know, that's where it was, and it was the
Speaker 8: crowds were so hip. The bebop audience was as hip
Speaker 8: as the cats on stage. Cause you had to know,
Speaker 8: you know, you wasn't you wasn't hip if you didn't
Speaker 8: have the new cold train, you know I'm talking about.
Speaker 10: I'm in junior high school, man, I.
Speaker 8: Couldn't wait when you know, Milestone and cond of Blue
Speaker 8: came out and I used to study every solo and
Speaker 8: I would hum them.
Speaker 10: That was my introduction to this music.
Speaker 11: So at your at your time, when you were coming up,
Speaker 11: jazz was like the pop music of your time, the
Speaker 11: real hip hop.
Speaker 8: Dig it was that. And I'm also growing up with
Speaker 8: Frankie Lyman and the teenagers Why the Fools fall in love?
Speaker 8: So it's the birth of black R and B. And
Speaker 8: this whole youth, you know, was w D as Georgie
Speaker 8: woods Man with the Goods. You know, every night I'm
Speaker 8: listening to that. Now, this is a funny story. And
Speaker 8: if I'm talking too much, y'all come.
Speaker 6: That's what we want. So normally we talk. Please talk
Speaker 6: more than me.
Speaker 8: See one thing you gotta remember back then, growing up
Speaker 8: in a jazz household was almost like and listening to
Speaker 8: R and B was almost sacrilegious, you dig uh, It's
Speaker 8: like you know people who grow up in the church
Speaker 8: and they go into funk and armby. Oh wait a minute,
Speaker 8: you know. So I used to have to listen to
Speaker 8: my stuff real low, you know, at night. But I
Speaker 8: have then that we had transistor radios. I have it
Speaker 8: under the pillow, and I used to hear all these cats. Man,
Speaker 8: you know, Georgie Woods and back then, you know, it
Speaker 8: wasn't this like if he dug a record and Kenny
Speaker 8: Gamble told me this. He said, sometimes him and the
Speaker 8: Huff would cut a record and run right up to
Speaker 8: the station and dropped on him and he played four
Speaker 8: times in a row, because that's how you broke records
Speaker 8: back then.
Speaker 10: Wow. So you know, so I'm growing up with jazz
Speaker 10: and the birth of R and B.
Speaker 5: Slight slight confession time, Yes, sir, And it's kind of weird.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm your story in reverse.
Speaker 5: So for all the Prince for Glory stories I've ever
Speaker 5: told about being on punishment for Prince and parents, yeah,
Speaker 5: being all that.
Speaker 1: Actually Prince wasn't first. I mean, Prince was prevalent. But
Speaker 1: the very first time that my parents pulled an intervention
Speaker 1: on a mirror listening to secular, salacious pop music was
Speaker 1: I had flim flammed, and you know, I asked my mom, like, YO,
Speaker 1: buy me the juicy food. Oh god, you know, I
Speaker 1: was like to I was in California asking my mom, like,
Speaker 1: give me juicy food forty five. She was like, no,
Speaker 1: that's that's a lollipop everywhere. Noah.
Speaker 5: And then I tried to do it on dad like that,
Speaker 5: and then they did that, Wait didn't you already ask
Speaker 5: your mother?
Speaker 6: And asked me so.
Speaker 5: Before they issued the your un punishment joint. Then I
Speaker 5: kind of snuck. I had an older cousin that was
Speaker 5: sort of like an aunt, and we were just in
Speaker 5: together in the mom you know. She she brought me
Speaker 5: like two forty eight. She brought me a New York
Speaker 5: New York by Grandma's and plasts and furies five and
Speaker 5: then just in passing, like I decrabbed the juicy food
Speaker 5: forty five and brought it and thought I was cool.
Speaker 1: Then I got caught with it. My punishment.
Speaker 4: With jazz.
Speaker 6: Wow, Like this is where.
Speaker 5: I don't know my dad's version of extra sizing it
Speaker 5: out of there, but this is where she made like
Speaker 5: I could listen to nothing but Coltrane for like a week.
Speaker 10: What a punishment, you know?
Speaker 5: And I was mad, you really, It really wasn't until
Speaker 5: I went to high school and got it right. So
Speaker 5: all the knowledge that I had to impress Chris McBride
Speaker 5: and all those cats, it was based on all the
Speaker 5: jazz thanks to him to me. And I'm a jazz artist, right,
Speaker 5: So it's like in reverse. But I mean where you're.
Speaker 1: I know that the from the Motown angle. I know,
Speaker 1: like a lot of the Funk Brothers.
Speaker 5: Kind of looked down right jazz cats that look down
Speaker 5: on pop music and all right, let's just make this
Speaker 5: check real quick and you know, get out the way.
Speaker 1: But this is really not an art That's what I think.
Speaker 10: That was real.
Speaker 1: But I mean where you're like to sneak to listen
Speaker 1: to it? Was it just like.
Speaker 5: They just thought it wasn't an art form or it
Speaker 5: was just like well like how they view James.
Speaker 8: Look, James was God everywhere. I mean even in a
Speaker 8: jazz in a jazz setting, it was something about James
Speaker 8: the funk. It's it's that wasn't about the music. That
Speaker 8: was about you know, your DNA. But I wanted you
Speaker 8: brought up Juicy Fruit. Can I give you a quick story?
Speaker 8: Everything got a story, tell me Juicy Fruit. When I
Speaker 8: brought it to the record company Epic, they didn't want
Speaker 8: to release it. I had to argue, well, you know
Speaker 8: you can lick me everywhere. Now, that's now, that's like
Speaker 8: that's tanging stuff.
Speaker 12: I hear now.
Speaker 10: But they didn't want to release it.
Speaker 8: They were afraid of the lyric that one line, which
Speaker 8: ironically became the line everybody waded to sing along with.
Speaker 8: But they did not release it for daytime radio. They
Speaker 8: only released it for the midnight shows. After one week,
Speaker 8: they were getting so many calls. And this is one
Speaker 8: thing that I wanted to say when I wrote that
Speaker 8: the beat wasn't the main thing to me. Ah, it
Speaker 8: was what I was trying to do with the chords
Speaker 8: and the colors and the melody and the inversions. So
Speaker 8: I'm tripping on Oh yeah, I think we stumbled on something.
Speaker 8: And the only thing I felt about that, and that
Speaker 8: was the last song I cut on that record. I
Speaker 8: was finished with the album and some and I walked
Speaker 8: in and we finished that night, and there was the
Speaker 8: drum machine there, the the lindrum, and I told that,
Speaker 8: you know, I told the enginet man put that up.
Speaker 8: So I went tic cat, doom tick kick, goom cat.
Speaker 8: I said, wow, I like that, and he said, hey,
Speaker 8: let's quantitize it. I said no, I said, I want
Speaker 8: to humanize technology, not the technology makes it, because when
Speaker 8: something's exact, that's that's dragged me. And especially as as
Speaker 8: as a drummer, I wanted to lean a little bit.
Speaker 8: So if you listen to that beat, it's slightly off
Speaker 8: on purpose because it feels human. But wow, they didn't
Speaker 8: want to release it, but they were forced to release it.
Speaker 5: I can't recall this. Someone told me a story. Someone
Speaker 5: very prominent is on Juicy Fruit. And they told me
Speaker 5: the story, like how many musicians were on Juicy Fruit.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 8: Someone I know the rhythm section. Uh oh wait a minute,
Speaker 8: waitit waite, Well, rhythm section obviously was myself, Philip Field,
Speaker 8: Raymond Jackson. Philip Field keyboards, I'm keyboards Raymond's bass, and
Speaker 8: it's a drum machine, so ain't no drummer. Uh. And
Speaker 8: of course to Wafa's lead on that record on Juicy Fruit,
Speaker 8: Freddie Jackson, he's part of the court. You know juicy Yeah, Freddy?
Speaker 10: What to Watha brought Freddie to sing?
Speaker 8: I think he's on two songs the first time I
Speaker 8: met him, he's on Juicy Food, and that might be
Speaker 8: the story. I'm thinking, oh women, and and and and
Speaker 8: when I did overdubs, Okay, you're making me go back
Speaker 8: of the system.
Speaker 6: Brought David Frank.
Speaker 8: David Frank, I had him double the guitar. No, no,
Speaker 8: he's not Bernie's on the Juicy Food album not not
Speaker 8: not on Yeah, yeah, Bernie, Me and Bernie, you know,
Speaker 8: went way back. I us Bernie's on Stephanie I first
Speaker 8: got me and Bernie first hooked up. You know. Everybody
Speaker 8: was all p funk, you know. And uh, I used
Speaker 8: Bernie on the Stephanie Mills album and we were so
Speaker 8: we were very tight. But yeah, David, do do do.
