Speaker 1: Questlove Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. Hi.
Speaker 2: This is Sugar Steve from Questlove Supreme. It's April, which
Speaker 2: is Jazz appreciation months, so we are running some selections
Speaker 2: from the QLs archives from artists who make some jazz music.
Speaker 2: This is a pre Pandemic twenty twenty conversation with Esperando Spaldi,
Speaker 2: who has become one of the.
Speaker 1: New stars of jazz. In this interview, Esperanza.
Speaker 2: Talks about the real Portland, Oregon, learning how to play
Speaker 2: jazz at a high level, and the neurological benefits of
Speaker 2: certain rhythms. This is a deep and cosmic hour long chat.
Speaker 2: Enjoy yo yo yo yo yo yo ya.
Speaker 1: You're good at spontaneity, making it up.
Speaker 3: Supremo, Sir, Suprema. Roll call, Suprema su su Supremo. Roll
Speaker 3: call Supremo s Supremo. Role call, Suprema s Supremo.
Speaker 4: Roll a Prodigy. Yeah, win to Berkeley. Yeah me Jack JB.
Speaker 4: I'm talking to.
Speaker 1: Supremo, Suprema.
Speaker 3: Roll called, Suprema son something Supremo.
Speaker 1: Roll call. My name is Sugar.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have a question about jazz. Yeah for double bass, Yeah,
Speaker 2: you need double hands.
Speaker 3: Supreme Supremo, roll cal Suprema Supremo roll.
Speaker 1: I'm unpaid, Bill don't give no fucks.
Speaker 5: Yeah, by his book, Yeah, mixtape looks Suprema Supremo.
Speaker 6: Roll call Suprema, So Supremo roll.
Speaker 7: What's your name now?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 7: For a spell in your body? Yeah, I can make
Speaker 7: it for you quick yeah, or.
Speaker 6: Supremo Supremo Roll Suprema Supremo.
Speaker 4: Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to a weird episode of Court
Speaker 4: Love Supreme.
Speaker 1: It is raining outside the bomb cyclone.
Speaker 4: All I can say was that Laia, Bill and I
Speaker 4: left from the same destination, but I decided to violate
Speaker 4: some traffic laws to get here in time because our
Speaker 4: guest today has to be out with the quickness.
Speaker 1: So Steve insisted that we do the theme without Bill
Speaker 1: and Laia. Yeah yeah, he insisted. Why because they got
Speaker 1: to learn right, that's absolutely cruel, or they can overdub
Speaker 1: it later. No, we never.
Speaker 4: We never overdubbed the theme anyway. Ladies and gentlemen, this
Speaker 4: is Couest Love Supreme. So we're joined by the exquisite,
Speaker 4: the remarkable, the ever expansive, the gift that you already
Speaker 4: introduced me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my fault.
Speaker 4: We already said Sugar Steve, the original, the inspiring, one
Speaker 4: of the cool, prolific creatives and music today, and most importantly,
Speaker 4: she's a native of one of my all time favorite
Speaker 4: cities on Earth, Portland, Oregon. Yeah, ladies and gentlemen, please
Speaker 4: give it up for.
Speaker 1: So are you doing.
Speaker 7: After all that? I'm good settling? Settling?
Speaker 1: You're settling?
Speaker 7: Yeah, And I reflect back for you to you everything
Speaker 7: you just said about me. Yeah, I'm grateful.
Speaker 4: I'm bad with I'm learning to accept implements at a
Speaker 4: new place in my life. I read the Gene Keys book.
Speaker 4: I'm learning to accept. For years you've been telling you
Speaker 4: to accept. It's hard to accept compliments.
Speaker 1: I agree. Are you good or bad with compliments?
Speaker 7: I just let them roll and often bounce them back
Speaker 7: to be real. Alsolet figure you can't perceive it if
Speaker 7: you don't hold it.
Speaker 1: You know, I want you to hold the compliments. Yes,
Speaker 1: hear all those things?
Speaker 7: Okay, I take that.
Speaker 2: Can I sit closer to you?
Speaker 1: You sound prett great?
Speaker 2: Based on his.
Speaker 7: Introduction, what's sitting closer going to do?
Speaker 1: I don't know, yeah exactly.
Speaker 7: HR like some em and off.
Speaker 4: Normally like I know my guests like the back of
Speaker 4: my hand when they come to the show. But I
Speaker 4: can't help but notice that in your bio and your
Speaker 4: wiki bio, they had a factoid in there that kind
Speaker 4: of took me back, which for me, like the idea
Speaker 4: of Portland organ and the words gang activity never seemed
Speaker 4: to mix.
Speaker 7: That's because it's the Portland of now you're trying to
Speaker 7: translate it. Also if you come from like New York
Speaker 7: or Baltimore or LA I think gang activity in Portland
Speaker 7: is like a little paper cup that you get by
Speaker 7: the cooler at the office, you know, su Price, Yeah,
Speaker 7: But I.
Speaker 1: Mean the way that we're trying to paint it was like,
Speaker 1: you know, music was your salvation.
Speaker 4: There was gang activity in the neighborhood, and so am
Speaker 4: I to believed that there's no differference between Portland, Oregon and.
Speaker 1: No, there's Portland is just like Compton.
Speaker 7: I mean, if you're growing up and sleeping in the
Speaker 7: bathtub because there are guns outside and you've never been
Speaker 7: to another city, it feels it feels imminent, it feels dangerous,
Speaker 7: it feels scary. And that was the reality for a
Speaker 7: few years growing up and in the Northeast while I
Speaker 7: was raised. But you know, comparatively to some other cities.
Speaker 7: I think we had it mild, but people were filing.
Speaker 7: They were wiling.
Speaker 1: Okay, but that's the thing.
Speaker 4: The fact that you had it it all shocks me
Speaker 4: because people are genuinely jaw dropped when I tell them
Speaker 4: that Portland organ is hands down my favorite city on Earth.
Speaker 7: Why is it your favorite city?
Speaker 4: More than half my record collection comes from there, So no, no, no,
Speaker 4: I'm just saying, like.
