Speaker 1: Hey, I'm Norah Jones and today I'm playing along with
Speaker 1: Questlove and Christian McBride two.
Speaker 2: For I'm just playing.
Speaker 3: With you.
Speaker 4: I'm just playing alone with you.
Speaker 5: Hey, good people, what's up? How you doing?
Speaker 6: It's Quest Love and you're about to listen to an
Speaker 6: episode of my good friend Nora Jones on our podcast
Speaker 6: called Norah Jones is playing Along. This particular episode is
Speaker 6: with myself and one of my closest buddies in high school,
Speaker 6: not named trek Trotter, uh, named Christian McBride, who I.
Speaker 5: Basically call god God of base.
Speaker 6: We're gonna go back and reminisce about all the times
Speaker 6: we've been sent to the principal's office for playing James
Speaker 6: Brown and other details like that in our high school days,
Speaker 6: messing around before we became professional. So we do covers
Speaker 6: of di'angelo, pop Staples, of the Staples singers Chris Christopherson,
Speaker 6: and a lot more. I hope you enjoy it. This
Speaker 6: is Nord Jones playing along with me and Christian McBride.
Speaker 5: All right.
Speaker 1: We actually recorded this episode in twenty twenty three, but
Speaker 1: we really.
Speaker 7: Wanted to replay it. It's a rerun, yeah, but a
Speaker 7: really good one Yes, and we wanted to show it
Speaker 7: some extra love. Both Christian and Questlov have been keeping
Speaker 7: very busy with other projects they've worked on since we
Speaker 7: put our episode out, so we wanted to mention some
Speaker 7: of them. In twenty twenty five, Christian McBride released Without
Speaker 7: Further Ado Volume one. He also dropped the single Old
Speaker 7: Folks with Samara Joy, and he announced this new ensemble
Speaker 7: called Ursa Major and Questlov has also been equally busy.
Speaker 7: He directed Sly Lives, which heard at Sundance in twenty
Speaker 7: twenty five. He co directed the fifty Years of SNL
Speaker 7: music special that aired in January of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 7: He's also directing the Big Earth, Wind and Fire documentary
Speaker 7: coming out in twenty twenty six. He co wrote the
Speaker 7: Rhythm of Time series with sa Cosby, which is a
Speaker 7: middle grade sci fi book series. The first book came
Speaker 7: out in twenty twenty three, but two more are coming
Speaker 7: out in twenty twenty six. He's also involved in a
Speaker 7: posthumous D'Angelo album that was recently announced.
Speaker 1: We also covered a Dangelo song in this episode called
Speaker 1: Betray My Heart, which was from the Black Messiah album
Speaker 1: that came out in twenty fourteen, and Questlo was a
Speaker 1: collaborator on that album, so that's kind of why we
Speaker 1: covered this song. Plus it's just an amazing song. So
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoy hearing this episode if you've never
Speaker 1: heard it, and if you have, I think you're gonna
Speaker 1: like it again.
Speaker 2: My man don't.
Speaker 4: Love me, treats me?
Speaker 2: Ohso, I said, my man, he don't love me.
Speaker 4: He treats me?
Speaker 2: Ohs me.
Speaker 4: He's the lost man.
Speaker 2: Live and say.
Speaker 8: He wears her tram pants and strips.
Speaker 9: I really yell, he wears hardly.
Speaker 3: Paints stripes are really.
Speaker 10: When he starts in loving me, he's so fine and mellow.
Speaker 10: That would make you drinking gamble and make you stand out.
Speaker 2: All night all love.
Speaker 11: We'll make you drinking gamble, make it stare at all.
Speaker 2: Love. That would make you do all the same.
Speaker 3: That you know.
Speaker 12: Okay, get an increase about.
Speaker 5: The bad.
Speaker 12: Bad day? Would the lady?
Speaker 13: Oh, if you treat me right, baby, I'll stay home
Speaker 13: eh re day. If you treat me right, baby, I'll
Speaker 13: stay home.
Speaker 10: Readay, But if you saw mean to me, baby, you
Speaker 10: know you're gonna drive me away.
Speaker 2: That was just like a fascet.
Speaker 10: It turns off and it turnsmello was just like a fozzy.
Speaker 10: It turns off and it toos. Sometimes where your thing
Speaker 10: is on is turned off.
Speaker 5: And gone, gone with your bath.
Speaker 14: No Joe bringing the grits and gravy.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's it's.
Speaker 5: Too early for that kind of song before noon, That's
Speaker 5: what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Well, if you wake up, if you wake up at
Speaker 1: seven usually then it's more like three in the afternoon.
Speaker 14: Right, Well, I suppose.
Speaker 1: Oh, thanks for doing that with me. That was fun.
Speaker 1: I love that Billie Holiday song.
Speaker 14: That's thrill.
Speaker 1: Is that is that old Billie Holiday song? Or did
Speaker 1: she did she get it from somewhere else? That's hers? God,
Speaker 1: I love Billy Holiday. Man, I haven't sung that song
Speaker 1: in a really long time.
Speaker 14: You could have fooled me.
Speaker 1: That's from the old days, you know, the old days
Speaker 1: of playing and singing in restaurants and just playing.
Speaker 14: Well, see that.
Speaker 15: Those gigs, you know, back in the day when you
Speaker 15: were doing the you know, hotel lobby or restaurant gig,
Speaker 15: whatever it is.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 15: I always tell musicians that's your shared time. That's how
Speaker 15: you build that's how you build your skills.
Speaker 1: Semi paid practice.
Speaker 15: Totally, totally what it is. I mean, like I used
Speaker 15: to play. I can't remember the name of it, but
Speaker 15: Benny Green and I used to have this kind of
Speaker 15: semi regular gig at some Chinese food restaurant over on
Speaker 15: the East Side, and.
Speaker 14: We would just sharre tunes.
Speaker 15: You know, nobody was really listening, kind of sort of
Speaker 15: you know, so we just call songs and I'll be
Speaker 15: learning the changes right there on the spot.
Speaker 5: That's the best, That's how you learned.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I had a gig like that in Dallas. I
Speaker 1: wish it was Chinese food. That sounds really good. Actually
Speaker 1: right now.
Speaker 15: If I remember correctly, just like most jazz venues, we
Speaker 15: couldn't pick off the regular menus.
Speaker 14: They had a musician's menu.
Speaker 1: I remember that. I had a gig in Midtown right
Speaker 1: around the corner here at that place Sofia's. Did you
Speaker 1: ever work?
Speaker 11: Yes?
Speaker 14: I never worked there, but a lot of people did.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Actually was surprised he hired me because there were a
Speaker 1: lot of really great piano players that play there. But
Speaker 1: I think he liked my singing. And that guy was
Speaker 1: really nice, actually, I really liked him. But they did
Speaker 1: not let us or very nicely. Right, you go back
Speaker 1: to the kitchen and you could only have like a
Speaker 1: few things and you had a set meal.
Speaker 5: Time, right, yeah, exactly, that's right.
Speaker 1: And it was like a four and a half hour gig.
Speaker 14: Long gig, long gig.
Speaker 15: I remember when well, when I first moved to town,
Speaker 15: most clubs were three sets a night. The Vanguard was nine,
Speaker 15: eleven and one.
Speaker 1: Oh, it was three sets back oh yeah.
Speaker 15: Yeah, six nights a week. Bradley's was ten, twelve and two.
Speaker 15: That was hard because you had an hour break in
Speaker 15: between these shows. All your momentum yeah be gone.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And if you're having a drink, it's we're eating. It
Speaker 1: just makes you tie.
Speaker 15: Yeah, yeah, I'll tell you what so much. See, this
Speaker 15: is why when people began to know who you were,
Speaker 15: you were already all your skills were totally strong already.
Speaker 15: I'm serious. You weren't starting from scratch. You've been out
Speaker 15: there working.
Speaker 1: I kind of feel like I could use a weekly
Speaker 1: gig again, you know, like a weekly not a bad
Speaker 1: idea bar gig where the stakes are low and the
Speaker 1: fun is high, you know, just working it out.
Speaker 5: I'm sure you could find something I.
Speaker 1: Love doing that, you know. That's what's great about living
Speaker 1: in a city.
Speaker 14: Right right right, you can hide in a crowd exactly.
Speaker 1: Man, tell me about your bass.
Speaker 14: This is many.
Speaker 15: Yeah, yes, she's like you little bit mighty.
Speaker 1: Did you bring her for me, because I'm I'm sure no.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 15: This has been my main base since January of ninety six.
Speaker 1: Really, oh, man, So you have others that you use sometimes,
Speaker 1: but this is your.
Speaker 15: Main This is my girl. I had a base that
Speaker 15: was I used to think it was made by John Jiuzic,
Speaker 15: but a guy in Check Slovakia told me that John Jewsk,
Speaker 15: that's a big name in the bass world.
Speaker 1: Oh, I know, because I dated a bass player. I'm
Speaker 1: sorry for a long time and I will never forget
Speaker 1: the bass saga of him getting.
Speaker 15: A jews Well, I found out that John Jeuwsk was
Speaker 15: not a base maker. He was a base distributor.
Speaker 1: So it was all a lot.
Speaker 15: He was the middleman. Yeah. So I went to Czechoslovakia
Speaker 15: to go kind of track him down.
Speaker 2: Really I want to.
Speaker 15: I want to learn about the Jewsak family line. And
Speaker 15: I went to this bass shop in Prague, and uh,
Speaker 15: it was so funny because the guy said, and he
Speaker 15: didn't really say these exact words, but I was reading
Speaker 15: in between the lines. He was like, oh, you dumb Americans.
Speaker 15: You think Jiwsak was the guy. He was not the guy.
Speaker 15: He was the distributor.
Speaker 14: You know.
Speaker 5: I was like, oh, oh, okay, so who was the guy?
Speaker 15: And then he gave me like a whole bunch of
Speaker 15: check names that I couldn't spell.
Speaker 14: You couldn't find him, Yeah, I couldn't find him.
Speaker 1: But so there was more than one guy, basically, Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: there were several guys.
Speaker 5: Guys.
Speaker 1: They were kind of in the same community of making bases, right, okay.
Speaker 15: And so I had a Jewsak distributed base from nineteen
Speaker 15: eighty nine until British Airways destroyed it.
Speaker 2: Oh no, of ninety five.
Speaker 15: Yeah, that's right. I'll never forgive you for that, you know.
Speaker 15: But yeah, I had my jews Ak was was crushed,
Speaker 15: fell out of the belly of the plane. You know,
Speaker 15: it's like a foot drop, you.
Speaker 1: Know, from on the ground.
Speaker 15: But still, yeah, I mean I had it had a
Speaker 15: really good case. But I you know, I guess the
Speaker 15: you know, it was it was so far drop. Uh,
Speaker 15: it just it didn't make it.
Speaker 1: That's a bummer.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 15: And so uh, David Gage, the guru, I know him.
Speaker 15: I'm sure you know him. I love him. He tried
Speaker 15: to fix it, he restored it, he did everything he could,
Speaker 15: but it just didn't get that old sound back. And
Speaker 15: so while I was waiting for him to fix it,
Speaker 15: he said, man, somebody just came in my shop with
Speaker 15: an old base.
Speaker 14: They want to get rid of it. You need to
Speaker 14: come check this out. And that was many.
Speaker 1: That's it, he called it.
Speaker 15: Yep, this is an old German base made in estimated
Speaker 15: in nineteen ten.
Speaker 1: That's beautiful.
Speaker 15: Yeah, so she speaks, she's.
Speaker 1: That's beautiful.
Speaker 14: Yeah, so many she's been there.
Speaker 1: That's great. I remember seeing on your maybe your Instagram
Speaker 1: page once and you took a picture of a flight
Speaker 1: attendant who was super sweet about your instrument.
Speaker 14: I always try.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, I think you do that.
Speaker 1: Don't you shout out when they're really nice?
Speaker 5: Yes? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Do you shout out when they suck about.
Speaker 2: It or you?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 15: I just go direct to uh, I just go direct
Speaker 15: to customer service. You know, I've discovered the My friend
Speaker 15: Terry on Gully, his wife is she writes letters all.
Speaker 1: The time, complaints, kind complaints, well worded, thoughtful.
Speaker 15: And she and he used to tell me, he said, man,
Speaker 15: you know those complaint letters go a long way.
Speaker 1: They do, like they really read them.
Speaker 15: I don't know if they do now, but you know,
Speaker 15: so fortunately I have not had too many bad instances
Speaker 15: and quite some time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it can be tough trying to go on a
Speaker 1: plane with a weird shaped instrument. They just don't know.
Speaker 15: They just don't working musicians. I mean, I see flight
Speaker 15: attendants giving trouble to just like guitar players. You know,
Speaker 15: they got like a little soft gigbag that's not gonna
Speaker 15: fit overhead.
Speaker 5: Of course it will.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's a tough gig on both ends. I
Speaker 1: think too.
Speaker 14: Well. Absolutely, you know, you gotta have empathy.
Speaker 1: You know, but sometimes people just stink about it.