Speaker 8: It's a guitar playing it, and I wanted him to
Speaker 8: double it with a synth sound, and Mick is playing
Speaker 8: on the bridge do do do don do?
Speaker 5: That's really oh man, it was like that All Star
Speaker 5: so okay, So with the system that was a group.
Speaker 5: So with your jazz lineage, yes, sir, and you making
Speaker 5: your entry uh on professional records, can you describe what
Speaker 5: what the atmosphere was like, especially to make your entry
Speaker 5: on On the Corner, which which all right.
Speaker 8: Why y'all hitting the loaded belt?
Speaker 6: But see, okay, yeah, let me let me explain.
Speaker 10: We'll go there.
Speaker 5: See critically speaking, On the Corner is one of those
Speaker 5: records that at the time, when released by Miles Davis,
Speaker 5: it caused a major similar to the Civil War that
Speaker 5: hip hop had.
Speaker 6: No, I mean hip hop.
Speaker 5: Hip hop heads have had civil wars over particular albums
Speaker 5: by their favorites, in which you know, traditionalists like, no,
Speaker 5: you got to stick with the tradition.
Speaker 8: And that was the star wars brother, you know.
Speaker 5: But what happened is that time goes on. That time
Speaker 5: goes on, and you know, for all those critics that
Speaker 5: said this is the whatever, the worst piece of shit
Speaker 5: that Miles ever released, down beats review of it was horrible,
Speaker 5: then suddenly in thirty forty years another generation of critics
Speaker 5: come along and they proclaimed this.
Speaker 6: The best thing ever. So I want you to do
Speaker 6: for me.
Speaker 5: What was your family's feelings of what Miles was getting
Speaker 5: into and bringing you into, and jazz heads around your
Speaker 5: way they're like, oh, that's not real jazz, Like, what
Speaker 5: was the feeling?
Speaker 6: What was going on?
Speaker 8: Well, first of all, let me let me give you
Speaker 8: quickly just quick backdrop how I joined myles. Uh I
Speaker 8: came to New York and uh I was living in Nork.
Speaker 8: Uh Imamu Baraka asked me to come back and help
Speaker 8: on the Ken Gibson campaign that was the first black
Speaker 8: mayor of Newark in nineteen seventy one.
Speaker 10: While I was here, I was here for two weeks
Speaker 10: and I got.
Speaker 8: A call from McCoy. Tyner asked me to record. That
Speaker 8: was my first I did about six albums with McCoy.
Speaker 8: But then I was with Freddi Hubbard and Miles came
Speaker 8: to hear me. We were playing the Village Vanguard and uh.
Speaker 4: You're playing percussion with yeah.
Speaker 8: I mean, I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: I was just trying to know what instrument I didn't
Speaker 1: because you played yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 8: But because that's that's where where I cut my bones
Speaker 8: in the jazz. Well, you know, got to all that, man.
Speaker 8: But I'm probably on about sixty albums. But I just
Speaker 8: I came at the right moment. Pharaoh Sonders and all
Speaker 8: these cats we were working. So when I joined Miles,
Speaker 8: he calls me for the first session.
Speaker 10: It's on the.
Speaker 8: Corner now, I was. I had already done an album
Speaker 8: called two one called Cowboy Eating, which was my uncle album,
Speaker 8: my uncle's album, but I wrote all them. He asked
Speaker 8: me to write all the music, and I did my
Speaker 8: own record called ol Cable Line, Land of the Blacks,
Speaker 8: all avant garde acoustic music. I walk in with Myles.
Speaker 8: I was infatuated, the world hated it. You're right. They
Speaker 8: said it was the worst piece of shit, and one
Speaker 8: of the reasons was Myles was so far ahead. Here's
Speaker 8: a cat playing wild wild on the trumpet. I'm talking
Speaker 8: about nineteen seventy two. Man, And everywhere we played there
Speaker 8: was two vibes. The audience which was like, I never
Speaker 8: heard nothing like this, and jazz as critics, who I
Speaker 8: had a debate on it's on YouTube with one of
Speaker 8: the jazz critics.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and stilly knock you out crossed.
Speaker 8: Yeah, yes, sometimes you get knocked out, you know, yes,
Speaker 8: but uh, they had never been challenged. And I was
Speaker 8: coming from that band had been through so much, and
Speaker 8: we all had this because if you didn't have that
Speaker 8: with Miles, every night, you going somewhere where you don't know. Now,
Speaker 8: sometimes you're going for another planet you might miss, but
Speaker 8: when you hit you might be playing two hours. Man.
Speaker 8: But in that two hours, just like maybe fifteen fifteen
Speaker 8: minutes that you.
Speaker 10: You on another planet.
Speaker 8: Man. Literally, this was like, and I know I'm getting
Speaker 8: like misty with this, but we there. This cat Man
Speaker 8: is the greatest that we ever produced. And when he died, Man,
Speaker 8: I cried like a baby. Man, and I still miss him.
Speaker 8: I miss him more today for the wisdom that he
Speaker 8: dropped on me. I remember when I was with we
Speaker 8: were The first tour I was with him in seventy
Speaker 8: one was in Europe. Keith Jared on piano, keyboards of me, uh,
Speaker 8: Gary bots On altoe uh In Dual Chancellor on on
Speaker 8: on drums. Michael Henderson, Yes, sir, and.
Speaker 10: I did a solo I used to close the show.
Speaker 8: And man, you know when you play it and you
Speaker 8: rocked it or standing old and I'm walking off, you
Speaker 8: know I'm pissing vinegar. Yeah, and his voice walks up,
Speaker 8: that wasn't shit balloon cit and Miles said, man, look man,
Speaker 8: stop playing what you know. Start playing what you don't know. Now,
Speaker 8: First of all, how do I even navigate that?
Speaker 10: What do you mean?
Speaker 8: Then? I figured it out. Stop using that same street
Speaker 8: to go where you're going. Use another avenue. There's different
Speaker 8: ways to go to that same destination. And cliches are
Speaker 8: death traps. Musicians know you know that like a singer,
Speaker 8: let me hit this high note. I never go, oh no,
Speaker 8: don't do that. So I had to learn to approach
Speaker 8: everything backwards. Don't do what you did. He also told
Speaker 8: me things like Silence is sound. He said, space is everything.
Speaker 8: He said. We had many talks because you know, it
Speaker 8: was a father son thing too. He said, if you
Speaker 8: got ten possible notes for a melody, he said, you
Speaker 8: have to learn how to abbreviate. He said, take the
Speaker 8: one note that implies the other nine. Now all this
Speaker 8: stuff I apply years later. Wow, you know.
Speaker 10: Implies the other nine.
Speaker 8: You don't have to use that. He said. Abbreviation is
Speaker 8: the secret to the music.
Speaker 10: He said.
Speaker 8: People talk in paragraphs, they play in paragraphs. He said, No,
Speaker 8: learn how to play in quotations. Ah, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 11: One thing I was always curious because you're the first
Speaker 11: person I've ever met that actually played with Miles. Yes,
Speaker 11: What was it about him that he seemed to me
Speaker 11: he was the greatest because he seemed like he made
Speaker 11: band leaders like everyone that came out of his crew
Speaker 11: went on to do their own thing and start their
Speaker 11: own crew and become legends in their own right. What
Speaker 11: was it about him that you think that it was
Speaker 11: able to shape people in that way.
Speaker 10: He was at cat.
Speaker 8: Sometimes there's no verbal explanation. Some people are this, that's
Speaker 8: that dude all over the world.
Speaker 5: I was gonna ask, does he did he communicate a lot.
Speaker 5: Because the way that when I watch those old Manto
Speaker 5: Jazz festival videos and stuff, the way that he's sort
Speaker 5: of walking amongst you guys, I feel like there's a
Speaker 5: communication going on that isn't words.
Speaker 8: And see that's a great point. Now. The other thing
Speaker 8: that he did, if you see any of those clips
Speaker 8: on YouTube, and thank god for YouTube, because the new
Speaker 8: generation would have never had a chance to see what
Speaker 8: the bullshit the critics were writing. YouTube really brought that
Speaker 8: music to the forefront for younger people. He took me
Speaker 8: usually you know, percussions, the hand drummers in the back,
Speaker 8: maybe next to the drummer. If you notice all them videos,
Speaker 8: I'm standing next to him, and our communication was nonverbal.