Speaker 7: We do love music.
Speaker 4: Well, the thing is, your record dealers really don't know
Speaker 4: the value of certain things. So Portland is the place
Speaker 4: that like Japanese record dealers fly to well to come
Speaker 4: and buy records and then they sell them back to me.
Speaker 7: I'm in a thousand bucks, I do that's do advintage
Speaker 7: clothing just for the record as well. No, no, yeah,
Speaker 7: it's a trip. It's like everybody just figured it out.
Speaker 7: But that reality that you're talking about was like our
Speaker 7: secret because we were provincial. I mean, it's still kind
Speaker 7: of you always knew about Ireland, like didn't know that
Speaker 7: the world was really looking at Portland like that, you know, to.
Speaker 1: Like beat makers and whatnot.
Speaker 4: I would lead them to Austin, which is my second
Speaker 4: favorite city. But I sent them down south, far away
Speaker 4: from my dodain of Portland, Oregon.
Speaker 1: So what was your childhood like? Did you grow up
Speaker 1: in a musical family or No.
Speaker 7: I grew up with a single working mother and a
Speaker 7: big brother, and I grew up just in a funky neighborhood.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 7: I didn't know that it was grimy, because that's all
Speaker 7: that I had, But I know that we weren't allowed
Speaker 7: to go outside because it felt dangerous, you know, after
Speaker 7: the street lights came on, we had to stay in.
Speaker 7: And I remember, I just remember wanted to always be
Speaker 7: at the piano and always wanted to compose. And when
Speaker 7: my mother took the dogs for a walk, I would
Speaker 7: make her sing harmony with me. That's what I remember
Speaker 7: my childhood. Kinds of freaking harmony. Yes, yes, nothing I
Speaker 7: could hear. What age is that?
Speaker 8: Because I know you're a phenom in that way with
Speaker 8: bus Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 7: It's I don't know if I'm a phenom. I've worked
Speaker 7: a lot at stuff when I was a kid. But yeah,
Speaker 7: very musical, I mean it, honestly, I don't remember they sang. Yeah.
Speaker 7: She's from a generation where everybody could play piano, could
Speaker 7: play piano and read piano music, you know, so for me,
Speaker 7: it was just like anything that I heard on the
Speaker 7: radio or on television and end credits I would go
Speaker 7: find at the piano and that was the beginning of
Speaker 7: my compositional journey.
Speaker 1: Can you remember the first record that you purchased?
Speaker 7: Oh, it was M.
Speaker 1: You're Born in eighty four?
Speaker 4: Don't You Give Me No Tell a Little Bit of Love?
Speaker 7: It was probably Sorry to Let You Down. It was
Speaker 7: probably Roomski Cours That's what it was though, and maybe
Speaker 7: some Chibo Matto. I was really into Chibo Matto when
Speaker 7: I was a kids. I probably bought an early Chipo
Speaker 7: Mato record too.
Speaker 8: Well.
Speaker 7: I went to like a freaky arts high school, so
Speaker 7: you know, we were in talls.
Speaker 1: You know, wait, how old were you when you brought
Speaker 1: your first record?
Speaker 7: M Maybe twelve? That was how I could afford music
Speaker 7: because they would be in the bins for fifty cents,
Speaker 7: you know. So you go, you see the cool cover,
Speaker 7: then you get to try it out and see if
Speaker 7: you want it.
Speaker 1: You know, ninety four ninety five, this when you.
Speaker 7: Brought ninety six? Yeah something, thats okay? Yeah, what with
Speaker 7: your first record?
Speaker 4: My first record is just actually nerdy. I did the
Speaker 4: one thing please station. No, it's the worst, but I
Speaker 4: have no shame in my game. You know, like when
Speaker 4: especially seventies kids one, my parents didn't believe in babysitters.
Speaker 4: Qualified Okay, I love it you No, it's not I'm
Speaker 4: not doing the preference saying that my parents didn't babysitters.
Speaker 1: I wasn't allowed to talk to strangers, and.
Speaker 4: You know, I had I had an afro that rival
Speaker 4: with yours as a five year old. So of course,
Speaker 4: you know, like the whole primitive, exotic way old white
Speaker 4: women come up and buy me stuff. I wasn't allowed
Speaker 4: to ask for strangers for anything. And this woman comes
Speaker 4: up to me. Your name is Ellie, and she's like something,
Speaker 4: I say, records, so and then she got a napkin
Speaker 4: and finn and she took my order down. And then
Speaker 4: the next night came back with the Fisher Price record
Speaker 4: player what and she gave me my first three records,
Speaker 4: which was which.
Speaker 7: Have questions about that, right, like, just how that paints
Speaker 7: your expectation on the world. Do you just expect to
Speaker 7: ask some white ladies show up? But that's kind of
Speaker 7: beaut I love that. I love that. I love that
Speaker 7: in right, should be this White Lady?
Speaker 1: Did you talk like that? White Lady?
Speaker 5: Particularly child no contractions, just like I cannot do that?
Speaker 1: White Lady was the record she purchased me. I have
Speaker 1: a shame.
Speaker 4: I don't know why I liked's Bad Blood. I don't
Speaker 4: bad Blood? Uh one of these nice by the Eagles
Speaker 4: song that subsequently scared me, the uh Rufus and Shaka
Speaker 4: Khans dance with Me. I think I got Looking through
Speaker 4: the Windows by the Jackson five and.
Speaker 9: It's all this, all this all explains quite a bit, actually,
Speaker 9: And my fifth record was the Fifth Dimension version of
Speaker 9: Love Hangover, which was out way before Diana Ross's version.
Speaker 1: What was the first one you physically bought? Not a
Speaker 1: white lady bought for you.
Speaker 4: I got a good report card in the third grade,
Speaker 4: so I my uncle gave me five For five bucks,
Speaker 4: you could buy the Jackson's Destiny Ah track. She could
Speaker 4: buy and Switches It Switches.
Speaker 1: Oh you're right there with me.