Speaker 15: You know what I feel bad about. I go, I
Speaker 15: go to the airport, and before I check in, you
Speaker 15: try to read the friendliest face.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 15: So Like I'll be standing in line and I'll see
Speaker 15: like three ticket agents and I see one about to
Speaker 15: become open, but they don't look like they're a nice person.
Speaker 15: Like I'll turn to the person behind me, like no, no, no, no,
Speaker 15: you go ahead, but you're next, No go, I'm waiting for.
Speaker 5: The nice person.
Speaker 1: Did you start out on upright base?
Speaker 14: Nope. Started out on the electric at what age?
Speaker 5: Because of my dad nine I was nine, He played bass.
Speaker 5: He still does.
Speaker 1: He still does.
Speaker 14: He's one of the workingst bass players in Philly.
Speaker 1: That's amazing.
Speaker 14: He's my dad.
Speaker 15: His name is Lee Smith, and he's working more now
Speaker 15: than he was when I was a kid.
Speaker 14: Ain't that right? Clyde?
Speaker 3: Hey are you?
Speaker 1: I got some good stories about you before you got here.
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding.
Speaker 11: I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1: We didn't get to it yet.
Speaker 2: What's good man?
Speaker 5: All right?
Speaker 6: I'm gonna give my on and play traditional for the
Speaker 6: first time in what thirty years?
Speaker 1: Traditional? How so a that's great. That's some technical thing
Speaker 1: that I don't know about. You don't usually hold your exactly.
Speaker 5: All my idols play this way, something like what wow?
Speaker 5: Since I was twelve?
Speaker 4: Really whole episode.
Speaker 14: Google?
Speaker 10: Whoa ah my treating so bad? Whoa ah my treating
Speaker 10: so by?
Speaker 2: You know, as I seen this song.
Speaker 16: Him after so Bad, I'm not ask.
Speaker 2: The messages day.
Speaker 3: Ready seemed to be in day you may be bad?
Speaker 3: You maybe late.
Speaker 10: Brocord her mrssion, Dove, who change so Bad?
Speaker 5: Tround ticket.
Speaker 3: Now the best of the day things are?
Speaker 2: They seem to be.
Speaker 17: Lame you maybe line you, maybe lay just walk up?
Speaker 18: How messes made? Don't treat so bad? Do you teach? Y?
Speaker 5: Chris brother?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 5: But can we just be normal for once and not ever?
Speaker 14: No, we can't.
Speaker 5: Or what are you about to learn?
Speaker 14: You're about to be in O school with us? This
Speaker 14: is this is a thirty year camaraderie.
Speaker 6: Where he and I are having a total inside conversation
Speaker 6: with each other based on like every reference.
Speaker 5: I know.
Speaker 1: I texted with you both for about ten minutes.
Speaker 14: Are you going to.
Speaker 5: This might be a three episode?
Speaker 15: I know?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 14: All right, give it to Billy?
Speaker 5: How long before you committed this in your memory? You
Speaker 5: gotta get that in this right right right? Spot Stick?
Speaker 14: Say what spot Stick? Great?
Speaker 5: Crack break.
Speaker 2: Tom right now.
Speaker 5: Is a question of you two? So when all right,
Speaker 5: watch me take the podcast over?
Speaker 1: Take it over?
Speaker 6: So when when you two play? Have you two played
Speaker 6: long enough where you're literally in a linear state of
Speaker 6: mind where you know the song and you are playing
Speaker 6: you Because I just realized I only realize who I
Speaker 6: am when I'm not in roots world, because when I'm
Speaker 6: in roots world, I'm more like traffic cop. Yeah, but
Speaker 6: I noticed that when I'm in jam session. Like literally
Speaker 6: in that song, I've referenced maybe twelve drummers from Bill
Speaker 6: Wither's Drummer. Ye yeah, between Yatson and you know Clyde Jabbo.
Speaker 6: I try to do Melvin, but I couldn't bring myself
Speaker 6: to it.
Speaker 14: It might have been too slow for Melvin.
Speaker 6: Right right right, and so I'm literally going through. See
Speaker 6: the thing is Melvin is reverse Clyde.
Speaker 5: So all right, I do funck you woman. So basically.
Speaker 6: James and I, Chris and I are connection of courses.
Speaker 6: Is James Brown, And so with James's I would say
Speaker 6: top three drummers. Clyde Stubblefield has the probably the best
Speaker 6: ghost note left hand ever, so a lot of his
Speaker 6: like slowed down a little bit, so like he plays
Speaker 6: he plays a snare like like old Black Church people
Speaker 6: play the tambourine with a little like of course, the
Speaker 6: the pace is this, but he'll add the.
Speaker 5: You know what I mean.
Speaker 6: And Adris Mohammed is also in under this umbrella where
Speaker 6: his left hand and the ghost note.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 6: And also I would say Steve Roone formerly of the Heartbreakers,
Speaker 6: and of course the average white man who's probably a
Speaker 6: more nuanced Bernard Party like Bernard Purty's trademarkets of course, yeah,
Speaker 6: you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: So Steve Arroni.
Speaker 6: Takes Clyde Stubblefield's left hand and uh it takes Bernard
Speaker 6: Purtty's right hand. But also Adris Muhammad does that a lot.
Speaker 6: But with James Brown's other drummer, uh Clyde uh Javo,
Speaker 6: John Davo starks he's more he's more of a food guy.
Speaker 6: So I say, John Davo starts like he's more about
Speaker 6: the pass.
Speaker 5: So I'll say that.
Speaker 6: Even though we credit Clyde Stubblefield with being like James Brown,
Speaker 6: the funkiest drummer, claud Seville feels more like boutique shopping,
Speaker 6: whereas Jabbo is more like common every day right, meat
Speaker 6: and potatoes drummers, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: Like he's more in a swing h.
Speaker 6: So that's and he's also heavy on the one that's
Speaker 6: that's zab all day, so his emphasis is more on
Speaker 6: the foot.
Speaker 5: Now, the thing is, Melvin Parker, you don't play one right.
Speaker 6: Melvin Parker never hits on the one, so he hits
Speaker 6: everything but the one.
Speaker 5: And so he's more like right, so that one that's missing,
Speaker 5: that's his.
Speaker 6: Infloye, so he's more single pated drummer, you know what
Speaker 6: I mean. But it's always my question to you is
Speaker 6: when you're not playing your own material, are you do
Speaker 6: you morph into another musician or like I find out
Speaker 6: I'm more of a shape shifter than I am, Like
Speaker 6: I don't think I've identified I've identified myself as a
Speaker 6: shape shifter more than like, oh that's a mirror plan.
Speaker 5: But you know, when I'm playing, I.
Speaker 1: Think that's interesting because I feel like I know when
Speaker 1: it's you.
Speaker 5: Well, also I've made my presence known.
Speaker 6: But also it's also like my style of drumming is
Speaker 6: more like like right now in the culinary world, there's there's.
Speaker 5: A big giant worry that with words like kale and
Speaker 5: plant based that we're going to lose. I mean, you know,
Speaker 5: like this twenty twenty is the whole era of.
Speaker 6: The fight between you know, traditionalists how it used to
Speaker 6: be and this is how I was raised, versus the
Speaker 6: disruptors who are like, no, this is this is the new,
Speaker 6: this is how it's going to be. And there's you know,
Speaker 6: I guess my staking that claim is more about the musicianship.
Speaker 6: So you know, I never wanted to be what they
Speaker 6: would call like a you know, like a gospel drummer,
Speaker 6: gospel chops. So I always imagine that I'm the drummer
Speaker 6: that works at a steel mill in Ohio or Milwaukee
Speaker 6: or whatever, and you know, his wife lets him play
Speaker 6: with the guys at the local bar, but he's like
Speaker 6: real sloppy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, like like I could, I could perfect him.
Speaker 5: But for me, oh.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean see, the problem is when I'm doing
Speaker 6: it in terms of hip hop, I also not only
Speaker 6: have to be the sample, but I have to also
Speaker 6: be the drum programming. So that's that's my my my
Speaker 6: big risk with this next record, because I'm actually not
Speaker 6: gonna play like a computer and I'm gonna play I'm
Speaker 6: trying to play.
Speaker 5: Like the sloppiest drunk four year old, like how I
Speaker 5: used to play when I was a kid, without the
Speaker 5: Like my mind is that.
Speaker 6: But do you do you like for you, do you
Speaker 6: guys shape shift as well? Or do you are you
Speaker 6: just too preoccupied with the melody whatever? Because when I'm drumming,
Speaker 6: it's so second hand, like it's like the back of
Speaker 6: my head where if I think about drumming, then I'm
Speaker 6: fucking up. So I'm thinking about like yeah, and wait,
Speaker 6: that'll leave my while or two, like I'm thinking of
Speaker 6: anything else but drumming. Really yeah, because when you start
Speaker 6: thinking about it, that's where I remember once, uh, one
Speaker 6: of my dad's gigs when I was eleven, we were
Speaker 6: doing we were doing all the Wings of Love and
Speaker 6: I was I was twelve years Yeah.
Speaker 5: Did you know that Steve Broon's drumming on that?
Speaker 14: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I did not know that. So it's like one
Speaker 5: in the morning, I'm twelve years old.
Speaker 6: We're in the nightclub and this is like out in
Speaker 6: some some club in uh like Darby, like in the
Speaker 6: in the outskirts, and we're playing you know. My dad's like,
Speaker 6: all right, you know, you get on drums. The bar's empty.
Speaker 6: It's like the last set, so he lets me sit
Speaker 6: in and I did good. And then we got to
Speaker 6: on the Wings of Love and we got through the
Speaker 6: first verse and there's there's there's like, you know, the
Speaker 6: drunk guy. It was Tavern on The Simpsons. Yes, he's
Speaker 6: looking at me. He's the only one that's like, wait
Speaker 6: a minute, what's a twelve year old kid doing in
Speaker 6: this nightclub at at two in the morning on a
Speaker 6: school night, but he's real drunk and he's like, hey man,
Speaker 6: that drummer is really good.
Speaker 5: And then I messed up that just about.
Speaker 6: So when I think about it, that's when it's problematic.
Speaker 6: But is it the same for you at all?
Speaker 1: Like I think thinking about it is always a problem.
Speaker 1: Feeling it is better. But I'm always trying to be
Speaker 1: myself because also as a singer, it's more obvious when
Speaker 1: you're copying other people you love, you know, So I
Speaker 1: just try to embody the lyrics in my own way usually.
Speaker 15: And we were talking earlier about that, the steady gig,
Speaker 15: all those steady gigs you played, and you know, hotel
Speaker 15: lobbies and things like that, and restaurants and bars.
Speaker 5: That's it.
Speaker 14: That's where we all got our train.
Speaker 15: You know.
Speaker 5: Did you ever pall on the paper like that? I
Speaker 5: feel like you came out the wound a legend.
Speaker 15: Yeah, I know, revision is history, but I I mean,
Speaker 15: I've always been too pragmatic because like as a bass player,
Speaker 15: my my thing was do whatever you have to do
Speaker 15: to keep the gig. I was the best worried about,
Speaker 15: you know, individualism and trying to find you know what,
Speaker 15: I'm just don't get fired that was always my number
Speaker 15: one thing.
Speaker 6: You playing fight or flight? Well, I mean there's two
Speaker 6: ways to live. Either gonna fight or flight or you're
Speaker 6: gonna live. Like, hey, what can I do to you know?
Speaker 6: I never I never thought that you would ever have
Speaker 6: that thought, like, I don't want to get fired?
Speaker 14: Absolutely?
Speaker 5: Have you ever got a fire Christmas?
Speaker 14: I've gotten close?
Speaker 15: Oh yeah, yeah yeah, but it wasn't you remember this well,
Speaker 15: you remember the no app days, the make Base Great
Speaker 15: Again days, when all of these young cats were coming
Speaker 15: on the scene not wanting to play with an amplifier.
Speaker 4: Oh my god.
Speaker 15: Yeah, you know we were trying to muscle up and yeah,
Speaker 15: exactly right right, and uh oh when I first.
Speaker 14: Moved to New York eighty nine, ninety ninety one.
Speaker 1: Well, an AM's just an extra thing to carry?
Speaker 5: What's that?
Speaker 1: And an extra thing?
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 15: So there was all these cats like, man, you know,
Speaker 15: real bass players don't use an am got to muscle up,
Speaker 15: raise your strings, and you know, have the microphone way
Speaker 15: out there and project right. So uh that was that
Speaker 15: was courtesy of a particular sect. But I got on
Speaker 15: body wear suits? Are they from New Orleans? See what
Speaker 15: I'm trying to nobody, but I.
Speaker 5: Wonder who you're talking about.
Speaker 1: No names, no names, no names, no names.
Speaker 15: But I got on Bobby Watson's gig and he was like, say,
Speaker 15: where's your AM. You know I don't use no AMP.
Speaker 15: I got a big sound. He's like, I'm sure you
Speaker 15: do buy one an AM? Like no, man, you know
Speaker 15: amp man, that's that's some punk shit.
Speaker 5: Man, you know.