Speaker 10: I could finish the phrase. I knew where he would go.
Speaker 8: And I remember one time we played somewhere and one
Speaker 8: of the reviews that Miles was playing some jungle voodoo music. Well,
Speaker 8: I was into, Yeah, he's right for the wrong reason,
Speaker 8: this is voodoo. But Miles just always knew, like sometimes
Speaker 8: you get into that music and you get lost. I
Speaker 8: remember one time we played We're in Colorado and we had.
Speaker 10: A set with the whole the club was in the
Speaker 10: basement of the hotel.
Speaker 8: We played a three hour set and this is the
Speaker 8: honest to god truth. I experienced this. I felt levitation
Speaker 8: on the stage. The thing became so organic. All we
Speaker 8: did was look at each other, everybody, and when we finished,
Speaker 8: we got on the elevator. Nobody said a word. Miles
Speaker 8: laid down on the floor. We all got off on
Speaker 8: different floors. Nobody said good night.
Speaker 6: No, we got.
Speaker 10: That's the kind of that's the kind of stuff.
Speaker 6: Man, How would you.
Speaker 10: I don't know if this makes sense, but.
Speaker 6: I mean to me, he was.
Speaker 13: He's notoriously known as the greatest town scout in jazz history.
Speaker 13: You know, like he could see.
Speaker 10: He knew, he knew what he knew.
Speaker 1: The other dude, he gave you and then.
Speaker 10: It's a deep thing.
Speaker 8: He gave you the canvas, but he let you paint.
Speaker 2: Was that the first and the last time you had
Speaker 2: that feeling?
Speaker 8: Only time?
Speaker 2: So? Do you there were the musicians that are still
Speaker 2: alive within that collective when y'all see each other, or
Speaker 2: is it still that connection because y'all had that that
Speaker 2: moment that probably nobody ever had.
Speaker 10: Okay, confession.
Speaker 8: On behalf of the group, Reggie Lucas who was my partner,
Speaker 8: Michael Henderson, the baddest motherfucker that most people never understood.
Speaker 8: Pete Cosey on the guitar, our foster monster drummer. I said, Michael,
Speaker 8: Dave Leaveman. We had a couple of sacks, but Dave
Speaker 8: was great. But before David was a catnamed Carlos Garnet. Okay,
Speaker 8: he's on the alive at the Philharmonic. Miles never told
Speaker 8: any of us what to play, but he also I
Speaker 8: remember when I ran into to Herbie and Herbie was
Speaker 8: telling me, here, said Miles, and he said, and he said, tunes.
Speaker 8: Let me ask you a question, how did your rehearse?
Speaker 1: And I said that's why I was just going to ask.
Speaker 8: No, baby, I can't count a few. And I was
Speaker 8: a stickler, you know. I was that young cat man,
Speaker 8: we need to rehearse more. I remember I stepped on him.
Speaker 8: He gave me that look. He said, motherfucker, I pay
Speaker 8: you the rehearsal on stage every night. And I tell you.
Speaker 2: So from a civilian because I'm not a musician standpoint.
Speaker 2: I really got to understand. So you get on stage,
Speaker 2: he starts playing then what.
Speaker 8: No, no, no, We knew We had just what I
Speaker 8: call thematic fibers. There were themes and we knew like
Speaker 8: black Satin d deep. He would just start these fibers
Speaker 8: and we just go okay. And what he meant by
Speaker 8: I paid you, I paid you to rehearse every night,
Speaker 8: he said, I never want to overcook the meal.
Speaker 11: And you start getting you don't want to get it
Speaker 11: too perfect again.
Speaker 8: You start working out little things that you know work.
Speaker 10: No, no, I don't want that. He didn't want that.
Speaker 6: I never reheard, Steve.
Speaker 5: There's no comeback for that I gave you.
Speaker 6: But okay.
Speaker 5: So the the sessions that wound up being on the
Speaker 5: Corner album, which kind of bled into three or four albums,
Speaker 5: certainly or surely, there were a or b moments you
Speaker 5: guys would remember and repeat those phrases or like how
Speaker 5: would you know to start a song and end the song?
Speaker 1: And that sort of.
Speaker 8: He would play a phrase after a while, like I said,
Speaker 8: when something becomes so organic, it's just a collective orgasm.
Speaker 8: He would play something and we knew where it was
Speaker 8: supposed to go, and it was time to end it.
Speaker 8: He would step in and play something to lead into
Speaker 8: the next thematic fiber. We knew the themes where that
Speaker 8: thing went. That was that was the journey.
Speaker 5: I also found it, not ironic, but almost full circle
Speaker 5: that the core of the musicians that made on the corner,
Speaker 5: you know, making the most envelope pushing radical jazz music
Speaker 5: ever turned around and wound up writing the most lush
Speaker 5: pop music, the most digestible, easy listening pop. Like was
Speaker 5: it almost therapeutic that the pendula have to come on
Speaker 5: the other side of things?
Speaker 1: And that's great.
Speaker 8: I never thought of it that way.
Speaker 5: Was it all of you, including Lenny White, Herbie Hancock? Ye,
Speaker 5: all Miles's greatest decision.
Speaker 10: But you know that was also that period.
Speaker 8: Don't forget George Duke, don't forget Stanley Carr. We were
Speaker 8: all playing jazz. It was a it was a generational shift. Now,
Speaker 8: the one thing I always tell people, if you change
Speaker 8: because you're trying to just be with the times, that's adaptation.
Speaker 8: If you changed because emotionally you're committed to the change,
Speaker 8: that's metamorphosis. So it was all metamorphosis for us, But
Speaker 8: maybe it was a little therapeutic.
Speaker 10: We couldn't go no further out.
Speaker 8: I guess you had to come. But I remember, for
Speaker 8: me it started with the closes I get to you,
Speaker 8: you know, and and I was going that way, and
Speaker 8: then I my bridge was was Eddie Henderson, a great
Speaker 8: jazz trumpeter. And actually people think about I always always laugh.
Speaker 8: I say, ma, juicy food is one of the grandparents
Speaker 8: of hip hop, you know, man, But Eddie Henderson.
Speaker 10: My first sample was actually jay Z on the.
Speaker 8: Inside You, which was on a reasonable doubt coming of age.
Speaker 8: I got the shorty on my block, always clucking my rocks.
Speaker 8: He likes to said the profile. I think he wanted
Speaker 8: the month. He likes to wait. Yet wood he see
Speaker 8: my money to getting up?
Speaker 1: Getting up?
Speaker 8: Eddie Henderson was my my I would I would do
Speaker 8: albums with him, and he always asked me for two songs.
Speaker 8: And that's why I developed what I call one thing
Speaker 8: I tell songwriters the first thing you need to make
Speaker 8: sure you tap into is what is your rhythm. Some
Speaker 8: people write great ballads, some people write up temple. Find
Speaker 8: your temple first, because when you find your temple, you
Speaker 8: don't have to write the other ship. You know what
Speaker 8: you're good at. That eliminates experimenting. And I knew, oh man, y'all,
Speaker 8: that's beautiful.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but it's it's for for that particular project.
Speaker 1: Who who was the who were the musicians that.
Speaker 10: Were which which project?
Speaker 1: Or for the for the Eddie Henderson stuff.
Speaker 8: Okay, inside you that's me and Patrice Russian playing keyboards.
Speaker 8: I think she's I'm playing the Roads, she's playing Road.
Speaker 8: Of course, I'm playing Acoustie. Uh uh oh my god.
Speaker 8: Herbie Hancock's bass player. That's Jackson is Less.
Speaker 1: Paul Jackson, Paul Jackson, Paul Jackson.
Speaker 8: It was Herbie's drummer. I forgot his name.
Speaker 5: Damn, I should know this, right, Yeah, and that.
Speaker 8: Was that the drummer he's on the Headhunters.
Speaker 10: The Headhunters.
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, and and I think that was it because
Speaker 8: it was it was just two keyboards and we just overdubbed,
Speaker 8: you know, the strings and the horns. Uh it's Eddie.
Speaker 8: I forgot who's on trombone.
Speaker 1: Billy Higgins too, also drummer with you guys, right, Billy Higgins.
Speaker 10: No, I played with Billy with my father, but.
Speaker 5: Well I know that he played with Uh no, no, no, no,
Speaker 5: I'm thinking of Eddie.
Speaker 1: Interesting, I'm thinking about your art former projects.
Speaker 10: Sorry damn, yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we're just going to be sorry. So how did you.
Speaker 6: I mean, was.