Speaker 4: Motherfuckers and Switches Switches debut album. Yeah, you could buy
Speaker 4: a tracks for like to nineteen two thousand.
Speaker 7: Do you know what an a track is? I have
Speaker 7: the Mad Hatter on a track for no reason, just
Speaker 7: just to around it's okay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, Esperanja is an old soul.
Speaker 7: She is anyway, I have memories that predate my birth.
Speaker 7: I do. I'm holding them, Esperanza. Hi, I'm here.
Speaker 4: How old were you this show?
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 4: So how did you actually discover instruments? And what is
Speaker 4: your instrument of choice? Because you do everything, You sing well,
Speaker 4: you play bass well, you do piano, what like, what
Speaker 4: is your I'm.
Speaker 7: Starting to think that the instrument is my life, you know,
Speaker 7: those are the details. Yeah, no, I mean it's true.
Speaker 7: I've been thinking a lot about just the potency of
Speaker 7: word and sound anywhere that we are, and trying to
Speaker 7: hold my existence, like my interfacing with people as the
Speaker 7: instrumental exchange, because i know the power that sound has,
Speaker 7: and I've been so focused on this, like I got shit.
Speaker 7: I put the hours and like be able to do
Speaker 7: the things, and recently I'm like, damn, but there's already
Speaker 7: people who can do that. You know, there's already that
Speaker 7: masterful bass player that's already taken it to the limit.
Speaker 7: There's that massive vocalist who's taken it all the way.
Speaker 7: Now I'm thinking about, like, what is the practice to
Speaker 7: make every sound that I make and interaction that I
Speaker 7: make like a beautiful performance in conversation.
Speaker 9: This actually reminds me of something I read and might
Speaker 9: take Garci's book, Prince's ex Wife. She said that he
Speaker 9: told her that to live every day like a work
Speaker 9: of art. And that's what that sounds like.
Speaker 7: I am really a fan of that. Yeah, as a practice.
Speaker 8: Practice is sounds so free.
Speaker 7: I don't even comprehend right now.
Speaker 1: Well, also this and I like to think I'm an
Speaker 1: okay musician.
Speaker 7: You well, you're probably doing that. I'm just coming to
Speaker 7: the consciousness of it. I think a lot of this.
Speaker 7: Wayne short a quote when he talks about the premise
Speaker 7: of this philosophy, this Buddhism Lily practices, and he said,
Speaker 7: you know, with it, you get to create value out
Speaker 7: of everything that's happening. And I think that's very much
Speaker 7: what we do as improvisers when we're in a musical space,
Speaker 7: like whatever the raw ingredients are in the studio with
Speaker 7: the song sketch, you activate the creative powers to turn
Speaker 7: that into a thing. So he talks about applying that
Speaker 7: to everyday life, and he says, because if you're not
Speaker 7: practicing that, what's practicing you?
Speaker 1: And that's of course, but that's.
Speaker 7: That's what we've been practicing as artists, right, We've been
Speaker 7: practicing this creative capacity to take nothing or take fragments
Speaker 7: and make something like that's the alchemy of making art.
Speaker 7: So these days, just you ask, that's what I'm focused on.
Speaker 7: That's the instrument that I want to study, practice and master.
Speaker 4: I gotta say that high five. When I first got
Speaker 4: to know you, I guess you could say we known
Speaker 4: each other at least over.
Speaker 1: Ten years, right, Yeah, isn't that wild?
Speaker 4: By two thousand and seven, two eight, you're ten years ago,
Speaker 4: you're very much Yeah, a little over ten years ago.
Speaker 4: You're very much like the character weak bleek Gillia in
Speaker 4: Mobile or Blues, because I remember that was Denzel's character.
Speaker 7: Is Mike Lee's moment I buy the same dress for
Speaker 7: both my girlfriends?
Speaker 1: Yes, dress? Shut shut up?
Speaker 4: Anyway, No, my point was we changed numbers. I called
Speaker 4: you and you're like, hey, I'm rehearsing right now, you know,
Speaker 4: hit me back. And then I called like two hours later,
Speaker 4: You're like, yeah, now I'm rehearsing. And by the seventh time,
Speaker 4: I was like, she's She's like the only person I
Speaker 4: knew that forhearse.
Speaker 1: Longer than you was friends. No, no, what's his name?
Speaker 1: Jazz asphone player?
Speaker 3: Who?
Speaker 1: David uh David Murray. David Murray told me.
Speaker 4: That he's just on an average he practices ten hours.
Speaker 7: That's madness. Yeah, I don't. But just quickly the plug
Speaker 7: for an album with terryln Carrington Jerry Al David Murray.
Speaker 7: That's an amazing album for the record, No bass because
Speaker 7: Jerry An's playing all the bass. But anyway back to us, yes, yes,
Speaker 7: the red dress.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I love my dress.
Speaker 7: Thank you guys. And I remember every time I will
Speaker 7: call you, you were on a treadmill. Yeah that literally, I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 7: I'm on the treadmill right now, and he still wants
Speaker 7: to talk. He still breathing the whole.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 4: At nighttime, I'm doing twelve twelve gigs. Okay, so gone
Speaker 4: to your head? What is your favorite instrument?
Speaker 7: What she's like a questions like that. No, really, it's
Speaker 7: my life, man, I'm telling you, like it's it's not
Speaker 7: about the instrument right now. I obviously love the bass,
Speaker 7: obviously I love the voice, but like truly, the practice
Speaker 7: right now to me is like polishing the instrument of
Speaker 7: my humanity because everything emerges from there.
Speaker 4: So there's a fire in your house right now, what
Speaker 4: do you say? I might get an answered at least
Speaker 4: an instrument.
Speaker 2: Yeah, fire in your house to your head.
Speaker 8: It's a really violent Sorry about all of a sudden,
Speaker 8: come to question, super Yeah, Can I just ask you
Speaker 8: a question about the way you grew up? Because I
Speaker 8: read something interesting about how you had to be homeschool
Speaker 8: because of something that you went through physically as a kid,
Speaker 8: And as you were talking about rehearsing, I was like, well,
Speaker 8: I wonder if if some of your rehearsing, uh, it
Speaker 8: comes from the fact that you were at home a
Speaker 8: lot and you have to practice a lot.