Speaker 15: He's like, oh it is huh say uh no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 15: wait wait wait I'm getting an AMP. And actually it
Speaker 15: was it was Jeff Taine watch that saved my gig
Speaker 15: with Bobby watching because I was playing the Vanguard with Bobby.
Speaker 5: And Bobby was pissed. He was like, man, get an AMP.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 15: I was like no, I was being a petulant eighteen
Speaker 15: year old, you know. And U Tane came down there
Speaker 15: one night and and this is when I learned, like,
Speaker 15: you know, it's cool. So Tane was kind of part
Speaker 15: of that whole crew.
Speaker 5: He had one foot in there and with us.
Speaker 15: That's right, that's right. So I said, hey, man, can
Speaker 15: you believe what he wants me to do? He wants
Speaker 15: me to get an APP and so Tine was like,
Speaker 15: we'll get one. I was like, for real, He's like, man,
Speaker 15: just because you have an AMP, don't mean you got
Speaker 15: to crank it. Just just get an AP, you know.
Speaker 15: I was like, for real, it's cool. You ain't gonna
Speaker 15: be mad at me. There's something along those lines, right.
Speaker 15: That sect was really powerful cool in the early nineties,
Speaker 15: and Tay was like, man, you better get a namp
Speaker 15: and keep your kick.
Speaker 5: So wait a minute.
Speaker 6: If now I can see if it's Village Vanguard, but
Speaker 6: with that sect, say the same for oh, I don't know,
Speaker 6: Carnegie Hall or Lincoln Center.
Speaker 14: Yes, no amp under no circumstances.
Speaker 1: Are you serious?
Speaker 14: Yes?
Speaker 1: Wait was there a mic on the Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: a mic.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 5: Oh.
Speaker 1: The theory was I thought, I here, I was thinking,
Speaker 1: no amplification at all in a club. But well, you
Speaker 1: mean there's a microphone.
Speaker 14: Yes, there was a microphone.
Speaker 1: So the theory is the pickup doesn't sound good.
Speaker 15: The theory was the sound, the natural sound of the
Speaker 15: acoustic bass was destroyed in the seventies and early eighties. Now,
Speaker 15: I can't argue that you agree U two, And I
Speaker 15: think Ron Carter was probably one of the only ones
Speaker 15: that made it out of that whole era, like unscathed
Speaker 15: like even though he was using an AMP and used
Speaker 15: the d I, he still sounded nice and fatten and
Speaker 15: and good you know.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 14: But a lot of other people had that real real.
Speaker 5: You know and.
Speaker 6: Like that.
Speaker 14: Yeah, and so, but Ron was the only one that
Speaker 14: everybody was like, Okay, that's cool.
Speaker 1: Became its own thing kind of exactly.
Speaker 15: And then so in the late eighties, when when the
Speaker 15: sect was was was getting big, you know, it was
Speaker 15: kind of like yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So and then
Speaker 15: it was like, well, everybody raised their strings, unplugged the amps.
Speaker 15: We're going our natural to return the base to his
Speaker 15: original glory, you know. And then Ray Brown, Ron Carter,
Speaker 15: you know, Mill Hitton, all the great bass legends, they
Speaker 15: come here us play.
Speaker 14: We all be like.
Speaker 5: And man takes that toe on your hands and.
Speaker 14: They'd be like, what are you doing?
Speaker 15: Asive Yeah, there's a I'm gonna call him out because
Speaker 15: that's my man. There's a YouTube clip go. I think
Speaker 15: it was when Harry Conneck Jr. Was on some morning
Speaker 15: show and my brother Ben Wolf was playing bass. From
Speaker 15: a long camera angle, you can see his strings are
Speaker 15: about that high, maybe three, and he's playing like I'm
Speaker 15: very sure he had ten to nighters. At some point,
Speaker 15: can't you gut strings? You know, high super high action.
Speaker 15: And at some point I was just like, you know,
Speaker 15: this is this is not right. It doesn't sound good,
Speaker 15: you know. So Ray Brown changed all.
Speaker 5: Of that, So this all right?
Speaker 6: So you're answering the question for me because at in
Speaker 6: my studio set up a thirty rock. What I'm trying
Speaker 6: to do is get acquainted with all of our plugins.
Speaker 6: Like I spend my lunch time just like, okay, let
Speaker 6: me figure out a new sound or whatever. So you know,
Speaker 6: when you get a pro tool system, then you know
Speaker 6: there's over like seven hundred plugins or seven thousand plugins,
Speaker 6: and of course there's different combinations of that stuff. So
Speaker 6: you know, I'm trying to think of figure out a
Speaker 6: new sound, and I keep I kept seeing as there's
Speaker 6: a plug in called fat wood.
Speaker 5: Right, which caught my attention because I need right. I said,
Speaker 5: fat would that's right. Let me check this out.
Speaker 6: And I got to it and my engineer, Steve, Steve Vandel,
Speaker 6: was like explaining to me how in the jazz world,
Speaker 6: like the woods, the natural wood sound, there's an argument
Speaker 6: over who we And he said, you know how like
Speaker 6: your your di versus miophon thing or whatever, and how
Speaker 6: I don't like the microphone to the more than I
Speaker 6: like a d I sound, but I need it for
Speaker 6: a specific reason.
Speaker 5: So now I get that. You you you your challenge
Speaker 5: was natural sound versus and to.
Speaker 14: Find a happy medium.
Speaker 15: And uh, I think I mean, like right now, I'm
Speaker 15: not using any d I, it's just all microphone.
Speaker 1: Well I can't imagine using a d I in the
Speaker 1: studio on an acoustic bass.
Speaker 15: I can't either. But it depends on it depends on
Speaker 15: the on the music, what kind of music you're doing.
Speaker 15: Like when we did the Philadelphia experiment, that was I
Speaker 15: think that was mostly d I, not very much microphone,
Speaker 15: but for that music it was perfect. Its yeah, yeah,
Speaker 15: see I got a story about her. Yes, he said, no,
Speaker 15: wait da right right right. It was the first time
Speaker 15: I heard of you when you played at.
Speaker 1: Mccoor really yep, oh that was forever ago.
Speaker 5: It was like it was like two thousand, two thousand
Speaker 5: and uh.
Speaker 15: My manager at the time, it's like, Hey, we're gonna
Speaker 15: go see this girl, Norah Jones, you should come.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 14: I think all of the people from Ted Curlin's office came.
Speaker 15: They all came, right and yeah, like this girl is
Speaker 15: gonna be huge, She's gonna be huge, really yeah, yeah,
Speaker 15: And I remember it was packed and I was in
Speaker 15: I was in the black of the club. I said
Speaker 15: it on purpose exactly.
Speaker 3: And uh.
Speaker 14: And then you had your record come.
Speaker 1: Out yet I can't no, but I had a long
Speaker 1: lead up to it. So the labor was I had
Speaker 1: a weekly gig there. It was a Jewish community center, yes,
Speaker 1: and it was singles night on Wednesdays, and I had
Speaker 1: I didn't know, every Wednesday on singles Night. And it
Speaker 1: started out with nobody regular gig there. I had a
Speaker 1: regular gig there for a year and it was a
Speaker 1: singles night and there weren't a ton of people there
Speaker 1: for me, and it was just singles. And then it
Speaker 1: built up slowly and slowly. And then right right before
Speaker 1: my record came out, I think we had our last
Speaker 1: weekly or something and it was like bananas man.
Speaker 14: And then and then you shout out like a cannon man,
Speaker 14: and I was just like.
Speaker 5: That's her.
Speaker 1: You came to the court, did you say, Hi.
Speaker 14: No, there's too much too much traffic in there.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I was going to say the last the last stages
Speaker 6: of your buzz before your debut came out. I distinctly
Speaker 6: remember in a forty eight hour period, I can claim
Speaker 6: that I saw you pre you and pre Gaga, you
Speaker 6: pre you and pre Gaga Stephanie uh at sort of
Speaker 6: like piano bar gigs in New York area within like
Speaker 6: a seventy one night. I think I saw her on
Speaker 6: a Thursday night, and then I saw you on a
Speaker 6: Sunday night. Wow, And yeah, it's that's probably yeah, the
Speaker 6: only time where I saw someone in there there started
Speaker 6: like incubated level before.
Speaker 15: You know. John Batiste was my student at the Aspen
Speaker 15: Summer Program. Yeah, yeah, yeah, in two thousand and one.
Speaker 15: Look at him now, I'm telling you, right, so when
Speaker 15: I see him now, I'm just like, you know, you
Speaker 15: ain't famous to me, that's crazy. But no, he and
Speaker 15: and Diana Crawl as well. You know, we kind of
Speaker 15: came up. She was together at the No no, no no, but.
Speaker 14: Yeah we can.
Speaker 15: Yeah, like when she made her first album, well her
Speaker 15: first album for g RP. It was ninety four. We
Speaker 15: recorded that. I mean, you know, she was brand new,
Speaker 15: you know, she she was doing like the the bar
Speaker 15: and hotel circuit, you know, and uh, Timmy Lapuma heard
Speaker 15: her and the rest is.
Speaker 1: History, and you played on that early stuff with her
Speaker 1: or later.
Speaker 14: I played on her.
Speaker 15: I think I've played on almost all of her records
Speaker 15: except her second and maybe one other in between there.
Speaker 5: Okay, yeah, so you So you were produced by Timmy Lapuma.
Speaker 5: That was my That was like my third dad. Okay
Speaker 5: this on this album? Were you acoustic or electric?
Speaker 14: All acoustic?
Speaker 5: Always? We ever done anything electric with him?
Speaker 14: Big time?
Speaker 5: Yep. It's like for me, if there's ever producer that
Speaker 5: has such a got replaced.
Speaker 4: I was.
Speaker 15: How did you know Marcus Miller? I was like, well,
Speaker 15: why don't you just get Marcus. We's gotta break my
Speaker 15: heart when the record comes out. I was like, damn wait,
Speaker 15: but it was cool later on, Wait, what is that
Speaker 15: like when you find out that you heartbreaking?
Speaker 5: Is that a common thing before? You know?
Speaker 15: I don't think it is now. I don't think that
Speaker 15: happens much anymore. I can't be sure, but I don't
Speaker 15: think that happens much. On Kenny Kirkland's first and only
Speaker 15: solo album, Delfiel Marsalis produced it, and I remember he
Speaker 15: called me in and he said, hey, man, we got
Speaker 15: this track. We got like four bass parts on that.
Speaker 15: We got Seannette Maffitt. We got Robert Hurst. I think
Speaker 15: maybe no what Originalville, but it was just Hurst and
Speaker 15: and Seanette is like, put your bass part down because
Speaker 15: we can't figure out which one we like. Yeah, so
Speaker 15: I'm pretty sure on one of those songs on Kenny
Speaker 15: Kirkland's record, there's like three bass players on one.
Speaker 14: He just kind of you know, I got four bars,
Speaker 14: Hurst got four bars.
Speaker 1: You know, I've almost done that. I don't think I've
Speaker 1: ever done that.
Speaker 5: Really.
Speaker 1: No, Well, I saw both. I saw you play when
Speaker 1: I was in college down in Texas. I saw the roots.
Speaker 6: Really yeah, wow, I thought I thought the first time
Speaker 6: we saw each other was when you're sitting in the
Speaker 6: front ruck of Wait you're from Denton.
Speaker 1: Text, Well, from Dallas, but I went to college in Denton.
Speaker 6: Yeah, okay, I'm only learning about that. I'm doing the
Speaker 6: slide doc right now. And I didn't know that he
Speaker 6: was born in Denton, Texas.
Speaker 1: I actually didn't know that either.
Speaker 5: No, I didn't know that he's born in I'm in
Speaker 5: the there's a there's a really crazy.
Speaker 6: Lost concert that we just found which is supposed to
Speaker 6: be like this is this is in seventy two. So
Speaker 6: I'll say this maybe like three months before Larry quit
Speaker 6: and the first okay, so of course, uh and in
Speaker 6: prime self savage mode, you know, Slide used time as
Speaker 6: a means to protest, always famous for being late to
Speaker 6: shows and whatnot.
Speaker 5: So uh, you know, this is like his homecoming show.
Speaker 6: You know, he went away for two years after his
Speaker 6: triumphant Woodstock thing and you know, greatest Hits album was
Speaker 6: was he was literally like the biggest star in the world.
Speaker 5: And so you know, they planning this homecoming thing in Denton, Texas.
Speaker 6: And all you when when the they recorded live and
Speaker 6: you know, wanted to preserve it on taping, so all
Speaker 6: of a sudden, you here it just starts with booze.
Speaker 6: So obviously he was right, right, so he I believe
Speaker 6: one of the band members told me that they were
Speaker 6: waiting for about sort of north of ninety minutes, so
Speaker 6: maybe like one hundred minutes yea. And but he's also
Speaker 6: he keeps getting away with it because he's also very charismatic,
Speaker 6: charming guy and literally when he walks on stage, he
Speaker 6: you know, he does this, and you know, and he
Speaker 6: does the look guys, I'm sorry, but look, I can
Speaker 6: either solve the problem and start playing now, or you
Speaker 6: guys can just continue booing.
Speaker 14: What would you like to do?