Speaker 5: What I'm trying to get to. Is what I'm trying
Speaker 5: to get to, was that was there? Because the thing,
Speaker 5: the thing that coincides with you guys transitioning to pop
Speaker 5: music was that from a monetary standpoint, it was also
Speaker 5: very lucrative. And that's that's one of the myths I
Speaker 5: wanted to spell because I know that a lot of
Speaker 5: the downbeat critics were saying that, oh, Miles playing with
Speaker 5: the Grateful Dead and do all this stuff like he's
Speaker 5: just trying to make some money, like forget the art.
Speaker 5: But if you listen to music, there's really nothing that
Speaker 5: just about it. It's just about it. So you know,
Speaker 5: was it a thing of like, Okay, well it's time
Speaker 5: for us to get paid. And did you produced the
Speaker 5: entire Blue Lights in the Basement album.
Speaker 1: No, it's not that one song.
Speaker 8: I say, it's the story behind every every one of
Speaker 8: the songs. Yeah, we're doing that album. Quite frankly, I
Speaker 8: was like, you know, we had a dinner break. I
Speaker 8: have been working on these these changes dean ble b
Speaker 8: d b boo b blea bbe, So we take this
Speaker 8: break and so Reggie's there, I said, Reggie, like, so
Speaker 8: we I played for him and then we put the
Speaker 8: B section. He puts the B section over and over.
Speaker 8: I'm recording it when the Cats come back.
Speaker 10: I just want to.
Speaker 8: Make a cassette. I had no name for the song
Speaker 8: or nothing.
Speaker 1: We played it.
Speaker 8: I'm making a cassette. Roberto walks in and said, what's that.
Speaker 8: I said, close, I get to you. That was just
Speaker 8: off the dome.
Speaker 6: Nothing.
Speaker 8: This is straight up the truth.
Speaker 10: And I'm like and she says, can I record that?
Speaker 10: I'm like yes, she said, can I.
Speaker 8: Change the key? Yes? Any key you want.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 8: We cut it that night. Originally she did it, and
Speaker 8: then after thinking about it, her and Donnie hadn't done
Speaker 8: anything in years.
Speaker 10: Donnie comes in and it's like, wow, but I want to.
Speaker 8: Get to that point. You're talking about the bread. Like
Speaker 8: I said, if you do something because you just want
Speaker 8: to adapt for that, that's not real. You ain't. That's
Speaker 8: not from here. I was avant garde acoustic because it
Speaker 8: was from here. It was metamorphosis. That's where I wanted
Speaker 8: to go, and it was not looked positively from the
Speaker 8: jazz cats. I had one cat walk up to me.
Speaker 8: I'm not gonna mention his name. Famous bass player and said, man,
Speaker 8: you ought to be ashamed of yourself. You're playing this music,
Speaker 8: you know, and you know, man, I said, but you know,
Speaker 8: one thing, like I said, one thing that you learned
Speaker 8: with Myles is courage, because if you didn't have courage
Speaker 8: in that band, you'd have been snuffed on it with
Speaker 8: the stuff they were writing about us. And one another
Speaker 8: lesson I learned from Myles, when you cross the bridge,
Speaker 8: burn it so you can't even go back.
Speaker 6: Damn, It's like.
Speaker 5: I'm interviewing you, but then I gotta absorb what you're saying,
Speaker 5: like you're right.
Speaker 10: Because look, you can always look back.
Speaker 8: If you don't even allow yourself to have a rear
Speaker 8: view mirror, you only can go forward. Yeah, think.
Speaker 7: Kind of think about that?
Speaker 6: Well you think about that?
Speaker 14: Can we talk about the songwriting process and changes from
Speaker 14: being a jazz musician to a pop musician because I
Speaker 14: feel like to me, I was raised on jazz two
Speaker 14: and there's a complexity to it harmonica or otherwise, and
Speaker 14: then you go into popping, people assume that it's less.
Speaker 14: So what's the transition, what's the metamorphois?
Speaker 6: Is there?
Speaker 8: Jazz? How I approached it, learning how to master complexity
Speaker 8: what's the secret to pop music mastering simplicity?
Speaker 10: You put it together, it's simplexity, thank you.
Speaker 12: Now, you just make it up words. That's what we did, right,
Speaker 12: all right? So I'm really glad you're here spell checked
Speaker 12: in like that one. Go ahead, I'm glad you're.
Speaker 1: Here because the thing is is that I still believe
Speaker 1: that simplicity is the hard How do you We talk
Speaker 1: about that all the time, But who taught you that?
Speaker 5: Because even now, like, okay, so the cats that I
Speaker 5: deal with and work with, now, who are your jazz cats?
Speaker 5: I can't beat them over the head enough and tell
Speaker 5: them like yo, that's too much, like tone it down
Speaker 5: a little bit. And you know, part of it is
Speaker 5: they're they're pride if you will of like you know,
Speaker 5: I don't want to appear to be too simple or
Speaker 5: too pop. It's and it's like, yeah, okay, we we
Speaker 5: now live at the age of the gospel chops era.
Speaker 5: You got to show off your musicianship to let people
Speaker 5: know that you're serious. But like, who is there to
Speaker 5: teach you? These are this is the basic fiber of nobody.
Speaker 5: That's a hard thing to do. Like you just you
Speaker 5: can't go from on the corner to the closer I
Speaker 5: get to your well.
Speaker 10: Yes you can, but you know what getting back because
Speaker 10: I did not address what you said. And this is
Speaker 10: don It's truth.
Speaker 8: Man.
Speaker 10: We never thought about money. Now that sounds oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 10: bright bullshit.
Speaker 8: I believe you're trying to master and art form, and
Speaker 8: especially with jazz cats we started, you started out. There
Speaker 8: wasn't a lot of respect for R and B. Now
Speaker 8: remember now, I saw Tony Williams, I studied Elvin Jones,
Speaker 8: So all this stuff out here now, man, look are
Speaker 8: you kidding? I heard that live. I actually sat right
Speaker 8: next to Tony Williams when he was with Miles. I
Speaker 8: was in the I was in the audience, and it
Speaker 8: was like first time I went to hear Elvin Jones.
Speaker 8: All this stuff for me is regurgitation. And drummers especially.
Speaker 10: Did not respect the two and the four. They dismissed it.
Speaker 8: That's the hardest thing in the world, man, How do
Speaker 8: I keep that interesting thing to you for four or
Speaker 8: five minutes? You can look, you can always rely on,
Speaker 8: like I said, technique because it's sometimes just masturbation. Man,
Speaker 8: I'm gonna show you all this and I'm gonna do
Speaker 8: why again Miles, stop talking and playing in paragraphs?
Speaker 10: What's your what's your quotation?
Speaker 8: What am I taking from it?
Speaker 5: Like I wish if that was if there was one
Speaker 5: thing that people learned from me or whatever, like you know,
Speaker 5: and cats are always asking me. I try to put
Speaker 5: that out there and like it's harder to resist to day,
Speaker 5: like you know there, I've been on a few gospel
Speaker 5: chop sites where they're like man quest love said a bit,
Speaker 5: why you always hat an old time that sort of thing,
Speaker 5: you know, But yeah, I wish that people could learn
Speaker 5: that lesson that you can get even further by playing
Speaker 5: less than I think that.
Speaker 9: Comes with the age, though, yes I'm on, but that's
Speaker 9: saying like when you're young, you know, well you're young,
Speaker 9: you're insecure, so you're doing all that ship because you're
Speaker 9: not really securing what you have.
Speaker 4: But the older you get, you realize you got it,
Speaker 4: so you don't got to flound it. It makes sense.
Speaker 4: How was your so how long were you with Miles from.
Speaker 11: On the corner to what about four and a half
Speaker 11: years something like that, and then from that point was
Speaker 11: that when you went into uh.
Speaker 8: Well when I left Miles, well, Miles stopped. We were
Speaker 8: playing the gig, and and and this actually I didn't
Speaker 8: finish the statement. I said that it's one of the
Speaker 8: things that we in that the cast in the band
Speaker 8: we always lament. Herbie had head Hunters came out. There
Speaker 8: was like a tour, national tour set up with Miles
Speaker 8: and Herbie who We played two gigs.
Speaker 10: Miles got sick.
Speaker 8: We played Upstate New York and we played Saint Louis.
Speaker 8: Miles got sick, and that was the night that he stopped.
Speaker 8: As it turned out, it was going to be for
Speaker 8: five years. Me and Reggie broke, not broke, but you know,
Speaker 8: Miles ain't playing. We went on and said, okay, let's
Speaker 8: let's really do this. Michael Henderson had established his solo career.