Speaker 7: I'm just curious. Can you explain? Yeah, I don't know
Speaker 7: if there's a connection that feels very personal. My god, sorry, No,
Speaker 7: it's cool, get into you. Yeah, let's go, let's go. Yeah.
Speaker 4: She means like being home. Yeah, was that more time
Speaker 4: to practice as opposed to No.
Speaker 7: I watched a lot of Joy Springer and I thank you. Yeah.
Speaker 7: And you know, that was before I understood what practice was.
Speaker 7: That's before practice was like suffering or a thing you
Speaker 7: were supposed to do because you had to do it.
Speaker 7: So it's just be like, remember, well, before there was
Speaker 7: any sort of like four track recording device, you do
Speaker 7: that thing where you have two tape recorders and you
Speaker 7: just keep like recording the thing over the thing you want. Right,
Speaker 7: So I did a lot of that, a lot of.
Speaker 1: You know, like five year old boss, so exactly, that.
Speaker 7: Was a lot of my of my time.
Speaker 1: At what age or what year did you master your craft?
Speaker 7: No, go ahead, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: No, I'm still learning.
Speaker 7: But it's true, it's true. And also that word master
Speaker 7: is just problematic for me right now, likeation sense, I'm
Speaker 7: just saying, like a master of what? Like master of what? Really?
Speaker 1: Okay, when when.
Speaker 9: Did you get comfortable with your skills as a as
Speaker 9: a musician?
Speaker 7: Oh? Well, I'm not comfortable with them. But that's not
Speaker 7: that's not a problem. I'm sorry.
Speaker 4: I've never seen someone where you're where you're coming from.
Speaker 1: I mean, well, so do you still get intimidated going
Speaker 1: on stage?
Speaker 7: Of course? The last joy? That's the joy? Like that
Speaker 7: that is the practice too, Like if you know there's
Speaker 7: some some ship that scares you and you're willing to
Speaker 7: like dive through and dive in, like that is the
Speaker 7: practice to I know that you need, but I like
Speaker 7: to know that it might not work, you know what
Speaker 7: I mean, Like I like to know, like, oh, ship,
Speaker 7: how we're going to get out of this one?
Speaker 1: I like this? Yeah, okay, I love it.
Speaker 7: I definitely am.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 4: So this is weird to hear these answers. Okay, but
Speaker 4: yet most of your songs are like in seven eight
Speaker 4: meter like these odd times and these really dissident modulations. Yeah,
Speaker 4: which I mean for those that don't understand, like want
Speaker 4: of Layman's talk or whatever. I mean, it's like the
Speaker 4: daredevil equivalent of of.
Speaker 1: Tight rope walking.
Speaker 4: Yeah, uh, Empire State Building, that's the same.
Speaker 1: I do the sports ones, thank.
Speaker 7: You flowers to your head.
Speaker 1: So what I'm saying is is.
Speaker 4: That I mean, you're at least six seven albums deep
Speaker 4: in walking the Wildside, So.
Speaker 7: It doesn't feel I mean, that's all your record all
Speaker 7: your records, like it's not like maybe it's just not
Speaker 7: that deep. Like I just do what I hear. If
Speaker 7: I hear some ship and I can comprehend it. If
Speaker 7: I have the like the whisper of the sound or
Speaker 7: the premonition of the sound, I just go to make
Speaker 7: that sound, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 4: So as they're speaking tonight, you're you're doing a collaborate
Speaker 4: project with Robert.
Speaker 7: Robert, Yes, Chris justin Tyson.
Speaker 4: Okay, just so with with that particular situation, are you
Speaker 4: nervous about really?
Speaker 7: Yes, Robert is still Oh my god, Yes, it's what
Speaker 7: makes you nervous? Is it because of who he is?
Speaker 7: What he might do? Well, I feel very what he
Speaker 7: might do. That's what he might do. I feel that.
Speaker 1: He'll do comedy before he'll do anything else.
Speaker 7: Yes, but also also like I remember something that George
Speaker 7: Waen said once. He's like, you're young, you get into
Speaker 7: jazz and you're doing it intuitively, like you're studying, and
Speaker 7: it's all cool and anything, like oh I got this,
Speaker 7: I can do this. Then you get like ten thirteen
Speaker 7: years in and you realize how hard it actually is,
Speaker 7: and then all of a sudden you're like god damn,
Speaker 7: like thank god, I didn't understand how intense this was.
Speaker 7: Like I'm at that place right now where I'm just
Speaker 7: like holy shit, like there's so much more that I
Speaker 7: want to do and study and training.
Speaker 4: Have you met a composition that you've yet to M
Speaker 4: word M word?
Speaker 7: Yes? But isn't that the gift, Like what the hell,
Speaker 7: it wouldn't be fun if you're out here, like I
Speaker 7: go up this ship. Yeah, gone and done.
Speaker 4: I feel like you feel like the second that you
Speaker 4: feel comfortable like okay, yeah, next, then everything's over Like wow, I'm.
Speaker 7: Here, but you're like that too, Like why.
Speaker 1: Are you I'm in a new place now.
Speaker 7: You don't want to be challenging.
Speaker 1: I'm going to enjoy this.
Speaker 4: I'm going to re enter your life through the through
Speaker 4: phone communication, which I know you hate. No, I actually
Speaker 4: I'm gonna buy your book and see if this changes you.
Speaker 7: Over text, I do. I prefer talking on the phone
Speaker 7: again for the sonic exchange, you know, but right now,
Speaker 7: like what I really would love to do, really, really
Speaker 7: really in music, honestly, is to harness the best of
Speaker 7: practices for music therapy and neuroscience. Say what yes, and
Speaker 7: like get that into like a playbook that other musicians
Speaker 7: can use. And it's not like you have to be
Speaker 7: explicit like we're yielding these tools, but just like yo, okay,
Speaker 7: Like these combinations of chords have this effect on the body,
Speaker 7: Like these combinations of rhythms like have a soothing effect.