Speaker 6: Like he's really very logical, right and the second may
Speaker 6: hit it was like they forgot everything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so that's exciting in Texas, man, I can't
Speaker 1: wait to see that. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's it's a lot that I'm learning right now.
Speaker 11: You might burn me here lett a one, you might
Speaker 11: drive him back all the bush's tailmate too much.
Speaker 1: I knew he had.
Speaker 10: If I try to escape, which was shut.
Speaker 4: Out, pull the red tape, A man lives, no one cast.
Speaker 5: Them say.
Speaker 2: On the last bustle long.
Speaker 8: So.
Speaker 2: Still with me, I'll tame.
Speaker 4: Your riting and take the bullet and that gun.
Speaker 2: I'll bear you, mussel.
Speaker 4: Everything you want to know, swallow be afu.
Speaker 8: If I try to escape, you william play the pa.
Speaker 4: If you dismis, hold you.
Speaker 10: S all sides moss up long should then I'll pretend
Speaker 10: that out five s oh las, washup um shoe.
Speaker 2: Sh with me.
Speaker 4: I'll put everything.
Speaker 14: And so you saw they came.
Speaker 1: To U n t no that you guys were playing
Speaker 1: in Dallas. We went down to Dallas to see you.
Speaker 5: Was it in that bowling alley? Uh?
Speaker 1: No, it wasn't.
Speaker 5: There's there's like a in Dallas.
Speaker 6: There was something bowl and it was like a bowling alley,
Speaker 6: pool hall and kind of a house.
Speaker 1: Of bluesy what is a theater?
Speaker 2: Right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: No, it wasn't there. It was a place where there
Speaker 1: was a balcony surrounding the stage.
Speaker 5: I can't remember where it was, okay.
Speaker 1: And then I tried to go see you play with
Speaker 1: Josh Redman and Brian Blade at Caravana Dreams. But I
Speaker 1: was told later by Chris Thomas that it was actually him.
Speaker 1: I was out of the band about you were you
Speaker 1: weren't there, and I think my memory got, you know, sideways,
Speaker 1: But Chris was like, that was me.
Speaker 14: You want to Christian Chris?
Speaker 1: No, I knew who you were. No, no, no, But
Speaker 1: I don't think I got to see you till later,
Speaker 1: like maybe after I moved to New York.
Speaker 14: Yeah I didn't. I don't don't don't play in Texas much?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, is that true?
Speaker 5: Where's your Like?
Speaker 15: How is if I do go to Texas, it's probably Houston,
Speaker 15: Houston or Austin.
Speaker 1: No Dallas for you?
Speaker 14: Huh not really?
Speaker 5: So where's your jazz? Where's your Like?
Speaker 6: Every American in your American kind of.
Speaker 15: All the Amtrak so Boston, between Boston and d c
Speaker 15: of Rochester, Buffalo, Toronto, Detroit, Chicago, Indianapolis has gotten a
Speaker 15: little better.
Speaker 14: Saint Louis not much in the South Man not not
Speaker 14: a whole lot.
Speaker 1: That's interesting because of chause Denton was a big old
Speaker 1: jazz school. So well, exactly we have people through to
Speaker 1: the college a lot, right, Yeah, I've.
Speaker 14: Done like master classes.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 15: So the place where it was, of course in la
Speaker 15: of course, you know, Seattle, all the way down to
Speaker 15: San Diego, Phoenix, Denver.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the only place there was a jazz
Speaker 1: club in Dallas called Sambuca, but it was very small,
Speaker 1: and then there was a chain, Yeah.
Speaker 2: It was a chain.
Speaker 1: But then there was a caravan in Dreams in Fort Worth,
Speaker 1: which is like the club that was the one that
Speaker 1: was the only real place that people came of.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so you're trying to tell me the place where
Speaker 6: it was invented. It's almost like, well in New York
Speaker 6: and did the same thing.
Speaker 15: Yeah, I mean New Orleans was so insular. They're like,
Speaker 15: we don't need no northerns come down here.
Speaker 1: We got to go oh yeah, there's not a lot
Speaker 1: of out of town r Gota. Yeah, and then then
Speaker 1: you got the festivals in Europe?
Speaker 5: Yes, are you tired of all? Right?
Speaker 6: So for me, like okay, for you is most of
Speaker 6: your summers and for both of you when you're touring,
Speaker 6: are most of your sum outside of the United States?
Speaker 6: Like have you been in the United States for a
Speaker 6: good two months stretch without.
Speaker 1: Going to Europe?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean I don't tour as much as I used to,
Speaker 1: but I did last summer just States, and this summer
Speaker 1: I'm just doing a month in Europe. And I was
Speaker 1: excited to do some of the same places I've done
Speaker 1: a lot, and then I realized, oh, this is just
Speaker 1: what there is for me. It's like all the same festivals,
Speaker 1: a lot of the same places, which I do love, sure,
Speaker 1: but it's like, yeah, it gets a little like, wait,
Speaker 1: did I just go back in time?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 15: Yeah, I mean the summer o itinerary tends to look
Speaker 15: the same. Yeah, I mean, I don't think I've seen
Speaker 15: the July seventeenth in the United States since we graduated.
Speaker 15: Well I didn't see it then, so yeah, probably nineteen
Speaker 15: eighty eight.
Speaker 1: So you're always in Europe every summer pretty much, Well,
Speaker 1: maybe I'll see you this summer. Are you going to
Speaker 1: be there this summer?
Speaker 5: Not for long?
Speaker 15: I'm actually this is I'm only doing two gigs in
Speaker 15: Europe in July. I actually get to stay.
Speaker 1: Home, stay home and work or stay home and hay.
Speaker 15: Oh I'm going to stay home and hay yeah, I'm
Speaker 15: going to watch Law and Order. My asshole. It would
Speaker 15: be marathon and like crazy.
Speaker 6: Oh man, Wow, this is this year mark the first
Speaker 6: year that we're finally doing our first round of arena
Speaker 6: tours really, because the thing is is that, you know,
Speaker 6: we've played big numbers in New York City. Yeah, and
Speaker 6: MSG really isn't that big.
Speaker 1: No, isn't it like nine or ten thousand.
Speaker 5: It's like maybe twelve thirteen, but you think of it
Speaker 5: as like thirty and yeah, you would think like forty
Speaker 5: some whatever.
Speaker 6: And we just never, you know, it's always like, okay,
Speaker 6: when do we when do we play our cards to
Speaker 6: see if we can actually do arenas or not? So wow,
Speaker 6: But after the the thing that we did at the
Speaker 6: Grammys this year where we gathered everyone in in the
Speaker 6: history of hip hop to do like this mega twelve minute,
Speaker 6: it was great.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was fun to watch you look dude eight,
Speaker 5: I should have a separate podcast on MD gigs. What
Speaker 5: do you talk about it.
Speaker 14: I've come close to suicide in.
Speaker 1: Time musical director gigs. Oh yeah, where you're running the
Speaker 1: show and trying to organize it all.
Speaker 6: I'll guarantee you know this story and basically say that
Speaker 6: when I landed in New York, my tooth fell out.
Speaker 6: So there's there's this there's this rock and roll dentist
Speaker 6: that Lenny Kravitz put the whole community onto in which
Speaker 6: this guy does twenty four hour work.
Speaker 5: Like he even comes to your house. That's a little weird.
Speaker 6: You can, yeah, like you leave them keys whatever, you
Speaker 6: take these pills, you're asleep, you wake up in the morning.
Speaker 5: He already operated.
Speaker 1: Wait wait, back up, back up.
Speaker 5: Yeah, are you kidding me. I don't do that. I'm
Speaker 5: not I'm not that rich. But yes, you can. Actually
Speaker 5: this guy, he's the rock and roll dennist. He goes
Speaker 5: on tour. He could if you have a football, you know,
Speaker 5: I've got time.
Speaker 2: We got to be home.
Speaker 5: He'll come to the crib and.
Speaker 14: He's in New York.
Speaker 5: So he's on a twenty four hour call.
Speaker 6: And when I landed, the amount of stress that seven
Speaker 6: weeks was because it's somewhere in between, like one standby, there.
Speaker 5: Was a life coach, because you a life coach.
Speaker 6: So we also experienced this and then the rock and
Speaker 6: roll So in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,
Speaker 6: it's sort of the same thing where you have to
Speaker 6: reunite people that haven't played with each other.
Speaker 5: For a long time.
Speaker 1: Oh and there's a lot of history there. Yeah, a
Speaker 1: lot of bad history, a lot of was there a therapist, Yeah.
Speaker 6: That's why I had to have this person there, like
Speaker 6: literally there to talk. So there was there's two situations
Speaker 6: where you know, you go back in two thousand and seven,
Speaker 6: you took three thousand dollars out of my bag and
Speaker 6: did it whatever like that.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 6: So there was that, but then there was mostly like, well,
Speaker 6: how many bars is da da da getting? And you know,
Speaker 6: how much explosions is data DA getting?
Speaker 14: I used to think that wasn't real, dude.
Speaker 6: It was like if you ever seen I don't know
Speaker 6: if you watch thirty Rock, but if you ever watch
Speaker 6: the Source Awards episode of thirty Rock, which alone is
Speaker 6: a setup and a joke and a fund's line at
Speaker 6: the same time, it literally it was it almost went
Speaker 6: Murphy's Law. And then at the last minute, it was
Speaker 6: the it was the biggest hail. Mary with seconds on
Speaker 6: the clock left, tossed the ball up and just praise.
Speaker 6: Someone on the other end catches it, and they caught it.
Speaker 5: I'll put it this way. The last act, little Uzi Bert,
Speaker 5: I didn't even know he was on stage.
Speaker 6: And that's only because the way that the show was built.
Speaker 6: I couldn't see what was happening around the corner. But
Speaker 6: do you remember how like after Prince did Purple Rain
Speaker 6: and he stormed off stage, I've ruined everything.
Speaker 5: I fucked up. That's what I did. Like I was
Speaker 5: having a panic attack.
Speaker 6: I was about to cry wow, and I stormed off
Speaker 6: stage and I was like, oh man, I've ruined it.
Speaker 5: I ruined it.
Speaker 6: And then my band's like congratulating each other. I'm like,
Speaker 6: what are y'all doing? She's like see what I said? Wait,
Speaker 6: he was there, so yeah, he came up last minute
Speaker 6: and literally they had to show me on Twitter what
Speaker 6: had happened.
Speaker 5: You didn't even know and they were like, how did
Speaker 5: you not know? And you literally on stage?
Speaker 6: But I swear to God, like after after a point,
Speaker 6: I just blanked out because I started going to my head,
Speaker 6: like I fucked this up. Everyone's going to cancel me.
Speaker 6: I'm be trending on Twitter. He messed up the Hip
Speaker 6: Hop thirty thing and literally my last because there was
Speaker 6: even acts that dropped out ten minutes before because they
Speaker 6: lost one our headliner. I thought he might win a
Speaker 6: particular award, and you know when it went to someone else, Man,
Speaker 6: fuck the Grammy.
Speaker 5: I'm like, yo, you cat.
Speaker 6: And it was every type of stress and that's how
Speaker 6: my tooth fell out. So just in terms of like
Speaker 6: m DM man, it's hard. You can't be no one's friend.
Speaker 6: Sam Moore got got mad at me one time. Sam Moore, Yeah, Sam?
Speaker 6: And Dave yeah, oh he's more famous for that. He's waving.
Speaker 15: So we're at the White House and it was the
Speaker 15: big Ray Charles tribute and I'm kind of wearing.
Speaker 14: What I have on exactly right now, a T shirt.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 15: I had a black T shirt on and a black
Speaker 15: sport jacket. So I got the big band and uh,
Speaker 15: you know a lot of you know, Demi Levado was there, Usher,
Speaker 15: Jolanta Adams, all these people, so I wasn't paying attention.
Speaker 15: I had a James Brown T shirt on oh no,
Speaker 15: oh no, but my jacket was, you know, kind of
Speaker 15: clothes like this. And so Sam Moore comes in and, uh,
Speaker 15: you know, mister Moore, you know, good morning. It's great
Speaker 15: to see you. I'm so honored to work with you.
Speaker 15: He's like, who is that? He looks at my shirt
Speaker 15: as soon as he saw, oh, it was too late
Speaker 15: to change my clothes. He's like, James Brown, what's their history?
Speaker 15: Why y'all look at James Brown. I was like, well,
Speaker 15: listen more, I can, I can, I can go change
Speaker 15: my shirt?
Speaker 14: No, no, no, it's too late.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 15: Why you got a James Brown shirt on? It's like
Speaker 15: it's the only clean one I have. Yeah, I've been
Speaker 15: on the road for the last fight. I didn't get
Speaker 15: to do laundry.
Speaker 11: You know.
Speaker 15: He's like, and for the next fifteen minutes, he wouldn't
Speaker 15: he wouldn't sing the song. He was just I can't
Speaker 15: believe you wearing a chance Brown. It could not think
Speaker 15: one of them card games. So later on I texted
Speaker 15: Alan what's the deal?
Speaker 5: And so allan le friend Alan Le.