Speaker 5: Well, let's throw you off a little bit. Woll he
Speaker 5: was such a velvety singer. Well wait, he went to
Speaker 5: Stevie for a second, right.
Speaker 8: Michael Henderson was with Stevie. He was playing on all
Speaker 8: that motown stuff when he was fourteen.
Speaker 1: Man, he was with Stevie first. Then he went yeah, okay, but.
Speaker 8: He was he was heir apparent to James Jamison.
Speaker 6: Yes he was.
Speaker 8: See people don't know that Michael Henderson is playing on
Speaker 8: some of the tracks that came out later on Oh man, damn,
Speaker 8: I hate this old old Heimers No No, no, no, no,
Speaker 8: one of the greatest albums ever.
Speaker 10: Oh this is crazy, Stevie, No no, No, what's going on?
Speaker 4: Okay?
Speaker 10: Michael played on some of the tracks that weren't released
Speaker 10: on the original album.
Speaker 1: Okay, came out years later on the reissues.
Speaker 10: Yeah, man, Michael Henderson was that listen listen.
Speaker 5: To uh for those that are able to listen to, uh,
Speaker 5: what's what's the Stevie Live? And there's a version of
Speaker 5: I Was Made the Lover in which I feel like
Speaker 5: that's Michael Henderson's greatest James Jamerson Michael, There's there's a
Speaker 5: live version of I Was Made to Lover top of
Speaker 5: the Talk of the Yeah, if you listen to Stevie
Speaker 5: Wonder Talk of the Town live album, which came out
Speaker 5: like sixty seven, there's a version of I.
Speaker 1: Was Made to Lover that is like, it's it's me
Speaker 1: to me.
Speaker 5: It's the best live display of Jamerson Esque one finger
Speaker 5: playing ever.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: But did you know that he had that voice on him?
Speaker 10: Or no, but no, no, no, that's bullshit. Yeah, I did.
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 10: I remember Michael came to my room.
Speaker 8: We were in Japan, and uh, Santana was there and
Speaker 8: me and Santana was talking and Michael came in and.
Speaker 10: Yes, Santana.
Speaker 8: Uh, it's crazy, man, it's crazy. You know.
Speaker 10: Santana was like to this day, when Carlos and I see.
Speaker 8: Each other, it's almost we get teary. Santana loved Miles
Speaker 8: and so the story Michael said, may Mary tunes. When
Speaker 8: you finished coming up, I wanna play something for you.
Speaker 8: So I go up to his room and he get
Speaker 8: pulls out his base.
Speaker 10: Doom Doom, Doom, Doom, Doom Doom.
Speaker 8: Singing yes you are, I said, God, we were in
Speaker 8: Japan when he wrote that. It was with Myles. Obviously,
Speaker 8: years later it comes out with the Norman Connor's and
Speaker 8: that's what launched Michael's career as a solo artist.
Speaker 5: What was just as a Philadelphian and me not ever
Speaker 5: seeing any clip of Norman Connor's whatsoever on YouTube or anything.
Speaker 1: What was Norman's.
Speaker 5: Thatcher as a drummer? I mean I know he was
Speaker 5: a drummer. I heard him solo once. The thing was
Speaker 5: a song called so in Love. It was like the
Speaker 5: middle side too on that album. But where did he
Speaker 5: stand in the eyes of drummers? You can tell the truth,
Speaker 5: I know you.
Speaker 10: Know what, Sometimes silence is more truthful.
Speaker 1: Wait, I kind of skipped something.
Speaker 6: Why did you never? Why did you.
Speaker 5: Choose traditional percussion as opposed to a trap drum set
Speaker 5: to play?
Speaker 10: It's what touched me. I say this.
Speaker 8: The three elements for the creative process is intuition, intellect,
Speaker 8: and technique. Intuition is first, you don't know why you
Speaker 8: love the draft. You don't know why you want to sing.
Speaker 8: You don't know why you want to paint. You don't
Speaker 8: know why you want to write poetry. It's intuitive.
Speaker 10: Intellect.
Speaker 8: Once you get into this and you start getting your
Speaker 8: you know, a better understanding. Now you know why you're
Speaker 8: drawing to it. Technique is where you sharpen your tools.
Speaker 8: Time served, how much time you putting in. I don't
Speaker 8: care what I'm hearing if I can't play it for you.
Speaker 8: So intuition, intellect, and technique.
Speaker 5: Okay, my last sort of serious jazz question before we
Speaker 5: go into your your your your your second phase of
Speaker 5: your pop stuff. I always wanted to know, Okay, So
Speaker 5: since Miles was pushing me envelope and what envelope There
Speaker 5: was no envelope, but you know when he stopped playing
Speaker 5: in nineteen seventy five, there's there's always been this debate.
Speaker 5: And you know, because you brought up Stanley Crouch, and
Speaker 5: I know that a lot of jazz snob snobs kind
Speaker 5: of kind of scoffed at Stanley for endorsing Winton and
Speaker 5: the hole let's go back to nineteen forty six bebop
Speaker 5: sort of thing. What were your feelings on like the
Speaker 5: you know, like the the David Murray's, the m base,
Speaker 5: the kind of the first generation tree posts, miles of
Speaker 5: pushing that envelope, because I know that those cats felt
Speaker 5: like damn like it was our turn to get the
Speaker 5: baton next. And then Crouch comes in and you know,
Speaker 5: they put Winton in a suit and then suddenly he puffies.
Speaker 1: Us back to.
Speaker 5: Back to nineteen fifty would bebop like not taking him forward.
Speaker 5: And I know that you know, well, all due respect,
Speaker 5: stand that Winton is a traditionalist. And I do believe
Speaker 5: that there should be whatever torch bearers for whatever people
Speaker 5: feel that are passionate about their era. Like I'd be
Speaker 5: lying to you if I said that, you know, my
Speaker 5: era of eighty eight to ninety nine era hip hop
Speaker 5: wasn't my you know what, I'll champion the most right,
Speaker 5: But I mean, what was your feeling as far as
Speaker 5: the pushing the envelope era of jazz sort of got
Speaker 5: white or washed or white washed away into.
Speaker 6: Where Winton took it in the eighties.
Speaker 10: And here's here's what I felt. It's a great question.
Speaker 10: It was tracing paper. You know, you have really you
Speaker 10: just put the tracing paper over something and you just
Speaker 10: what's new about it?
Speaker 8: What was the main thing in jazz? Cold?
Speaker 10: Everybody pushing that little.
Speaker 8: You just playing put And I'm not just dogging wit
Speaker 8: and I'm just saying a whole generation, let's play like
Speaker 8: we in nineteen sixty four. And this is hip that's
Speaker 8: not hip to me.
Speaker 4: Because it's been done already.
Speaker 8: I don't care that you can play train solo on
Speaker 8: giant steps. Who the fuck are you that's trained?
Speaker 5: This is one of the heavily in the jazz world, Like,
Speaker 5: this is one of the most heavily debated arguments. And
Speaker 5: the thing is is that I feel like I'm in
Speaker 5: the middle because because of my age. Do you remember
Speaker 5: the year that Michael Jackson won all those Grammys in
Speaker 5: like eighty three, eighty four. Well, subsequently Winton was also
Speaker 5: pulling that feet. He won like five Grammys yea two
Speaker 5: for classical, three for jazz. And there was a point
Speaker 5: where I think in eighty four, my dad was going
Speaker 5: to ease up on the whole you gotta rehearse five
Speaker 5: hours a day thing, like, Okay, he's getting older, he
Speaker 5: wants to play video games, talk to girls, to hanging
Speaker 5: the ball. He was gonna start laxing a little bit
Speaker 5: it And then went and got on stage and says, look, Dad,
Speaker 5: I really just want to thank you for making me
Speaker 5: practice eight to ten hours every night.
Speaker 1: And that heard that shit and he doubled my verse.
Speaker 1: How would you do seven hours in that basement?
Speaker 5: Like? But the thing was is that you know to
Speaker 5: off the Yeah, I member, But to a thirteen year
Speaker 5: old na not knowing better, it's you know, I mean,
Speaker 5: there wasn't a jazz snob in my life until Rich
Speaker 5: came along when he was when I was like twenty three.
Speaker 5: It's like, man, fuck Winton, Like he took it backwards
Speaker 5: and he wasn't pressing the envelope.
Speaker 1: So I think, but isn't it also important for people.