Speaker 7: Oh my god, I don't know certain agree. Okay, done
Speaker 7: and done.
Speaker 1: I've done a lot of cosmic crazy ship, you know
Speaker 1: what it is.
Speaker 9: I read an interview with DJ Quick about maybe about
Speaker 9: ten years ago, and he was talking about the way
Speaker 9: he approaches when he's making beats. It's like he keeps
Speaker 9: people's heart beats and you know, he's thinking about the
Speaker 9: pace of their heart. I love that he's doing that,
Speaker 9: So it's kind of I'm kind of getting that same vibe.
Speaker 7: For Graves. I don't know if y'all familiar with him.
Speaker 7: There's a beautiful documentary called Full Mantis about his work.
Speaker 7: He's been exploring this as a percussionist, and actually what
Speaker 7: he discovered ended up informing like the medical field. He
Speaker 7: is the one who discovered the measurements for heart great variables,
Speaker 7: you know. And this was coming from his question as
Speaker 7: a percussionist of like how do I affect and heal
Speaker 7: the human heart from my rhythm? And I just like
Speaker 7: I say this because as artists, like I was saying before,
Speaker 7: we have been practicing something very unique, like we have
Speaker 7: a superpower and it's incredible, and we yield it through
Speaker 7: our art intuitively and through study and practice. And I
Speaker 7: just feel like, right, now on planet Earth, like we
Speaker 7: have an incredible gift to be offered through this medium
Speaker 7: of music. People trust us, they need us, Like we
Speaker 7: know that we're administering medicine. So I'm excited at this
Speaker 7: particular moment of how that medicine can be like supercharged
Speaker 7: with what our friends and colleagues over in the science
Speaker 7: world are doing. You know.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I literally got to email from somebody who is
Speaker 8: like the CEO of Musical Health Technologies. Oh so that's
Speaker 8: like a literally and you went to Kappa with them. Yeah,
Speaker 8: who oh, I was supposed to take it's out here.
Speaker 7: It's happening. It's happening, and it's ecass and maybe it'll
Speaker 7: all come back around to what we already do intuitively,
Speaker 7: like well, like we've been doing this.
Speaker 4: You know you are telling the truth because you remember,
Speaker 4: like some time ago when Terrence Howard is talking a
Speaker 4: little bit crazy on the Red carpet.
Speaker 7: Oh at Tyler, Well yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know Black Twitter had a field day.
Speaker 4: He was actually telling the truth. One he did it
Speaker 4: in such a cosmic way. He did it in such
Speaker 4: a cosmic way that would just set off Black Twitter
Speaker 4: like he crazy. Well, I mean, the thing is you
Speaker 4: know when people talk about like meditation and and kind
Speaker 4: of metaphysics and all that stuff.
Speaker 9: Anything that ain't in the Bible, right exactly, we're getting there.
Speaker 7: People.
Speaker 8: Let's not be too hard on us and we out
Speaker 8: of history. No we need we are doing We are
Speaker 8: doing it more often than not when it comes to
Speaker 8: meditation and things of that nature. That's not be hard
Speaker 8: on us. All of us here know it.
Speaker 1: So I pulled.
Speaker 4: So I've been putting off this thing for like nine
Speaker 4: months where I'm like, what the hell is the sound bath? Okay,
Speaker 4: you're going to play a gong and I'm gonna do
Speaker 4: some breathing exercise like lamas.
Speaker 1: It's going to change my life right to give birth
Speaker 1: to music. Please keep talking, that's.
Speaker 7: The thing, please please. I love that.
Speaker 4: I'm just saying that. That's how closed closed I was
Speaker 4: to the idea of it. And then I went into
Speaker 4: the most transformative like experience of my life, which and
Speaker 4: it's so hard. It's it's like I would have it's
Speaker 4: probably easier to make you think that there is a
Speaker 4: Santa Claus, but you're actually speaking into existence things that
Speaker 4: happen where these people play music in meditation, and it's
Speaker 4: it's it's past. Uh a tantric orgasm, like it's past
Speaker 4: all of that. It's really and especially yes, I highly
Speaker 4: recommend it.
Speaker 8: Can I ask you, guys, what it was to experience it?
Speaker 8: You can?
Speaker 7: It's like, okay, how do you explain what it is?
Speaker 7: I don't know what it is?
Speaker 8: I knew.
Speaker 7: Experiential, you know, like I practice reiki. When people ask
Speaker 7: me what that is, I'm like, I can try to
Speaker 7: explain it to you, but it'd be like if you
Speaker 7: never heard music and I'm trying to explain to you
Speaker 7: what the sensory experience of hearing organized sound is. You
Speaker 7: feel it in your body, and when you feel it,
Speaker 7: you get what the shit is. But until then, it
Speaker 7: really doesn't help to explain experience.
Speaker 4: I believe, like when you see homeless people talking to
Speaker 4: themselves on the.
Speaker 9: Street, mighty find me a group on for one.
Speaker 4: Really, No, My dream is to organize this for my
Speaker 4: loved ones, Like I'm gonna try and figure out how
Speaker 4: I can do it for fifty people, But in the meanwhile,
Speaker 4: I have to get them open to the idea of
Speaker 4: doing this, because mine took me about My experience was
Speaker 4: like eight hours. What I got there four point thirty
Speaker 4: and after all the crying and screaming and all that
Speaker 4: shit was done. You know, I'm telling my girlfriend like, oh, okay,
Speaker 4: let's go get some me. She's like, Babe, it's three
Speaker 4: forty five in the morning. Literally, yeah, it's it's you
Speaker 4: went in. It's the most intense therapy thing that you'll
Speaker 4: ever deal with.
Speaker 1: In your life.
Speaker 7: I think that we might be one of the few
Speaker 7: cultures that doesn't have an articulation for the medicinal properties
Speaker 7: of music.