Speaker 15: And so he's like there was there was no direct
Speaker 15: story that he knew of. It was just sort of
Speaker 15: like an overall He's like, man, no, none of James
Speaker 15: Brown Piers from the sixties liked them.
Speaker 5: There's either a woman car game right right right, the
Speaker 5: answery I got to cut you.
Speaker 15: I felt so bad. I was like, man, I should
Speaker 15: run my room real quick, seriously. I was like, let's
Speaker 15: take a forty five minute break. I'm gonna go back
Speaker 15: to the hotel and change my shirt.
Speaker 1: I did not, but the damage was done.
Speaker 14: Oh my. He finally got over it the day of
Speaker 14: the gig.
Speaker 5: I remember once we did you ever play River Deep
Speaker 5: Mountain High?
Speaker 14: Sure?
Speaker 5: And that turnaround is one of the hardest things.
Speaker 14: Yeah, right.
Speaker 5: Right, So that turnaround as hard as he yes, it is.
Speaker 14: Yeah.
Speaker 6: And we used to do this annual gig out in
Speaker 6: the Hampton's where the former owner of the Apollo Theater
Speaker 6: does one of those fancy spancy like ten twenty thousand
Speaker 6: plate thing and you know, like an occasional pal McCartney
Speaker 6: shows up or whatever. You know, it's like a fun
Speaker 6: time and like the Roots have been in the house
Speaker 6: band for this thing for like like maybe the last
Speaker 6: ten years. And but the thing is it is also
Speaker 6: I think one of the downfalls of being on The
Speaker 6: Tonight Show is a lot of people just believe in
Speaker 6: the smoke and mirrors of it all of like, oh.
Speaker 14: The roots could do anything. No, no, they could do it.
Speaker 6: And so you know they'll come in the door, they'll
Speaker 6: come in the gate, like, Okay, you're gonna play these
Speaker 6: three songs with McCartney and three songs with Sting and
Speaker 6: these three songs. So you know, we already got like
Speaker 6: eighteen songs. But then always the last minutes, like Banjovi
Speaker 6: wants to do that, do you know what? Meanwhile you're
Speaker 6: playing the song and I got to put on my
Speaker 6: computer and learn living on a prayer that way. And
Speaker 6: so Darlene Love wanted to do River Deep, Mountain High,
Speaker 6: and this is all I know.
Speaker 5: I messed up.
Speaker 6: Okay, so I messed up that turnaround, right, But at
Speaker 6: least I was smart enough to just sixteen.
Speaker 5: I didn't know the count, so I just.
Speaker 1: Right right.
Speaker 6: I cheated it that way. Yeah, man, when I tell you,
Speaker 6: oh boy, like we didn't even meet yet. But because
Speaker 6: she wasn't accustomed to doing it like the way she
Speaker 6: normally does it, all I remember was.
Speaker 5: I took responsibility. I was like, my bad. Whatever. She
Speaker 5: turned around and said, I'm gonna fucking kill you. Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I will say that dealing with your heroes or
Speaker 6: your peers in the MD position is the fastest way.
Speaker 5: You just gotta you just got bull's eye on your chesties.
Speaker 6: They gonna get you now, somebody's gonna get you, Okay
Speaker 6: without naming your name? Has an idol ever?
Speaker 5: Wait? Do you know?
Speaker 15: Way?
Speaker 1: No? No, no, no, has an idol ever? Been mean?
Speaker 5: Disappointed you? No? Wow? Don't you looked at charm Life.
Speaker 1: I'm serious. One time they kind of annoyed me. But
Speaker 1: I'm not going to name a name. Yeah yeah, like
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, they're kind of annoying, but like,
Speaker 1: I still love them. I'm not even gonna say if
Speaker 1: it's a man or woman.
Speaker 14: Well, you already know my answer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you've had some disappointments, I strangely haven't. I actually
Speaker 1: am surprised. I've never had a disappointment.
Speaker 5: But wait, was that instance your last interaction with that person?
Speaker 1: No, it wasn't. It was just like, okay, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to get too close there.
Speaker 14: Maybe, but yeah, I feel bad. Well James Brown, No,
Speaker 14: it was fine.
Speaker 1: You're naming name.
Speaker 14: It ended on a very high note, so it was good.
Speaker 1: We go back who were you? Just that was tricky
Speaker 1: and it ended.
Speaker 2: On a high note.
Speaker 14: Yeah, that was below tricky.
Speaker 6: I'm almost saying that Chris has undersold his love for
Speaker 6: James Brown.
Speaker 2: I think, I.
Speaker 6: No, but it's it's beyond you know, it's beyond me
Speaker 6: any anytime a person comes to me and like, hey,
Speaker 6: you know this is James Brown.
Speaker 5: Probably no, no, no, no, no, no no.
Speaker 6: It's almost like I got to ask my dad first.
Speaker 6: I'm like, did you ask Christian McBride first? Liked the
Speaker 6: DNA of James's you know, heavy, and Chris so well.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 15: So that's a perfect segue into how we met in
Speaker 15: high school because you know, we both grew up in Philly.
Speaker 15: We went to Creative and Performing Arts, which is the
Speaker 15: same high school where the late great. It still feels weird,
Speaker 15: seems you just said that the late Great Joe d Francesco,
Speaker 15: Rosewinkle Boys, the man Amel LaRue.
Speaker 1: I didn't know Kurt went there too.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Kerk was like.
Speaker 6: Like it was like a game and him and Joey
Speaker 6: were the crips and Kirk was the Bloods and I
Speaker 6: was on whatever side was winning at the time. Well,
Speaker 6: this is my first time that I've been in that
Speaker 6: situation where like I'm with peer's my age play and
Speaker 6: so they're like traditional jazz, So in order for me
Speaker 6: to get their respect, I better speak their language. But
Speaker 6: then he's like trying to unteach me everything they're teaching
Speaker 6: me by like this Captain b Park and.
Speaker 15: This is for example, and so. But but the thing
Speaker 15: where I felt really alone was I was also hardcoreing
Speaker 15: R and B and funk. So I mean, Joey could
Speaker 15: play it, but that he didn't know a lot of
Speaker 15: that exactly, you know, uh, and Kurt didn't, you know.
Speaker 15: So like I was by myself when it came to
Speaker 15: you know, Motown and Stacks and James Brown Earth went
Speaker 15: to fire all that.
Speaker 14: So when he comes to school and uh, I remember.
Speaker 5: He on Roseen Winkle's guitar.
Speaker 14: I thought you were playing this but not not this bass,
Speaker 14: but you were playing the bass. I was in the
Speaker 14: bass line. You was messing around.
Speaker 15: I came in, I came in the music room and
Speaker 15: there's this new this new dude in the music program
Speaker 15: and he's kind of like and I just kind of
Speaker 15: stood there like, oh, really, we got a James Brownhead
Speaker 15: in school now? And uh, I mean instant bond, instant bond.
Speaker 15: And my mother was so happy because she was like,
Speaker 15: thank God, you got somebody who can talk to Funk.
Speaker 15: You know, you got somebody you can hang with now
Speaker 15: talk about Funk instead of as old people.
Speaker 5: Exactly are you?
Speaker 1: Were you in a younger grade? Is that why you
Speaker 1: came along? Later? Transferred?
Speaker 6: Like for the first eight years of my life, I
Speaker 6: went to the private version of that school, performing art school,
Speaker 6: and then members a period where.
Speaker 5: I don't know if you know this, this educator named
Speaker 5: Marva Collins. Okay, I'll tell you what.
Speaker 6: When you listen to songs in the Key of Life
Speaker 6: by Stevie Wonder, when you listen to the last two
Speaker 6: minutes of black Man where the teacher who's like the
Speaker 6: little kids are yelling back at him, just listening to
Speaker 6: the last two minutes of black Man, that's more of
Speaker 6: a Collins school in Chicago. And she was a woman
Speaker 6: who Kribeini green projects the good time projects like these
Speaker 6: were like.
Speaker 5: You know, the worst kids were the worst GPA on earth.
Speaker 6: And she just decided one day, I'm gonna turn you
Speaker 6: all into mental level Ivy League students, and so one
Speaker 6: by one, everyone who's ever been in her class wound
Speaker 6: up going to doctors, nurses like that sort of thing.
Speaker 6: And so that's like every seventies parent was like. So
Speaker 6: I went to a lot of schools that were like
Speaker 6: private schools that were guarantee that your kid was going
Speaker 6: to be in Harvard or whatever like at the end
Speaker 6: of their school tenure.
Speaker 5: And then the last two years I happened to see.
Speaker 6: On Channel ten on on CBS, I saw this fourteen
Speaker 6: year old kid, right.
Speaker 15: Dreams Yo, don't even yo dah that don't take no,
Speaker 15: but it's on YouTube.
Speaker 5: I hate you right now, man. Yes, Dreams is sort.
Speaker 15: Of like it's a made for TV movie about our school.
Speaker 6: This is before I went there, But I saw Joey
Speaker 6: playing on like this this clip, and I was just
Speaker 6: mind blown that a thirteen fourteen year old could play
Speaker 6: like an adult because I only grew up. You know,
Speaker 6: my dad was an oldies duops singer, so I only
Speaker 6: hung with old musicians, which is why I played the
Speaker 6: way I played now, because literally it was like me
Speaker 6: at five and a bunch of thirty year olds and
Speaker 6: I never interacted with kids my own age whatever. So
Speaker 6: that's you know, I just told my mom, like I
Speaker 6: want to play with kids my own age. Like I
Speaker 6: grew up thinking like, oh damn, I'm the only kid
Speaker 6: that knows how to play like this, and I came
Speaker 6: in for the rudest awakening. That is interesting, dude, the
Speaker 6: first day of school, Miles Davis is at school, like
Speaker 6: giving him first two.
Speaker 14: Weeks of school. Yeah, something like.
Speaker 15: There used to be a morning talk show in Philly
Speaker 15: hosted by a guy named Bill Boggs. It's called time
Speaker 15: Out and they had right and they had Miles Davis
Speaker 15: as a guest.
Speaker 14: And so I found this out later that.
Speaker 15: Uh they felt that because I saw an interview with
Speaker 15: Bill bogs It was interesting. He said he remembers that
Speaker 15: episode well, because the producers didn't think Miles Davis's name
Speaker 15: was big enough to carry an hour of a of
Speaker 15: a of an interview. Can you imagine the absurdity of that.
Speaker 15: So it was remember Maurice Hines was also against that day.
Speaker 15: So that was the reason they said, well, you know,
Speaker 15: we need a s Miles can't do it by himself,
Speaker 15: you know. And also to to kind of make it cute, see,
Speaker 15: they decided they would get some kids to play for
Speaker 15: Miles and so and then Miles look at right now. Well,
Speaker 15: that's that's what everybody said, right and so, uh so
Speaker 15: they had me Joey Stacy Dozer playing drums. She she
Speaker 15: played drums in a high school band before a mayor
Speaker 15: got there. And they invited four uh young trumpet players
Speaker 15: from the Philly school system to play. And Miles, would
Speaker 15: you give them advice on live television? Foolish decision?
Speaker 1: Is this on YouTube?
Speaker 5: Yes? Yeah?
Speaker 15: And I can't watch it? Yeah, it's watching that sounds
Speaker 15: it was a really ridiculous idea. And you know, Miles,
Speaker 15: Miles apparently not. They first of all, they needed the
Speaker 15: second seven second delay because Miles dropped a few f
Speaker 15: bombs on.
Speaker 5: And this morning television Morning.
Speaker 15: Yeah, you know all the parents and you know that moms,
Speaker 15: you know, and uh, Bill Box asked Miles. He said, uh,
Speaker 15: you know, Miles, you know you you went into seclusion
Speaker 15: for a few years. You know, what was it that
Speaker 15: that gave you the to come back? Seriously, Miles, Miles,
Speaker 15: he waited for a second.
Speaker 5: He said. One day, Dizzy Glassy came over and he said, man,
Speaker 5: what the fuck are you doing?
Speaker 14: God bless Bill Box. He's just sitting there like m hm.
Speaker 1: Trying to just act like it's totally regular, get up
Speaker 1: off your ass.
Speaker 5: So like.
Speaker 14: And there was another time Miles was trying to remember
Speaker 14: somebody's name is yeah it.
Speaker 5: Was me and oh ship, I forgot.
Speaker 14: Damn Miles, this is this is my TV dude.
Speaker 6: This is my second week of school in a in
Speaker 6: a public school, discovering that people born the same year
Speaker 6: as me can play like me and better than me.
Speaker 6: So the bubble I was in was instantly like Bursted
Speaker 6: and I had so much catching up to do.
Speaker 5: Man, just.
Speaker 15: I kept begging him to join the All City Jazz Man.
Speaker 15: I got him to come with me a couple of times.
Speaker 15: I was like, dude, come on.
Speaker 14: He's like no, no, no, no, no, sit down. Play
Speaker 14: so you playing, like, come on, bro, you got this brose.
Speaker 15: And then uh, little John Roberts was up there too,
Speaker 15: and he was literally a little John Roberts like.