Speaker 5: To know, absolutely, because without winning, I wouldn't have known
Speaker 5: about King Oliver and Louis.
Speaker 8: And but that's when jazz started coming out of colleges. Brother,
Speaker 8: that was the beginning of I gotta go. I'm going
Speaker 8: to study jazz at the university and play man. Why
Speaker 8: do we still listen to kind of blue? Miles went
Speaker 8: to Juilliard in the forties and he said, I might
Speaker 8: have went a couple of months. I'm hanging out on
Speaker 8: fifty second Street with Bird and Dizzey. When jazz started
Speaker 8: coming out of the universities, that's when the ship was.
Speaker 8: Everybody could play the same study this solo, play every
Speaker 8: note this, where was it? That's not creative to me?
Speaker 2: No, it's different, right, he was like that Ian that
Speaker 2: way like stuff.
Speaker 8: And I'm not against studying. I'm I'm self totally self taught.
Speaker 8: I don't recommend that you know everybody? Yeah, well yeah,
Speaker 8: I was very fortunate, Uh, because I could. I went
Speaker 8: from playing to writing, putting the band together, then scoring
Speaker 8: film and television New York Undercover.
Speaker 10: No, I'm I'm at But what are you bringing to it?
Speaker 8: If you're not bringing again? And I'm not castigating the
Speaker 8: Catcher came out of colleges. But just because you come
Speaker 8: out of college. And then the colleges started hiring. My
Speaker 8: father's taught at Queen's College, man for twenty years.
Speaker 6: The same thing is happening.
Speaker 8: They started hiring all the jazz case.
Speaker 6: Wait a minute, to teach.
Speaker 1: You, Yes, I teach college. Wow, I'm sorry you teach
Speaker 1: with me.
Speaker 2: I was.
Speaker 8: About so winning was the beginning of that. And I'm
Speaker 8: not dogging, but I'm just saying, stop saying that you
Speaker 8: are the torch bearer. I'm not interested in the torch.
Speaker 8: I've already burned that bridge.
Speaker 2: There you go, man, wait before you get into the pop,
Speaker 2: I gotta ask. I'm just curious about.
Speaker 1: Are you about to skip the line.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to skip the line.
Speaker 1: I'm going back, Okay.
Speaker 2: I was going to go back real quick because James
Speaker 2: to May was not always jams him to So I
Speaker 2: just wanted to know what happened in your life and
Speaker 2: to cause this change, and because I know it's an
Speaker 2: activist side of you as well, it's a whole spiritual.
Speaker 8: No I'm not.
Speaker 2: I'm an atheist all right, oh okay, but always since
Speaker 2: I was eighteen, since she was eighteen.
Speaker 5: So then the part, oh, well wait, since you said that,
Speaker 5: how can you describe in such.
Speaker 8: A vivid.
Speaker 6: Terms of of of.
Speaker 1: Of that organ, that music orgasm that you had with
Speaker 1: my such a spiritual experience and.
Speaker 6: Be an atheist.
Speaker 1: I'm just curious as to like none of that was
Speaker 1: spiritual to you or atheists can't.
Speaker 8: Be spirit I was just thinking to myself, can you
Speaker 8: I don't know if.
Speaker 14: Atheists can be spiritual? Is an atheist no religion but spiritual?
Speaker 14: This is a whole other, separate thing.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that just devoid of spirit.
Speaker 10: Here's where I started. You know, I was in neophyte
Speaker 10: when I was eighteen.
Speaker 8: You know, man, religion. One day I woke up when
Speaker 8: I was older and I said, wait a minute. You
Speaker 8: can't dog religion, and you claim you're an atheist. I said,
Speaker 8: they can't prove that God exists to me, but I
Speaker 8: can't prove that it doesn't. And I learned to disrespect religion.
Speaker 8: Whatever you need to get through this thing, man, So
Speaker 8: I don't you it's not I respect the word spiritual
Speaker 8: and all that. I'm just, but I need to be
Speaker 8: intellectually honest. I'm stuff coming out of my mouth. You
Speaker 8: might think I'm religious, but I'm saying, no, no, it's not.
Speaker 8: So I don't know what you would call it. I
Speaker 8: just know what I know, and I know what I've
Speaker 8: the feelings, whatever that, whatever that is.
Speaker 7: I have a question before we leave the jazz world. Goto.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 13: I mean, we've been talking a lot about Miles and
Speaker 13: I recently sort of realized that what Goto brought and
Speaker 13: can you just speak a little bit about that, because
Speaker 13: I don't think a lot of people know about him.
Speaker 8: All right, So I meant sitting at the crib and
Speaker 8: Herb Alpert called me, and Herb said, Tunes, I want
Speaker 8: you to come in and make the session with Gotto.
Speaker 8: I'd heard of Gotto, I'd heard some of the stuff,
Speaker 8: but I kind of equated and he came out. He
Speaker 8: was coming out of Pharaoh Sondas, and I had already
Speaker 8: played with Pharaoh. But I remember that when I went
Speaker 8: to the session. When I walked in, these were the
Speaker 8: R and B Cats. It was pretty pretty pretty I
Speaker 8: think every Gale and Cornell Duprie and I walked in
Speaker 8: because at that time, Ralph McDonald was the percussions. You know,
Speaker 8: in all the sessions. I'm like I'm coming out of jazz.
Speaker 8: So I walked in and it was like, who's this,
Speaker 8: you know, and I got like a little cold. I
Speaker 8: didn't mind. I'm setting up. So when I walk in
Speaker 8: and everybody's be like, well, who's this guy? And then
Speaker 8: herb walks out from the control hoof tooms and uh
Speaker 8: we hugged and then you know, obviously everything loosened up,
Speaker 8: and uh it was a session for Gotto. Right after
Speaker 8: the session, Got told his wife she was more like
Speaker 8: the business man. She came to me, she said, Goto
Speaker 8: wanted to know, you know, would you if you have
Speaker 8: some time, would you make you know this tour? And
Speaker 8: I said sure, And so I ended up doing about
Speaker 8: two or three albums with Gottow and uh toured with
Speaker 8: him and we were really cool, really cool.
Speaker 10: That was herb outfort though.
Speaker 13: Yeah, but that was that was a later album maybe
Speaker 13: than these other these other ones like these, uh Flying Dutchman,
Speaker 13: Bob Thiel. Oh, so like you know, I mean, I
Speaker 13: I know that that was like a time in La
Speaker 13: Puma thing. You're talking about the one of the first
Speaker 13: record I played herbs producing.
Speaker 10: Now you talking about Flying Dutchman. I got please allow
Speaker 10: me I gotta say it right, like I said, while
Speaker 10: it's right here.
Speaker 8: I actually recorded with Duke Ellington, Wow damn flying on
Speaker 8: a flying Dutchment Flying. When I met Duke nineteen seventy one.
Speaker 8: On that first tour I was talking about with Miles
Speaker 8: it was it was Miles Davis. It was George Wien
Speaker 8: Tour for you, Miles Davis, Rasian Rowland, Kirk, Joe Henderson
Speaker 8: and Freddy Hubbert and BB King.
Speaker 6: Jesus.
Speaker 10: I remember one night, Oh, okay, God, this y'all taking me,
Speaker 10: this is deed.
Speaker 1: Take us back. Man.
Speaker 8: I get to the I get to the concert early
Speaker 8: one night. So I'm sitting in the room, you know,
Speaker 8: big dress room. The door flies open. Look it's Duke Ellington.
Speaker 10: I'm like, you know, oh my god.
Speaker 8: And uh, you know, I didn't you know, I didn't
Speaker 8: know what to say other than mister Ellington, you know.
Speaker 8: He said, yeah, son, I like, you know, I like
Speaker 8: what you're doing.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 8: I heard you one another night and I remember I
Speaker 8: was so awestruck. I just said, man, mister Ellington, tell
Speaker 8: me what types of music is?
Speaker 10: Uh?
Speaker 8: You know, it is the best, he said.
Speaker 10: He said, good.
Speaker 8: He says, only two types of music, good and bad,
Speaker 8: not genre. Now here's a funny story. One night, I
Speaker 8: missed the bus going back to the hotel, so I
Speaker 8: catch a ride with the Duke Ellington band because their
Speaker 8: bus left, you.
Speaker 10: Know later, so I caught.
Speaker 8: So I'm sitting on this bus and all these cats man,
Speaker 8: you know, Harry Corney, Paul Gonzalez and uh. I think.
Speaker 10: We was a couple of months into the tour and
Speaker 10: I was fried. But then one night is man.