Speaker 1: They doing in Africa, though, I think.
Speaker 7: That's what I'm saying. She's American, I'm saying in this
Speaker 7: in this nation, in our culture. I think that it's
Speaker 7: actually very common knowledge in many, many cultures that you
Speaker 7: utilize music for specific functions, for grieving, for births, for birthdays,
Speaker 7: for celebration, for even for medicinal reasons, you know. And
Speaker 7: I think that right now we're coming back to that
Speaker 7: maybe that ancient understanding. Yes, And I know a lot
Speaker 7: of musicians who are asking like, okay, so how do
Speaker 7: I like, how do I imbue what I do with that?
Speaker 7: When you were speaking about wanting to bring your family
Speaker 7: to it, I'm like, damn, is that something you can do?
Speaker 7: From the stage, Like, is there a version where you
Speaker 7: like weave some of that potency into what's being disseminated
Speaker 7: for the whole audience.
Speaker 1: This is what I think that.
Speaker 7: That's real. That's real, it is, that's real. She knows
Speaker 7: what she's doing.
Speaker 4: I'll give you a better example now hearing that nineteen
Speaker 4: minute version of Pharaoh Sanders, the creator has a master plan, hey,
Speaker 4: that or like the Principales, the Leon Thomas, just like
Speaker 4: the twenty you know, like listening to it without context
Speaker 4: and then like when he starts his yodeling thing, that
Speaker 4: starts wearing, weirding me out, like, okay, what's he and
Speaker 4: then they start primitive screaming and all that like pretty
Speaker 4: much the last ages of Coltrane, the last stages of
Speaker 4: Pharaoh Sanders' albums. Uh, truth be told. Yoko Ono's early
Speaker 4: early stuff, Dude.
Speaker 9: My first experience, my first exposure to Yoko as a
Speaker 9: vocalist was the Rolling Stones rock and roll circus. Yes,
Speaker 9: and you've seen it. You know exactly what I saw
Speaker 9: and what I heard so exactly.
Speaker 1: No, but even even even with the plastic go thing
Speaker 1: with with mother, all the screaming, please, yeah, all the
Speaker 1: screaming at the.
Speaker 4: End of Mother is due to the fact that Yoko
Speaker 4: got John into.
Speaker 7: Did that feel cathartic for you listening?
Speaker 1: Yes, totally right.
Speaker 7: Isn't that deep? And I wonder when we're thinking about
Speaker 7: you speaking about Faril Sanders and culture and like often
Speaker 7: I think we speak about their intention of what they
Speaker 7: were sending out. But I want us to just remember that,
Speaker 7: you know, the personal work when we share it is
Speaker 7: very potent and very powerful, just as medicine in and
Speaker 7: of itself, because very rarely do we actually get to
Speaker 7: witness people in healing process it it's hidden. It happens
Speaker 7: in a room somewhere with like your therapist, or it
Speaker 7: happens in your marriage counseling, or at church if you
Speaker 7: happen to get the spirit if you're a lucky one,
Speaker 7: you know. But I think that right now, like giving
Speaker 7: that permission to show like the total vulnerability and almost
Speaker 7: like borderline madness of what healing looks like, that catharsis
Speaker 7: is a gift that we can give too.
Speaker 4: It is.
Speaker 9: I'm happy you brought up Creator as a master plane
Speaker 9: because I still remember the very first time I heard that,
Speaker 9: which was probably about maybe fifteen years ago, and it
Speaker 9: really was like like I felt changed after I heard it. Yeah,
Speaker 9: Like I was like, holy shit, like I've been you know,
Speaker 9: a lifelong fan of music, you know, you know, music
Speaker 9: is transformative. I had never experienced what I felt when
Speaker 9: I first heard Created as a master plan.
Speaker 7: It's like whoa, and those individuals just to bring it
Speaker 7: around or connect the dots, they to deep spiritual work
Speaker 7: as well. Like I think those are two artists for sure,
Speaker 7: Parol Sanders and John Coltran who recognized their lives as
Speaker 7: the instrument as well. And we're doing that deep studying
Speaker 7: and taking that responsibility to polish their instrument of their.
Speaker 9: When I finally understood what was going on with The
Speaker 9: Love Supreme, like I was like, oh wow, this is
Speaker 9: just well not not fully understood, but like you know,
Speaker 9: when I finally realized that the you know, the last
Speaker 9: part is him playing the prayer on the back of
Speaker 9: the cover of the album, or you know when he
Speaker 9: when he's playing the in the first part where he's
Speaker 9: playing the Love Supreme motif, and you know, in every
Speaker 9: key he's saying God is in every and everything, So
Speaker 9: you know, just speaking up on things like that, it's like, yes, yes.
Speaker 1: A big part.
Speaker 4: Why so maybe foreign to us because this is one
Speaker 4: of the unfortunate, one of the kind of things that
Speaker 4: I find problematic with how religion is in America, especially
Speaker 4: in terms.
Speaker 1: Especially well there's.
Speaker 9: The church the Coltrane in California.
Speaker 1: And so here's the thing.
Speaker 4: When I was doing research on this is a long
Speaker 4: story of me finding out how my ancestors came to
Speaker 4: the States. And so the long story short is that
Speaker 4: once they were emancipated, they were allowed to purchase a
Speaker 4: big body of land two hundred acres of which they
Speaker 4: were allowed to go back to their religion and their
Speaker 4: way of living in their techniques, so they didn't have
Speaker 4: to practice Christianity anymore. And once I did the research
Speaker 4: of what they did in Africa Town in Alabama, at
Speaker 4: first I was joking like, oh, no, wonder, I'm kind
Speaker 4: of hippioists, Like there are a bunch of hippies. They
Speaker 4: even in the Failout play they spoke of a I
Speaker 4: can't pronounce it in bulk towards it's a religious practice
Speaker 4: where it's like a three day meditation. It would be
Speaker 4: the equivalent of a Hyawaska Ta ceremony or that sort
Speaker 4: of thing. Or mushrooms or whatever. It's sort of like
Speaker 4: the religion that was imposed on us for purposes of
Speaker 4: slavery is conflicting into what we originally came from. And
Speaker 4: so that's kind of what I'm conflicted with now on
Speaker 4: at least trying to get other black people then not
Speaker 4: just think that I'm some Birkenstock granola hippie.