Speaker 5: I looked at him like a little running because because
Speaker 5: he was younger than us, he's like in eighth grade, right,
Speaker 5: eighth or ninth. Oh he looked like he was in
Speaker 5: seventh grade.
Speaker 15: Yeah, yeah, he was two years behind us, I think, yeah,
Speaker 15: but uh yeah, we we did have some good drummers.
Speaker 5: I mean you know who's got more pocket than him.
Speaker 1: I know, but you guys played together in and on
Speaker 1: some school. Yeah, in school, but you were more in
Speaker 1: the jazz zone and you didn't go deep into the
Speaker 1: jazz zone.
Speaker 5: Se the thing I tried to tried to get him.
Speaker 5: So my story is really it was like, come on.
Speaker 5: But the thing is is that I I the the
Speaker 5: part I always leave out. The story was like my
Speaker 5: dad was like a Joe Jackson backstage mom Oh the worst,
Speaker 5: so he wanted me.
Speaker 6: My dad was like dog, He was like, you got
Speaker 6: two options, three options, Curtis Juilliard or a job.
Speaker 5: Curtis Juilliard or job.
Speaker 6: And I to this day people don't believe me when
Speaker 6: I tell them my dad didn't find out about the
Speaker 6: Roots until our second album because.
Speaker 1: He was too much pressure.
Speaker 6: The amount of sneaking I had to do, Yeah, she knew,
Speaker 6: but the amount of sneaking I had to do was
Speaker 6: like I can't let these guys know I listened to
Speaker 6: hip hop that way and can't let Kurt Rosenwinkle know that. Yes,
Speaker 6: you're trying to undo. Because the thing was is Kirk
Speaker 6: was like, jazz needs to go forward. And the first
Speaker 6: time that Kirk even planned the seed to me that
Speaker 6: this particular god figure in jazz might be a step
Speaker 6: backwards and not forward.
Speaker 5: Was he planned that seed to me?
Speaker 6: So he's like, yo, man, all the beatbop stuff from
Speaker 6: before you that's dead, man, that's dead.
Speaker 5: We got to move.
Speaker 6: And he's trying to like tell me about like you know,
Speaker 6: Embase and you know, like all these like crazy jazz
Speaker 6: ensembles and everything that I'm like a lot of am
Speaker 6: on guard whatever. So I'm doing my avant guard stuff
Speaker 6: with Rosawinkle, but when these guys are around, I'm like, okay,
Speaker 6: all right, so good Larry Jung's Unity record study that
Speaker 6: up and down and da.
Speaker 3: Da da da da.
Speaker 1: That sounds like a lot of conflict.
Speaker 8: It was.
Speaker 5: I was on whatever side was winning.
Speaker 6: But then but then because of public Enemy finally making
Speaker 6: sense of my dad's boring record collection, you know, I
Speaker 6: have someone upstairs that I'm like trying to build a
Speaker 6: few with. And you know it's also in the name
Speaker 6: of impressing a girl. Always that was a fel but
Speaker 6: I got the career, hey man, So yeah, pretty much,
Speaker 6: I decided. So you went to Juilliard, yes, And I
Speaker 6: was like, all right, well, Chris right, you did the same.
Speaker 6: You did the Miles thing right, Studying sounds like I'm
Speaker 6: gonna do the same. So I did my I did
Speaker 6: my New School audition, my Curtis audition, and my Juilliard audition.
Speaker 6: One particular uh uh weekend Tarik went with me and
Speaker 6: coming back on the train, this is like, this is
Speaker 6: like either somewhere between a Great Poop.
Speaker 5: Plane commercial or the last scene and Dumber and Dumber.
Speaker 6: The world's most beautiful girl walks up in slow motion
Speaker 6: and says, aren't you now side note? Yes, I was
Speaker 6: the drummer. Boys and Men had let me drum in
Speaker 6: their motown filling video. So she got it mixed. She says,
Speaker 6: aren't you the drummer in the Spike Lee Levi's commercial.
Speaker 6: So like busking just started to become a thing in
Speaker 6: America where you know, there was a kid that was
Speaker 6: playing bucket drums and Spike Leader put him in a
Speaker 6: commercial whatever. He had similar hair to mine, he had
Speaker 6: like twisting braids, and so she came out. It was
Speaker 6: like great poupone. He's like, aren't you that drummer in
Speaker 6: the Spike Lee Levi's commercial? And my dumb ass was like, no,
Speaker 6: that's not me. And she was like, oh, oh okay,
Speaker 6: and then she walks away and teks like you. I
Speaker 6: was like, because it wasn't me, Jode, you knew she
Speaker 6: was talking about. You knew she was talking about Motel Philly,
Speaker 6: Like Tarik would use me as his magnet, like wear
Speaker 6: the shirt. You got the shirt on, now go back
Speaker 6: and put your outfit on, like I don't have to
Speaker 6: wear that outfit every weekend. And right, So he spends
Speaker 6: the night at the crib and we're watching Soul Train
Speaker 6: and commercial comes on and it's the Spike Lee Levi's commercial,
Speaker 6: and it was the it was our eureka moment. We
Speaker 6: looked at the commercial. We thought about that girl that
Speaker 6: I could have got a number but didn't, and we
Speaker 6: looked at each other like.
Speaker 5: Yo, why don't we do that? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, And
Speaker 5: cut to running in the kitchen sneaking the you know,
Speaker 5: the chilling bucket out or whatever you know, you mean
Speaker 5: that red budget the red chitling bucket. Every household has one.
Speaker 15: I remember, never forget the first time I smelled chiplins.
Speaker 15: My grandmother was cooking chitlins.
Speaker 14: I was coming.
Speaker 15: I smelled them two blocks away. I was coming down
Speaker 15: Urban Street and I was like, I really pray to God,
Speaker 15: that's not coming from our house. There's a line of
Speaker 15: people the front. I'm like, oh, no, there's no black household.
Speaker 5: Yeah, doesn't.
Speaker 6: Even if you don't eat shitlands, you still have that
Speaker 6: red bucket that used for other.
Speaker 14: Stuff along with the government corn flakes and the cheese
Speaker 14: and the milk.
Speaker 6: Son all that all right, the government milk, Yes, I
Speaker 6: still stand to it this day. And the corn flakes
Speaker 6: were killing Yes, yes, I can't believe we're talking about.
Speaker 15: This and that.
Speaker 5: Oh come on, man, dude.
Speaker 6: I would have to wake up when my parents weren't
Speaker 6: tour Yeah, I would have to wake up, Uh, staying
Speaker 6: at my grandmom's house.
Speaker 1: What your mom toured to?
Speaker 6: Yeah, both my mom and dad were. My father was
Speaker 6: famous in the fifties. He had a group called Nges
Speaker 6: in the Hearts. They were on like Chess records, and
Speaker 6: then by the time I was born, there was a
Speaker 6: nostalgia wave where they would do these oldies shows that
Speaker 6: you know, Masson Square Guard and you know Bowser from
Speaker 6: Shanta Presents, you know Harvey and the moon Cloths and
Speaker 6: all that stuff. So anyway, they got off that circuit
Speaker 6: and then just had a club act. And so when
Speaker 6: I couldn't tour with him, I had to stay at
Speaker 6: my grandmom's house. Now, in order for me to watch
Speaker 6: Soul trade at twelve, I would have to do whatever
Speaker 6: chores were necessary. And on the first of the month,
Speaker 6: that's when the new cheese supply comes. And since I'm
Speaker 6: Filma's grandson, you know, it's like it takes a village
Speaker 6: period where now not only do I have to get
Speaker 6: cheese and stuff for my grandmom, but I got to
Speaker 6: do too for miss Gussie, Missus Evans, Missus Fields.
Speaker 5: Across the street.
Speaker 14: Got to get the whole neighborhood right.
Speaker 6: So I got to get up at seven in the
Speaker 6: morning and stand in the cheese line.
Speaker 14: Where did your grandmother live?
Speaker 6: She was in southwest Philly, like a forty ninth and
Speaker 6: King se oh. Yeah, So I would have to stand
Speaker 6: in that line and do about four trips. Not to
Speaker 6: mention the ridicule the neighborhood kids like.
Speaker 2: You in the cheese line.
Speaker 14: Yeah, Later that day I told that.
Speaker 5: I'm like me, this Jesus is going to your grandma's house.
Speaker 14: Motherfucker, Like yeah, hey, you know, they's how they do.
Speaker 5: It, so I couldn't. Yeah, I couldn't.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 6: I couldn't even watch Soul Train until all that was done.
Speaker 6: So every first of the month I hated it. But yes,
Speaker 6: we took that chip lim bucket on South Street. And
Speaker 6: the thing is is that if we if we don't
Speaker 6: make one hundred and twenty dollars in four hours, we're
Speaker 6: not doing it again.
Speaker 5: It would just be like, hey, you man, that time
Speaker 5: we went on South Street and play for money or whatever.
Speaker 6: But we made like one hundred bucks in the first
Speaker 6: like hour, and we looked like, yo, we're rich because
Speaker 6: we was thinking, like, yo, we get Trizzy a trans
Speaker 6: pass is you know, like a monthly ticket that yeah,
Speaker 6: New York has that here, right, Like yeah, a train
Speaker 6: ticket for a month.
Speaker 5: It's like, yo, you can get it Trizzy.
Speaker 6: And then uh, date night, see the movie before five pm,
Speaker 6: movies on three bucks, go to wah wah, get a
Speaker 6: quarter pound of turkey cheeze.
Speaker 5: Like we were like rich, Like yeah, we gotta do
Speaker 5: it again. But the next week we did it.
Speaker 6: I still was in Settlement music School and the bass
Speaker 6: player there, Josh Aprams, was like, yo, y'all.
Speaker 5: Going to do it again? I said, yeah, he's like, well,
Speaker 5: can I join? Yeah? Sure, cool. So he picks me
Speaker 5: up in the station.
Speaker 6: Wagon and he has his upright in the back and
Speaker 6: I'm bringing the bucket and he's like, wait, we got
Speaker 6: the station wagon.
Speaker 5: I was like, huh, get the drums. He's like, get
Speaker 5: the drums. I was like, oh man, my dad, man.
Speaker 5: He's so it was the most covert operation where like
Speaker 5: you had to sneak them out.
Speaker 6: And this is why like when people ask like why
Speaker 6: don't want to play on a regular drum set, Like literally,
Speaker 6: I was like, look, we're just gonna get the kick.
Speaker 5: Drum, steal drum and one ride right, sneak it out.
Speaker 6: And literally I'm you know, he's listening to sports talk upstairs,
Speaker 6: and you know, anytime the water runs, like we're running
Speaker 6: outside whatever park down the plot and that entire summer
Speaker 6: of ninety two, like I snuck and we got our
Speaker 6: independent record out and a year later when we finally
Speaker 6: signed to Geffen, Uh, I was going to break the
Speaker 6: news to him, but already he put a Philadelphia Inquirer,
Speaker 6: which is like our New York Times.
Speaker 5: We were on the cover. He's like, what's this. I
Speaker 5: was like, oh, yeah, yeah, you know, I mean too,
Speaker 5: we got a project.
Speaker 2: So you know.
Speaker 3: So well.
Speaker 15: I remember like when we were still at Kappa, uh
Speaker 15: Tyreek came downstairs. He was he was an art major, right,
Speaker 15: so I didn't even know he had any sort of
Speaker 15: you know that he could. He could freestyle like that.
Speaker 15: He's like, yo, play.
Speaker 14: Uh the Bone.
Speaker 6: Right would call the rap reference like, oh, play the
Speaker 6: Gidea by three times due, and then I've had to
Speaker 6: trans play to him play James Brown steone to the boat.
Speaker 6: So I was the middleman between all the hip hoppers
Speaker 6: right and him. But knowing that allowed me to sit
Speaker 6: with the cool kids in the lunch.
Speaker 1: I feel like that says a lot about your personality
Speaker 1: and your strengths, just this whole like dynamic of you
Speaker 1: bridging all these different things.
Speaker 14: Yeah, I mean he he plays well in the playground.
Speaker 5: With everybody, you do.
Speaker 10: You know?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I played just to get bye, thank you.
Speaker 1: But it's no longer stressful, is it?
Speaker 5: Is it stressful?
Speaker 14: Probably?
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, I guess being the MD for
Speaker 1: everything is always stressful.
Speaker 6: It's you know, for me, I'm I'm learning now, uh okay,
Speaker 6: this this is not even, this is not even. I
Speaker 6: just gotta come out and say it and not try
Speaker 6: to diminish the humble, braggingness of it all. But occasionally
Speaker 6: I might call a famous former world leader and ask
Speaker 6: for advice on how to be diplomatic and talk to people,
Speaker 6: because that's one that's one thing I'm I'm I was
Speaker 6: a relation leader, But clearly I'll be stuck in that
Speaker 6: place if I don't get over the fact that I
Speaker 6: have to, Like, you can't.
Speaker 5: Be everyone's friend.
Speaker 1: You have to get over it and.
Speaker 6: Manage people's expectations and yeah, yeah, and that that comes
Speaker 6: with being a band leader.