Speaker 8: So I was sitting next to Paul gonsalads and he said,
Speaker 8: he said, yeah, son, ye know, you know, I said.
Speaker 8: He said, you look a little tired. I said, Man,
Speaker 8: I'm going out. He said, man, how long you know?
Speaker 10: I said, Man, We've been out there almost two months.
Speaker 8: He said, man, he said, yo, look this is a
Speaker 8: little punk motherfucker. I said.
Speaker 10: We worked three hundred and forty days.
Speaker 8: A year for the last forty years.
Speaker 6: God.
Speaker 8: I got a ride back to the hotel with that,
Speaker 8: and they just fell out laughing like.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 8: Now, while I'm thinking I gotta tell you this, I'm
Speaker 8: with my I'm over Miles's house CAVN. Remember I was
Speaker 8: telling you the story coming over. That's my nephew Kevin
Speaker 8: I'm over Miles's house one night, man, I mean one
Speaker 8: day the mail comes.
Speaker 10: I'm in in one.
Speaker 8: I see Miles one thing. Miles was a great cook,
Speaker 8: so sometimes he just called, man, come on over and
Speaker 8: I'm gonna fix you know, I mean, hell of the
Speaker 8: cook cook. So I'm there.
Speaker 10: He gets the mail and I'm not looking at him.
Speaker 8: I'm a little over the side of the room.
Speaker 10: And he says, oh ship, And I thought something happened.
Speaker 8: So I said, what what's up?
Speaker 10: Brother?
Speaker 8: He just hands me the mail. It was a Christmas card.
Speaker 10: From Duke Ellington.
Speaker 8: Wow, but it was in the spring. Miles said, is
Speaker 8: this the hippie ship you've ever seen? He said, he said,
Speaker 8: Duke is dying. Duke sent all his cats Christmas cards
Speaker 8: when he was dying. Oh, brother, I can't. I can't
Speaker 8: make this up.
Speaker 10: Brother, I can't make that up. And that's one of
Speaker 10: the things about jazz cats just wear.
Speaker 8: That Christmas card. I'm splitting.
Speaker 10: Request, man, here's a quands of card.
Speaker 4: Don't get fun.
Speaker 2: And I want to thank you.
Speaker 10: I said, I'm old man, And if I keep running.
Speaker 1: It's like having a mirror on the show without a mirror.
Speaker 10: So I told you I was I went out to
Speaker 10: California to go to school.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was swimmer. How did you get into that?
Speaker 8: My father? You know, one day he came and told me,
Speaker 8: you know, I'm into I know, I'm going to NBA.
Speaker 8: You know, he said, man, you ain't will never be
Speaker 8: tall my whole you know. Okay, So he got me,
Speaker 8: my brother and myself swimming, and I swam for both
Speaker 8: Vestment Boat Club.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's the Pride Boys, the movie that the movie.
Speaker 8: Listen, that's b s.
Speaker 10: Yeah, that's recreation park swimming. I was au. That's those
Speaker 10: are two different things.
Speaker 8: You're saying that league was no, no, and what and what?
Speaker 2: I did?
Speaker 3: Not?
Speaker 8: Like they had cats in the movie that couldn't even swim.
Speaker 8: It's like you watching a movie on basketball and the
Speaker 8: cats in the.
Speaker 1: Spike moment, remember said that. Oh yeah, So I go
Speaker 1: out this is sixty six.
Speaker 8: This is like, you know the world was changing young
Speaker 8: young whites, young blacks, young Latinos, and uh, this is
Speaker 8: a year. I go out there the year after the
Speaker 8: Watch Revolt. So that summer they're having the Watch Summer
Speaker 8: Festival and I go to the WATS Cafe and it
Speaker 8: was excuse me, stokely Carmichael back then Ron Karranger, Marlona Karenger,
Speaker 8: and a couple of other you know, just I never
Speaker 8: heard that language. Well I did hear that language when
Speaker 8: I was fourteen. My father took me and my brother
Speaker 8: to hear Malcolm open up for Elijah Muhammad wo Wow
Speaker 8: nineteen sixty two.
Speaker 10: I think I was fourteen and I had never.
Speaker 8: I mean, I was you know, we came home from
Speaker 8: church and he said, don't you know cause my thing
Speaker 8: is after church, this is coming off. I'm going across
Speaker 8: the street and play Paul. He said, no, keep your
Speaker 8: suits on. And I was like, oh man, we probably
Speaker 8: gotta go to my aunt's, you know, have Sunday dinner.
Speaker 8: I was drug and we're driving and I looked over
Speaker 8: said tonight. I don't know Elijah Mohammad Minister Malcolm X.
Speaker 8: I saw both of them that night.
Speaker 10: That was the beginning of my wow. I'm sorry, go
Speaker 10: back sixty six, right, I know, no, no, no, it's
Speaker 10: all the part of Yeah.
Speaker 8: So I joined US organization, which was my Lina Cranker,
Speaker 8: and you know, we changed our name. But you know,
Speaker 8: that was like the first kind of wave going. There
Speaker 8: was Arabic names, but we started talking about African names
Speaker 8: Swahili and uh. He asked what what you felt your
Speaker 8: quality was? That's what your that's what your name is
Speaker 8: based on. So I said, I think I'm supposed to
Speaker 8: bring something and he said, and you feel like a message?
Speaker 8: Well I said, not literally, you know. He said, no
Speaker 8: too may and that's what that's what it means messenger
Speaker 8: ah okay, which I interpreted through the music.
Speaker 1: M wowe.
Speaker 10: Well we're going through this.
Speaker 7: I wish we were recording this.
Speaker 8: Let me ask.
Speaker 2: Because like, well, forty years later, you know the story
Speaker 2: of Karinga has changed, and people, you know, look at
Speaker 2: it differently. I mean the story we argued in this
Speaker 2: room about the story of kwans.
Speaker 6: And you want to hear.
Speaker 8: All right.
Speaker 10: I think the first Kwanza, I think was celebrated in
Speaker 10: sixty six.
Speaker 8: I wasn't there. It was just a few people. The
Speaker 8: organization began to kick in because it started to bring
Speaker 8: we were all college students coming in. So my first
Speaker 8: Quansa is the next year, sixty seven. It's about maybe
Speaker 8: thirty of us up in somebody's apartment and everybody's like them,
Speaker 8: niggas are crazy, they're trying, they're trying to replace Christmas.
Speaker 10: And now, look, let me make this clear. Kwanza had
Speaker 10: nothing to do with religion.
Speaker 8: Talk about it.
Speaker 10: It was a cultural holiday.
Speaker 8: Now let me deal with what's happened to it. People
Speaker 8: who don't even know what about Kwanza, they want to
Speaker 8: destroy it. We didn't ask for Quansa.
Speaker 6: We made it.
Speaker 8: And that's one of the differences between that and like
Speaker 8: Martin Luther King, I don't why you got to ask people.
Speaker 8: Jews don't ask him. We have roster Shana. Chinese don't
Speaker 8: say can I have Chinese New Year? Do it self determination?
Speaker 8: But they try to rewrite it now and then you
Speaker 8: krangle went to prison. Well, who created Christmas? Oh, I
Speaker 8: don't know who cares. It was the establishment of a
Speaker 8: black holiday that's open for anybody. You can be jew
Speaker 8: you can be a Catholic, it don't matter. And that's
Speaker 8: what people didn't know. And then people started writing what
Speaker 8: they thought it was. That's the danger of thought.
Speaker 7: That's crazy.
Speaker 8: This is the.
Speaker 6: It's because.
Speaker 5: When we have the Drunken Christmas episode, remind all of
Speaker 5: us to shut up.
Speaker 1: Okay, look, can we get to epic records?
Speaker 11: How did your your solo stuff like Theater of Mind,
Speaker 11: and uh, that's what Rainbow Secrets was.
Speaker 8: That was that's what about.
Speaker 1: Oh I don't know.
Speaker 6: I thought, Okay, I want you to remember this moment. Happy.
Speaker 6: How did we wait?
Speaker 5: Okay, I'm lying because you dropped Pharaoh Sandrew's name is
Speaker 5: twice and I'm like, yo, if you're on Creator has
Speaker 5: a massive.
Speaker 8: I'm not on that. That's when I first saw Pharaoh. Okay,
Speaker 8: but I played with Lonnie Listen. Okay, I went to
Speaker 8: see Pharroh. First time I saw him was at the
Speaker 8: Village Vanguard. It was Pharh Jibali, Billy Hart on drums,
Speaker 8: Lonnie Listen, Cecil mcb.