Speaker 1: So yeah, hey, do tune in into and out.
Speaker 7: There's a large to tribe than you think. I like
Speaker 7: to think that whatever archetypal benevolent energies there are, they
Speaker 7: are very forgiving of the small, small minded ways that
Speaker 7: human beings interpret what they have to say. I like
Speaker 7: to imagine them in another realm, just like in harmony
Speaker 7: with each other, and we're the ones who are like
Speaker 7: clashing our like diminished edits of what they've offered with
Speaker 7: each other, you know, because I mean everywhere you go
Speaker 7: in the world that Christianity has been imposed, you see
Speaker 7: ways that indigenous cultures have absorbed the best of and
Speaker 7: use it as nomenclature to translate what they already knew
Speaker 7: what they already knew to be truths, because I mean, essentially,
Speaker 7: if you can't feel the ultimate truth in your heart?
Speaker 7: What's the word gonna do for you? You know? And
Speaker 7: I have seen this with friends who are practicing in
Speaker 7: other faiths but are really open to Christianity. They find
Speaker 7: the metaphor they need to access that benevolent archetype and
Speaker 7: let it serve them and support them. So, you know,
Speaker 7: like in other words, like I don't need to throw
Speaker 7: away Christianity or like put it down. I just can
Speaker 7: see that humans got their hands on it, diminished it
Speaker 7: to diminish other human beings. But the archetypal truth exactly
Speaker 7: is what it is. And I think there are benevolent
Speaker 7: entities that are hard to describe, Like what we're.
Speaker 8: A dummy version of what you just said is most
Speaker 8: people just say I'm spiritual.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it work with it.
Speaker 8: Like not one or true religions. They got some truth,
Speaker 8: here's some truth. I just pull it.
Speaker 7: But I mean that's that's similar to how we get
Speaker 7: into music, right, Like essentially, if you are devoted, you're
Speaker 7: gonna find what you need. Like devotion is devotion is devotionally,
Speaker 7: it doesn't matter if you're a folk singer or a
Speaker 7: jazz musician or whatever, Like if you're willing to put
Speaker 7: in that level of devotion, like you will unpackage that
Speaker 7: the polishing of your centrifuge, you know, and be able
Speaker 7: to bring through the magic that that you have to
Speaker 7: offer in this realm.
Speaker 2: I have a question, yes, with regards to music being
Speaker 2: a healing tool and so forth, and I want to
Speaker 2: just temporarily bring it to the to the actual bass
Speaker 2: guitar and is the is the bass guitar or base
Speaker 2: or anything that creates low end Is that is that
Speaker 2: more suitable for healing because of the stronger vibrations.
Speaker 7: Oh, that's interesting. I don't know. For me, I experienced
Speaker 7: it as a very soothing part of my life. Also,
Speaker 7: I think more than the bass as an instrument, that
Speaker 7: was an instrument that I could improvise on. It was
Speaker 7: the first instrument that I actually felt free, just spontaneously
Speaker 7: creating on. And I recently that's what.
Speaker 9: I meant by comfortable earlier.
Speaker 7: Yeah, Yeah, I recently learned that when you are in
Speaker 7: the state of improvising, you're actually soothing your brain. So
Speaker 7: being an active improvisation actually changes the functionality of your
Speaker 7: brain as you're doing it. It's also the only time
Speaker 7: that you're the part of your brain that forms I
Speaker 7: narrative and the part of your brain that listens are
Speaker 7: active at the same time. So personally, I don't know
Speaker 7: if it's the instrument itself or the fact that I
Speaker 7: was free on it. I know that my whole life,
Speaker 7: when I've been playing the instrument, I've been soothing myself.
Speaker 7: I've been soothing my brain. It is a blessing.
Speaker 2: But also because you know it, you'll feel the vibrations
Speaker 2: more in your body because a stand up.
Speaker 7: Basically, yeah, that would be something interesting to look into.
Speaker 7: Just the resonance. What the resonance of the instrument does?
Speaker 7: It feels healing as hell?
Speaker 2: I mean, it's I have one other question about that bass.
Speaker 2: So for people that don't know out there, the difference
Speaker 2: between an upright bass or a standard an acoustic bass
Speaker 2: and a double bass.
Speaker 7: Different.
Speaker 2: It's just different names for the same thing.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, can I ask a question.
Speaker 8: My dad wanted me to ask you this question because
Speaker 8: we were rolling around listening to your music the other
Speaker 8: day and he was like, oh, I'm a fan. You
Speaker 8: don't have to play it, he said, but he's as
Speaker 8: a drummer. My dad's a drummer. He was like, I
Speaker 8: need her to really talk about how difficult it is
Speaker 8: to sing and play stand up bass and how those
Speaker 8: somehow he did some of Mere bill Ship where it's
Speaker 8: like the ones the two's in the fours, and how
Speaker 8: it's hard to get in and stuff.
Speaker 7: But I didn't. I was like, I'm gonna ask the ruin,
Speaker 7: ask espan. Yeah, I disagree that it's hard. I think
Speaker 7: because it's all hard. All of it is difficult. I mean,
Speaker 7: we know this.
Speaker 1: You know this practice I did.
Speaker 7: I did. I practiced a lot. I think anybody who
Speaker 7: practiced as much as I did singing and playing would
Speaker 7: find it as accessible as playing piano. Left and right
Speaker 7: hand is just you're used to seeing that, so we
Speaker 7: don't think about it as much. But like left and
Speaker 7: right hand piano, independence is crazy?
Speaker 1: What's the thing you ignore?
Speaker 7: Ignore?
Speaker 5: If I'm playing and singing, I'm not thinking about what
Speaker 5: I'm playing. I'm thinking about what I'm singing.