Speaker 1: I wonder which world leader you're talking about.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 1: You guys want to play tune and then we'll.
Speaker 2: Can we do this?
Speaker 1: Chris Christopherson time, so I can see it's kind of weird.
Speaker 1: I was just with him a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 1: and I was just revisiting this album that I love
Speaker 1: called Borderlord, and I just feel like, with your groove
Speaker 1: on it, it would be pretty awesome.
Speaker 5: Follow you might.
Speaker 14: Giving me my note again. Take its.
Speaker 1: Hmmm, wait, I'm in the wrong key. Sorry.
Speaker 10: Darkness had us covered when we spread from Mansota in
Speaker 10: morning rain black, his eyes was feeding and the street
Speaker 10: was slack and shiny as a snake. Each of us
Speaker 10: was a hurrying to the half forgotten echo, hanging Lola
Speaker 10: in the brain, time in time and thinking of the
Speaker 10: time we never had the time loosing it, rising cots,
Speaker 10: living her and loving heart. They evy yesterday behind turning
Speaker 10: every bridging costs is.
Speaker 18: Putting down before your off, burning.
Speaker 2: Back the devil just in.
Speaker 11: Time, breaking many times before day, by taking any commoy
Speaker 11: you can't find, putting.
Speaker 8: Like you're learning, tagging off.
Speaker 2: Tail. It's all.
Speaker 4: Understanding.
Speaker 8: When you're getting for the board load, you bound cross.
Speaker 3: Good lucking women and time you stop.
Speaker 10: Waiting there catch you when you fall, getting back enough,
Speaker 10: let him keep you back enough you'll just prefun kilp
Speaker 10: back a gift, blow home, looking many ties before they brand,
Speaker 10: taking many come who you can find.
Speaker 1: Running like you, I'll tag no ck.
Speaker 2: It easy, well, it's a b.
Speaker 10: Understand when you can for the boat load of bound
Speaker 10: across lash.
Speaker 3: King at it time for in bunjie.
Speaker 8: Tagging covered, okay, are fine?
Speaker 2: They like you lady out of time. I'll tag you.
Speaker 4: Till it's over. Understanding. When you're heading for the boat load,
Speaker 4: you're bound across.
Speaker 5: The m HM.
Speaker 2: Hmm, thank you.
Speaker 14: That is Norman Letter production, right exactly.
Speaker 1: That was fun.
Speaker 14: I feel like roberta flat Ron Carter and uh Ray Lucas.
Speaker 1: Thanks for doing that.
Speaker 11: I love that.
Speaker 5: That was cool.
Speaker 1: We're not done yet. We still got two more songs.
Speaker 1: Oh that was great. Thanks. I love that song because
Speaker 1: his words are just always so good. And then I
Speaker 1: like how it kind of changes keys. What key is
Speaker 1: this in in the end?
Speaker 14: Down d? Yeah, that's the James Brown keys. Did you
Speaker 14: know that?
Speaker 15: Oh?
Speaker 2: No, I didn't.
Speaker 14: Everything's indeed just about I didn't know.
Speaker 1: It makes sense, but right, right? Do you guys have
Speaker 1: any any good stories about each other from high school
Speaker 1: that are worth telling?
Speaker 15: My favorite one is uh so, I'm going to reveal
Speaker 15: it now. You already know because I told you in
Speaker 15: the text. So we used to produce this big show
Speaker 15: every year called it called Sentimental Journey, and it was
Speaker 15: like the whole school, you know, like the dancers, the singers,
Speaker 15: the actors, We all get together and put together this
Speaker 15: big Broadway type show. And we were, of course the
Speaker 15: house band, and uh I mean what a house band?
Speaker 5: Me?
Speaker 15: You, Kurt and Joey and a couple of horror players
Speaker 15: and uh so, we had this big overture and at
Speaker 15: the end of the overture we had to play New York,
Speaker 15: New York, and so we had to play a real
Speaker 15: corny so we had to like that. So yeah, right exactly.
Speaker 15: So we get to the to the concert, me and
Speaker 15: him conspiring, We're like, you know, it's.
Speaker 12: In D.
Speaker 6: Now, Chris, you've set up that anytime we've got sent
Speaker 6: to the principal's office, when any when anything ever was like,
Speaker 6: at least in D for a good eight to sixteen bars.
Speaker 6: They could be girse waining. It could be whatever, we
Speaker 6: will find a way to code talk to each other.
Speaker 6: That's right in a way, and eventually he caught on
Speaker 6: to any reference.
Speaker 14: It could be like.
Speaker 6: And then you know, and then already you know, the
Speaker 6: kids are all like, you know, starting to dance and
Speaker 6: all that stuff and get out of here.
Speaker 5: So it was it was our last chance to go rogue.
Speaker 5: And it was like, were you with us.
Speaker 15: When we went to see the fill off your orchestra
Speaker 15: rehearse because they would have those open rehearsals, and so
Speaker 15: they were playing the Ride of Spring. Yes there's one
Speaker 15: you know, so there's one part in that piece with
Speaker 15: the Timpany plays boom bee boom bean boom beem boo
Speaker 15: just for those two bars. Remember Stacey knows you did.
Speaker 14: Boom boom boom. She comes go oh.
Speaker 5: In the middle of the Academy of Music.
Speaker 14: So we we get no place.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we we get there that night and we we
Speaker 6: had a look like, hey, we're seniors, yes, and there's
Speaker 6: only three weeks of school left.
Speaker 14: What are you gonna do to us?
Speaker 6: And what's he going to send us to the principal's
Speaker 6: office here in front of our parents at the show?
Speaker 5: Go go to the build up for New York, New York.
Speaker 5: So we went, and the rehearsal was right right, So
Speaker 5: that's rehearsal.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 15: We get to the concert and so so me and
Speaker 15: him we come. He said, hey, man, you know we
Speaker 15: should do that, and so then we pulled Joey and
Speaker 15: Kurt In on it too. So uh so here's how
Speaker 15: the concert went, you know, all the parents to what
Speaker 15: God spread and the.
Speaker 5: God Yo. Then Curtis going.
Speaker 14: It was only for thirty Joey's playing the organ patch
Speaker 14: on his keyboard. He screamed.
Speaker 5: The look or misterizers.
Speaker 14: He was so angry, really, he was as red as
Speaker 14: that exit he could.
Speaker 1: He should have been proud at your music.
Speaker 5: Proud now everyone's proud of us.
Speaker 15: He's glad we did it now, right, So I have
Speaker 15: I found So I had this on VHS for for
Speaker 15: like the last thirty five years or whatever it is.
Speaker 14: My dad shot it right, Yes he did, Yes, he did.
Speaker 2: God.
Speaker 15: So I finally got it digitized, so sooner or later?
Speaker 15: Oh god, yeah, I was about to say, there there
Speaker 15: is there, there is a member. I went rogue on
Speaker 15: y'all when I did my James Brown routine because I
Speaker 15: was always suposed to sing two songs.
Speaker 14: We we always going road.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we had we added some sort of ad live
Speaker 5: and you said the diva was She was.
Speaker 14: Like, what is he doing?
Speaker 5: Get him off the state? No, no, no, the audience
Speaker 5: is screaming exactly.
Speaker 6: He came out and fulled James Brown regalia, the wig
Speaker 6: and the whole nine.
Speaker 15: Yes, that's what I could. I can still, that's what
Speaker 15: I could get up from a split. I can still
Speaker 15: do a split.
Speaker 1: I want to see that.
Speaker 14: Yeah, I'm sure you do see that.
Speaker 5: That's our version of Carlo Carlo. You know I still
Speaker 5: had that m P three.
Speaker 3: I can't believe you.
Speaker 5: Know, yo, the amount of people, so we were on tour.
Speaker 6: This is like, this is really when like pre social media,
Speaker 6: when like AOL chat was you know, welcome you got.
Speaker 6: You know, is there any more satisfying feeling than when
Speaker 6: you plugged your hotel telephone man inside.
Speaker 14: The mode and.
Speaker 5: It goes through. Welcome you got was a great feeling
Speaker 5: that was like different.
Speaker 15: Remember when they had for a short period you could
Speaker 15: download a celebrity to say that for you.
Speaker 5: Yes, I had David Leman, you used to I am
Speaker 5: me on right right.
Speaker 6: We were all pals and you sent me one of
Speaker 6: my first MB three's.
Speaker 5: I had of Carlos. I did, yes, and.
Speaker 1: You were you surprised?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I played everyone like you know what she sent me.
Speaker 5: You know, it's weird.
Speaker 6: That's such a weird time period because now there's at
Speaker 6: least five other singers that did.
Speaker 5: Their version of going against type.
Speaker 6: Mariah is another person where she made the best album
Speaker 6: of her career, but just as a joke because she
Speaker 6: was like upse with America's obsession with Whole and Courtney Love. Okay,
Speaker 6: so during lunch breaks or dinner breaks, she would just
Speaker 6: tell her band, like, you know, just play some like.
Speaker 5: Ragged you know, grun song, whatever 'sus.
Speaker 6: But I was listening to it and I'm like, like,
Speaker 6: I don't want to insult her, but I'm like not
Speaker 6: for nothing, but you know this is your best record?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 1: Wait? Is this something that's out?
Speaker 6: So she wants she's figuring out what to do with it.
Speaker 6: She did this like right when she was doing the
Speaker 6: Butterfly record. Now, if you look throughout history, a lot
Speaker 6: of the great musical decisions in music were always afterthoughts
Speaker 6: and never planned out. Like the Isisley Brothers tells the
Speaker 6: story of that they had ten minutes left in the
Speaker 6: session and they were like, let's do that church song
Speaker 6: real quick, and it would shout, you know, Tequila to
Speaker 6: three minutes to do. Like literally, there's a history of
Speaker 6: like just last minute songs. So she she made like
Speaker 6: fifteen songs of just like you.
Speaker 5: Know, I Hate My Life and Da Da dad yea
Speaker 5: and all this.
Speaker 6: But it's like it's the I still maintain it's Mariah
Speaker 6: Carey's best moment singing ever because she's not being Mariah
Speaker 6: carry She's being free in herself.
Speaker 1: And so there's a freedom in doing something that's not
Speaker 1: your thing.
Speaker 5: We just think it's so how many other just like,
Speaker 5: let's fuck around and you got that.
Speaker 1: I do a lot of bands that aren't under my name,
Speaker 1: but that one's the furthest from my thing, probably ell Mass.
Speaker 5: So the world's never just you've never released Carlo for
Speaker 5: the world.
Speaker 1: Oh no, it's been released. We released it.
Speaker 5: Did you clean it up?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 1: We released it. We released it then what yeah, back then,
Speaker 1: back in the like two thousand and four or five
Speaker 1: or six or something. But we released it without any
Speaker 1: of our names on it because it was a tricky thing.
Speaker 1: At that time. My second album was still pretty big,
Speaker 1: and I didn't want it to be like remember when
Speaker 1: Garth Brooks put out Life of Chris Gaines. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't want it to be a joke because it
Speaker 1: wasn't a joke. It was really fun and but it
Speaker 1: was funny, but I.
Speaker 5: Didn't want to ever do it in concert.
Speaker 1: We did a bunch of gigs at the Delancey down
Speaker 1: on the Lower East.
Speaker 5: Side at the time, but you but where were people's
Speaker 5: reactions to this.
Speaker 1: We wore wigs and crazy makeup, so which was also
Speaker 1: part of the fun for me. I got to be
Speaker 1: a character, you know, and part of it was hiding
Speaker 1: myself from the audience, but part of it was just
Speaker 1: the fun of doing that. Like I can't imagine putting
Speaker 1: on a wig and crazy blade runner makeup to do
Speaker 1: a Nora Jones show because I feel like people would
Speaker 1: think I'm trying too hard to be somebody else.
Speaker 5: But never, but that's in my bones. I love dressing up,
Speaker 5: but never for an encore.
Speaker 6: Once you're like dude and just go into it and
Speaker 6: the audience is like, wait, what the hell's going on here?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Like it a yeah, Carlo, No, I feel like I
Speaker 1: couldn't do it without them, without that band, that's yeah,
Speaker 1: But we kind of we kind of parted ways eventually
Speaker 1: and the album was released, but none of our names
Speaker 1: were on it, so it's not like anybody knew about it.
Speaker 1: A couple of people knew it was me, but it
Speaker 1: wasn't a big deal.
Speaker 5: Well, this also proves that I do not keep a.
Speaker 1: Secret because well, now I wish it wasn't a secret
Speaker 1: because in hindsight, like I love it, but at the time,
Speaker 1: it just felt like people would pick it apart too
Speaker 1: much and that's.
Speaker 5: Not what it was for.
Speaker 1: I was like, man, she's cool, Maybe we'll get them
Speaker 1: on the podcast, and we'll do a repeace of it.
Speaker 14: You gotta.
Speaker 15: You know how I knew you were cool because you
Speaker 15: were tight with Brian Blade. Uh huh and uh you
Speaker 15: know when you when I knew that he had been
Speaker 15: working with you. He's one of those kind of people
Speaker 15: that you know, if he can't mess with you, he
Speaker 15: ain't gonna but he ain't not gonna play with you.