Speaker 1: On bass, what Thomas saying with him?
Speaker 8: That was my last and Leon Thomas. I sat, damn man,
Speaker 8: I'd never heard nothing like that in my life. And
Speaker 8: The Creator as a master Plan had just come out.
Speaker 8: Imama Broka turned me onto it and I found out
Speaker 8: they were playing at the Vanguard. I shot over there.
Speaker 8: I sat there all night, mesmerized.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 10: I never heard nothing like that, and that was the
Speaker 10: beginning of that period of the jazz thing.
Speaker 8: Now. I was into McCoy from the first time I
Speaker 8: heard Train McCay, so I played like I said on
Speaker 8: about six albums with McCoy, Man, I don't I don't
Speaker 8: want to keep repeating that. I'm sorry.
Speaker 7: These are McCoy albums, like on Milestone, like in the
Speaker 7: early seventies.
Speaker 10: Man, it was the.
Speaker 8: Label, man, I mean it's a it's on you you know,
Speaker 8: if you type it up, it's on YouTube.
Speaker 10: I can't remember the label man that he was No, no, no,
Speaker 10: no no, I was on Strata.
Speaker 7: McCoy's was was Milestone around around that time.
Speaker 10: I don't know if it was Milestone.
Speaker 6: The song for My Lady album.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that album is a song for My Lady.
Speaker 1: You're on that, brother, I can't if you say so,
Speaker 1: I can't.
Speaker 10: I can't remember them.
Speaker 6: You are do.
Speaker 1: But now let's get see it right, big big records.
Speaker 6: No more ask questions. But you know we're gonna go
Speaker 6: back to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So what brought you to was it was Lark and
Speaker 5: Arnold there at the time, or who brought you to
Speaker 5: the two Sony or back then the CBS?
Speaker 10: Okay, well with Reggie and I ready Lucas and I
Speaker 10: have with partners and.
Speaker 5: And why did y'all stay together? Why'd you guys decide
Speaker 5: let's partner up and be a success.
Speaker 10: Okay, yeah, I mean you know, I don't mean monetarial.
Speaker 4: I mean.
Speaker 10: You we were nourishing, you know, the music. We were
Speaker 10: very proud of the music we were doing.
Speaker 4: What was the division of labor between you two in
Speaker 4: terms of writing.
Speaker 8: And those who know don't say those say don't know,
Speaker 8: I don't do that because that gets into well, no.
Speaker 1: No, no, we met like who did the music, who
Speaker 1: did the lyrics? Oh really, I'm not going there. It's
Speaker 1: that song about we're actually asking.
Speaker 8: First of all, said I already said closer. I said
Speaker 8: I was working on these courts, so we shared.
Speaker 6: You know, it depends on the song.
Speaker 8: Yeah, well.
Speaker 11: We were partners, so it's always like two Hearts by
Speaker 11: Stiffing Me like, which is one of my favorite songs.
Speaker 8: Well, actually we co wrote that with Twa Okay, and
Speaker 8: you know what, damn listen because me and Twafa we
Speaker 8: was just talking about this the other day. For those
Speaker 8: who don't know, Tawatha ag was our lead singer, you know,
Speaker 8: in the two May band, both versions, and I don't
Speaker 8: remember how it became a duet.
Speaker 10: We didn't write it as a duet.
Speaker 8: I don't even know.
Speaker 6: Shep Gordon probably his clients.
Speaker 8: No, no, no, no, wait a minute, Okay, there's a
Speaker 8: story here. So Shep is managing Stephanie men step me
Speaker 8: and she gets cool, You're probably right. I think that's
Speaker 8: how I came.
Speaker 9: Well.
Speaker 8: So we're recording two Hearts.
Speaker 10: Teddy comes in up Sigma in New York. That's what
Speaker 10: record it.
Speaker 8: So I'm putting on do Dude do because I always
Speaker 8: liked little melodic hooks in the in our songs, you know,
Speaker 8: uh like juicy do do do just little things, you know,
Speaker 8: and say that something about you know how to love me?
Speaker 10: Yeah, and so Teddy said, man, I'm man Tombs.
Speaker 8: You know I love I want to work with you man.
Speaker 10: So you know, we're just kicking it. I get a
Speaker 10: call from Kenny Gamble.
Speaker 8: And Shep. Shep said, man, look can you invest come down.
Speaker 8: We want to have a meeting in Philly with with
Speaker 8: U he said, me and Leon Huff and Shep.
Speaker 10: So we you know, we set a date. We rolled down.
Speaker 8: So Kenny says, look, man, I want you to do
Speaker 8: half the next. Teddy Pentagras out said be gambling Huff
Speaker 8: on one side A and too made Lucas side B.
Speaker 8: I'm like ship this is I mean, because just and
Speaker 8: this is after what period? It is?
Speaker 2: What was the last Teddy album before.
Speaker 6: Before the crash?
Speaker 8: I guess.
Speaker 1: Anyone wants exactly before the crash?
Speaker 8: This is after obviously it's a silver album cover, it's
Speaker 8: after after, it's after too arts whatever. So I'm like, oh, man,
Speaker 8: Teddy has the accident maybe about three weeks later. So
Speaker 8: it's just something that never never happened. But really, where was.
Speaker 10: I going with that?
Speaker 8: Yeah, that was going to the next album was going
Speaker 8: to be and oh, I want to say something like
Speaker 8: Gamble and Huff was one of my inspirations. Kenny Kenny
Speaker 8: is one of my best friends in the music. I
Speaker 8: first met Kenny on the phone in nineteen sixty eight.
Speaker 8: I was heading up getting the entertainment together for the
Speaker 8: Watch Summer Festival. I'm calling all over everybody multime, you know,
Speaker 8: try to get somebody to donate some artists. I said, Man,
Speaker 8: was this cat in Philly?
Speaker 1: Man?
Speaker 8: I called Philly International.
Speaker 10: I'm in La. I said, can I speak to Kenny Gamble?
Speaker 8: I mean, I'm and she said, well who, I said, Well,
Speaker 8: my name is in too May. I went for the
Speaker 8: Watch Something festival. We're trying to get the talent. She said,
Speaker 8: hold on.
Speaker 10: About thirty seconds later, Kenny picks up.
Speaker 8: I'm like, oh, it was that easy. We talked. He
Speaker 8: sent out the intruders, I think it was Howl, Melvin
Speaker 8: and somebody else to La to perform at to watch
Speaker 8: some offessal for nothing. Well, we paid for the transportation,
Speaker 8: but the services free. So that's when he and I
Speaker 8: first woke. I wasn't even writing music then.
Speaker 2: And you didn't even know her from Philly.
Speaker 8: No, no, no, I didn't know it. He's from South Philly.
Speaker 10: No, I didn't know it.
Speaker 8: So we have in this meeting and I'll never forget. Look,
Speaker 8: Leon Huff is the most so Kenny saying it was beautiful.
Speaker 8: He said this way, when we're working, you can lean
Speaker 8: on us and we can lean on you. Huff has
Speaker 8: not said nothing for like an hour and a half,
Speaker 8: and then he does this quest. He says, no, he said,
Speaker 8: no leaning, and I went back to the studio and
Speaker 8: wrote that on the wall. That was one of the rules,
Speaker 8: no leaning. He said, one thing in an hour and
Speaker 8: a half.
Speaker 10: But it was so.
Speaker 6: Impactful.
Speaker 1: Oh god, now I'm breaking to break my own rule.
Speaker 4: Going back to jails.
Speaker 5: No, because the thing is like, what's the chances of
Speaker 5: us actually having someone that was like actively in in
Speaker 5: there for the wats riots like too, I got it
Speaker 5: a year after Oh you came out to us. Yeah,
Speaker 5: we just skipped that, all right, y'all. That wraps up
Speaker 5: part one of our interview with the Great James Too.
Speaker 5: May come back next weekend. We will talk to James
Speaker 5: about his work with seventy Mills and Phyllis Hyman just
Speaker 5: starts on sampling scoring the ninety said TV drama New
Speaker 5: York under Cover and the late Great Donnie Hathaway.
Speaker 1: Until then, check out Mixed Supremium for sampling.
Speaker 5: Of James's work with artists like Marles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Ojys, ROBERTA.
Speaker 5: Flack Bloud, Mary J. Blige, plus some recent hits that
Speaker 5: have sampled his songs. So stay tuned for next week's episode.
Speaker 5: Thanks for tuning in. This is Quest Love Supreme only
Speaker 5: on Pandora. Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 5: This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
Speaker 5: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 5: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.