Speaker 1: He won't return, right right, It won't.
Speaker 14: Even be mean r gonna ghost you.
Speaker 1: Right, I know. He definitely the coolest.
Speaker 14: Oh yeah, yeah, And so.
Speaker 5: That's how we that's how we connected through Brian recently.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, But I mean I've I feel like
Speaker 1: I've known you forever, but I haven't. I know, we
Speaker 1: only played together once exactly, and not that last year
Speaker 1: for Jazz House Kids your foundation.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I had a dog bit me on the nose
Speaker 1: that morning, so I was all scared to show my nose.
Speaker 14: Yeah, but you killed it.
Speaker 1: It healed.
Speaker 5: All right. So what's the next joint?
Speaker 1: Okay? So, so I wanted to try the Stangelo song?
Speaker 5: Okay, what do you think.
Speaker 1: He'll play electric?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just thought you should play it on something, okay. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And also if for this. It can be sloppy. It's
Speaker 1: no big deal.
Speaker 5: That's all I know.
Speaker 1: That's all I know. You said you wanted to be
Speaker 1: some more sloppy. I'm your girl.
Speaker 6: Actually, I want to challenge myself to see if I
Speaker 6: can play it unlike the record version.
Speaker 5: So this will be fun. We started it.
Speaker 6: We started, so it's weird that we're here. We actually
Speaker 6: started Black Messiah in this very room.
Speaker 5: Really, that album took fourteen years to make, really.
Speaker 6: Like Voodoo took five, but Black Messiah was pretty much
Speaker 6: started two thousand and two. He's like Molasses man. So
Speaker 6: but we didn't we didn't do that here. I think
Speaker 6: we did betray my Heart at Electric Lady. But yeah,
Speaker 6: just coming back to this room, I remember, is this
Speaker 6: where primarily most jazz albums are recorded in this particular room.
Speaker 15: That if you got a nice budget. Yeah, the Criss
Speaker 15: Cross records used to be made upstairs.
Speaker 14: What Yeah.
Speaker 15: At Sears Sound. Yeah, what a there's a few records
Speaker 15: I've made upstairs.
Speaker 1: Really, yeah, I've done a bunch here. But you guys
Speaker 1: both worked with di'angelo on Yeah, so.
Speaker 15: Pretty much thanks to him, I got a piece a
Speaker 15: little tiny lickings.
Speaker 6: Yeah, at Electric lady, I'll say that, you know, probably
Speaker 6: some of my most adventurous escape moments, like my chance
Speaker 6: to not be a route and just to figure out
Speaker 6: what else is out there? Like his projects allowed me
Speaker 6: to do that, and then subsequently, once that record came
Speaker 6: out and anything else I worked on, like Common or
Speaker 6: Erica or Blow or that sort of thing. Like that's
Speaker 6: kind of how the what they call the soul quarian
Speaker 6: era like started.
Speaker 1: But yeah, man, that's how you grow.
Speaker 14: I got a what if?
Speaker 5: What?
Speaker 15: So there's two what if Speaking of D'Angelo, you probably noticed,
Speaker 15: D'Angelo told me that he initially had well he was
Speaker 15: going to go to VCU in Richmond, where he's from,
Speaker 15: to study jazz piano with Elis Marcellus.
Speaker 5: Oh god.
Speaker 15: The year he graduated high school was the year Ellis
Speaker 15: retired from VCU. So he was like, well, if I
Speaker 15: can't study with him, I'm not going to study jazz.
Speaker 15: I always wonder Alice Marcella stayed one more year.
Speaker 1: That's interesting.
Speaker 15: Who knows D'Angelo might have been the piano player in
Speaker 15: Roy Hargroves Quint test.
Speaker 5: Elis Man, you give me nightmares. Look at you. You
Speaker 5: look like a rock drummer. Playing all that rock. Why
Speaker 5: is that snare so tight?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 5: Really, man?
Speaker 6: He he roasted me, man like on the news, why
Speaker 6: is that snare so tight? He's like, why is that
Speaker 6: snare so tight?
Speaker 15: After he played with James Black and Idris and all
Speaker 15: them cats, Nah man, heartbreaking? Oh and another thing went
Speaker 15: here's what if this came back to Hauntum. In two
Speaker 15: thousand and one, I started touring with Sting and so
Speaker 15: there was a bunch of different drummers in there. My
Speaker 15: new catch a was first. Then Able Boreol Junior came
Speaker 15: in for a spell, and Vinnie call You came in.
Speaker 15: So it's like a bunch of different cats coming in.
Speaker 15: And so Sting said, uh, hey, I got a string
Speaker 15: of gigs. Who you like playing with? Who can you
Speaker 15: who can you recommend? I said, you need to get
Speaker 15: my man, I'm mirror. He's like, oh, I'm not familiar.
Speaker 15: So I gave him the Philly Experiment and I gave
Speaker 15: him a couple of Roots records.
Speaker 5: He was like, oh that that guy.
Speaker 14: Yes, yes, So I gave him the recordings. Never heard nothing.
Speaker 15: I said, well, okay, okay, I ain't gonna you know,
Speaker 15: I ain't gonna pry you Sting you know who you want.
Speaker 15: Fast forward ten, maybe even fifteen years later, you finally
Speaker 15: you finally played with him.
Speaker 5: Here's Sting's house band for almost like all of.
Speaker 15: Yeah, and then I see him somewhere. He's like, oh man,
Speaker 15: you you know Questlove right, He's amazing. I was like, man,
Speaker 15: I'm not going to tell you what I said on
Speaker 15: the microphone. I was like, you remember what a long
Speaker 15: time ago you asked me about drummers. That's who I
Speaker 15: was talking about. Oh, like, can you imagine had we
Speaker 15: played in these things band together that'ren crazy, every breath
Speaker 15: you take would have sounded a lot different.
Speaker 1: It would have sounded like a James Brown's.
Speaker 6: He's so he's so triggered by Stewart's playing again. Oh gosh, yes,
Speaker 6: this is me being a shape shifter that when I
Speaker 6: played with him. Yeah, he instantly knew and he stopped
Speaker 6: the song. Yeah, he says, you can't. Don't do that exactly,
Speaker 6: you can't what he says. I know you you worship
Speaker 6: the police, but don't play none of that. Don't like Stewart.
Speaker 6: It triggers me, like you don't know, It's very true.
Speaker 6: So I had to undo. I didn't know how to
Speaker 6: play like anything. But you know my regular.
Speaker 14: You know right.
Speaker 15: Like all of you know Stuart's have we played in
Speaker 15: these things band? Everything she does is magic, Every little
Speaker 15: thing she does is magic. Would have been halftime little.
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: That's great?
Speaker 5: Are give me a g? Wait? Is this this is
Speaker 5: notated in like a real or a fake book? What
Speaker 5: betrayed my heart?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 8: No?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 5: I was like, wow, he really made it?
Speaker 1: Oh you thought I picked it out from a fake book?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 6: I was like so proud, like whoa, No, no, no,
Speaker 6: we just made some Look No, I just don't understand.
Speaker 5: I literally was something I had to do with Literally,
Speaker 5: isn't a fake book?
Speaker 1: Or maybe maybe it is?
Speaker 2: Maybe it is.
Speaker 1: Honestly, this is a great song.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, h em nine must take its sure as birth
Speaker 2: must surprise and fall.
Speaker 10: I'll be there to see you through just as long
Speaker 10: as it is. I will live on live your sight.
Speaker 8: And if you should ever faith, then my love is nsensey.
Speaker 19: I will never betray your heart. I will never betray
Speaker 19: your heart. I will never chase.
Speaker 2: Like a breeze that blows into.
Speaker 10: I will whisper to keep you. Could this I swear
Speaker 10: in with allstue I take.
Speaker 2: Nothing in place.
Speaker 3: When you're freezing down down.
Speaker 2: Now you must love.
Speaker 8: You can't depend on me. You don't never have to
Speaker 8: feel that my love is nice.
Speaker 2: And see, I will never betray in my heart.
Speaker 19: I will never betray my hot I will never betray
Speaker 19: my phone.
Speaker 2: Through the storm, to.
Speaker 10: The rain, I come running to easier pain, like the rail,
Speaker 10: across the train, like.
Speaker 2: The blood in my veins. I will never betray your heart.
Speaker 2: I would never be a drink your car.
Speaker 8: I will never be drink your ho.
Speaker 5: See, that's the fun part of the danger. We don't
Speaker 5: know what's going.
Speaker 1: That was so danger experience awesome. I think it was great.
Speaker 1: That was fun. That is a hard as to play,
Speaker 1: but it's so good and the lyrics are so beautiful.
Speaker 5: This is the first time I've heard them in the
Speaker 5: English language. I'm playing, I'm playing I Love You man.
Speaker 1: It's a great song, though, and it's hard to play.
Speaker 5: I'm sitting him a photo of this right now.
Speaker 1: Tell him I love him.
Speaker 5: He'll love it.
Speaker 1: I don't even know where one is in that song. No,
Speaker 1: I don't need I don't if I think about it,
Speaker 1: I don't know where it is. Thanks you guys have
Speaker 1: been super generous with your time.
Speaker 5: Thank you, Norah, I appreciate this. Any any chance to
Speaker 5: play with my brother and.
Speaker 14: Yeah, yes, no joke, no Joe.
Speaker 1: Honestly, I would have loved to do this with either
Speaker 1: of you separately, but I just knew would be more
Speaker 1: fun together.
Speaker 5: Oh, well, he's awesome.
Speaker 14: Yeah, I never get to play with my man.
Speaker 2: No, I'm so glad.
Speaker 1: Thanks for doing this, y'all. They're special.
Speaker 5: Thanks for having us, Thank you, thank you all right,
Speaker 5: sure enough.
Speaker 1: These guys are such a blast. They're fun to listen talk.
Speaker 1: I love that they have so many inside jokes. It's
Speaker 1: like they have their own language. Yeah, they do talking,
Speaker 1: but also musically they have inside music jokes. Well, I
Speaker 1: started a text thrive with them when we were trying
Speaker 1: to get together for this, and that alone is like
Speaker 1: the most in. I was just like, Okay, I don't
Speaker 1: know what's happening because they were just fire and wagon forth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they got their nicknames for each other. Oh, I don't
Speaker 1: know what's happening. That's the history, man. But we got
Speaker 1: a lot of good stories.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and great music.
Speaker 1: So fun to hear a mirror questlove? Whose name is
Speaker 1: a mirror? Do the lesson?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, the breakdown, the breakdown now, all the different drummers.
Speaker 1: That was amazing and just playing with Christian on the
Speaker 1: basis it's insane, actually he's insane. Lee amazing. That was
Speaker 1: a dream. And I wish we had just done two days.
Speaker 1: So I wish we had made a record, which we
Speaker 1: just wait we did. Oh, I got some words wrong.
Speaker 1: But if you want to look up the right words.
Speaker 1: But if you want to look up the right words,
Speaker 1: here's the songs we did. We started off with Fine
Speaker 1: and Mellow, an old jazz standard from nineteen thirty nine
Speaker 1: written by my favorite Billy Holliday. Why Am I Treated
Speaker 1: So Bad? A song by Pop Staples and recorded many
Speaker 1: times by many different people, including the Staples singers and
Speaker 1: James Brown, among others. We did say No More from
Speaker 1: one of my albums, pick Up Me Up, pick Up
Speaker 1: Me Up, off the Floor, and that song was actually
Speaker 1: written by me and Myota Sarah Oda. You wrote that song.
Speaker 1: We did border Lord, a song by Chris Christofferson from
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two. Songwriters on that are Stephen Bruten, Donnie Fritz,
Speaker 1: Terry Paul, and Chris Christofferson. I love that song, by
Speaker 1: the way, and that's an amazing album. The last song
Speaker 1: we did was betray My Heart from DiAngelo's twenty fourteen
Speaker 1: album Black Messiah, on which Questlove was a collaborator. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for listening. We had a blast. Hope
Speaker 1: you did too. Don't forget to like and subscribe to
Speaker 1: the podcast if you're able to, if you're kind, be kind,
Speaker 1: if you like us, actually even if you don't like us, Yeah,
Speaker 1: just like us. Special thanks to Questlove and Christian McBride
Speaker 1: for joining our podcast. We'll be back next week with
Speaker 1: Lucinda Williams. Noura Jones is playing along as a protection
Speaker 1: of iHeart Podcasts. I'm Your host Nora Jones. This episode
Speaker 1: was recorded It's Your Sound in New York by Steven Sacho,
Speaker 1: assisted by Jasper Leech, Maximilian Trophy, Tanner Wallace, and Andrew Kohinka.
Speaker 1: Mixed by Jamie Landry, edited by Sarah Oda. Additional recording
Speaker 1: by Matt Maronelli. Audio post production and mass string by
Speaker 1: Greg Tobler. Artwork by Eliza Frye. Photography by Shervin Linez.
Speaker 1: Produced by Nora Jones and Sarah Oda. Executive producers Aaron
Speaker 1: Jan Kaufman and Jordan Runtogg marketing lead Queen A. Nake