Speaker 7: Oh, interimating. I try to hear it all like I
Speaker 7: try to stretch fe Okay, you know what it is
Speaker 7: like After a certain point, the kinetic memory comes in
Speaker 7: on the base. Yeah, so that you have access to that.
Speaker 7: I have to say, though this particular era, I have
Speaker 7: not been practicing that much, and it's really wild to
Speaker 7: be in like a plying environment and actually be trying
Speaker 7: to think about all that shit at once. It's it
Speaker 7: doesn't feel it doesn't feel as close right.
Speaker 8: Now because Peters, my dad is eighty, and we were
Speaker 8: really trying to rack our brains to think of other
Speaker 8: stand musicians that play stand up base and sing, and we.
Speaker 7: Were like, yeah, can you play drums? Sure? Does it
Speaker 7: sound good?
Speaker 1: You play good? Have you played on your albums?
Speaker 7: I have not?
Speaker 1: Okay, I got a question, but it's not too late.
Speaker 5: The Roots have been trying to complete their last album
Speaker 5: for like three or four years. Yeah, and you like
Speaker 5: to like make an album in like three days.
Speaker 1: Yeah, things like that. So I feel like the two
Speaker 1: of you.
Speaker 7: Yeah, but that yeah, that that album. What that was
Speaker 7: was showcasing the process of creation as the project. So
Speaker 7: it was less about the final product and more about
Speaker 7: like the art form that we're exhibiting right here is
Speaker 7: creation itself with all the tightrope walking involved. Because I
Speaker 7: truly think personally in my Daredevil character that I am like,
Speaker 7: when the risk is real, it activates this whole other
Speaker 7: dimension of your creativity.
Speaker 9: That I agree with you and not just in music,
Speaker 9: just I think it's in anything. Like I feel like
Speaker 9: I do my best work when I'm under so much
Speaker 9: pressure because that.
Speaker 7: Okay, what about it does not have to be pressure,
Speaker 7: but just the stakes are real, Like, the stakes are
Speaker 7: really real.
Speaker 5: You have to write the paper, You stay up all
Speaker 5: night to write the paper for well you didn't go
Speaker 5: to college because you're a prodigy, and then write the
Speaker 5: paper the night before because you needed the deadline.
Speaker 7: No, no, I mean it like I think we're both
Speaker 7: referring to like the creative environment where the stakes are
Speaker 7: high and very real and there's nowhere else to go.
Speaker 7: Like if you had two weeks to do the paper,
Speaker 7: you could theoretically start a two weeks out and you
Speaker 7: could feel that like, hm, okay, I'm leaning towards something.
Speaker 7: What I love is when you're in an environment you
Speaker 7: don't know what's about to happen, and you're being asked
Speaker 7: to generate in real time a creative response. To me,
Speaker 7: that's the most exciting space of creation.
Speaker 1: Provisation one on one, I mean, that's exactly what you're doing.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's also like improvisation at the highest level, because
Speaker 7: improvisation one on one could be like, oh, I know
Speaker 7: the context, it's going to be this like C Minor blues,
Speaker 7: and here's all the scales and the shapes that I prepared.
Speaker 7: I'm interested in the stuff that you don't know, Like
Speaker 7: you don't know yet what it's going to look like,
Speaker 7: you don't know what's coming at you, and you and
Speaker 7: you co create in real time. And I think that's
Speaker 7: what the Way showed Quartet did for the world. They
Speaker 7: like showed the highest possible level of that, like spontaneous creation,
Speaker 7: literally making something from nothing, because they'll go out and
Speaker 7: have no idea, they don't have a set, they don't
Speaker 7: have a song.
Speaker 5: But you learn that shit so you can forget it.
Speaker 5: Isn't that that's the big line about that stuff. You
Speaker 5: learn C Minor skills and all that other craft. When
Speaker 5: you actually get there, you just vacated.
Speaker 7: Maybe that said a lot, but I'm having a hard
Speaker 7: time thinking of anybody who actually exhibits what the possibility
Speaker 7: is at that level. It's like the Way also, I
Speaker 7: just I'm like such a devote of wings. I try
Speaker 7: to talk about them as much as I can.
Speaker 4: Next level, I would like to propose a not a
Speaker 4: challenge of missions before you leave god. Okay, okay, are
Speaker 4: you familiar with Are you familiar with dogma ninety five?
Speaker 1: Have you heard that term? All right, so what is it?
Speaker 1: Dogmen ninety five?
Speaker 7: Excited?
Speaker 4: So a bunch of Danish filmmakers tired, we're tired of
Speaker 4: the French flexing on that.
Speaker 1: Oh we're the best filmmakers, We're the most artistic. So
Speaker 1: they about to say, like thee.
Speaker 4: So they so they issued a challenge which had all
Speaker 4: these restrictions like okay, well then you got to make
Speaker 4: a movie on this type of camera with natural lighting,
Speaker 4: no soundtracks, nodada, no, edits no. And it was like,
Speaker 4: who makes the best product under all these strictions. Then
Speaker 4: they're the winner, and they called it Dogmen ninety five.
Speaker 4: I would love to see I love them the music
Speaker 4: version of that.
Speaker 9: Actually, I think there's I think why I think Matthew
Speaker 9: Herbert the electronic musician works that way really and also
Speaker 9: there's somebody else or somebody else Ohnoon. I don't know
Speaker 9: if he still does, but when he first started, he
Speaker 9: used to like when at the end of all of
Speaker 9: his videos he would have like his little manifesto or whatever,
Speaker 9: and it was the list of all all the things
Speaker 9: he didn't all of his rules for making music.
Speaker 7: See, I think that's a luxury of the privilege though,
Speaker 7: like truly, which is cute and beautiful, and.
Speaker 5: I I don't hear what you're saying.
Speaker 7: I really dig that. I really dig that I do.
Speaker 7: And I'm thinking of this documentary that I saw about
Speaker 7: the Landfillharmonic of these young people and their music teachers
Speaker 7: who were making instruments out of garbage. But because that's
Speaker 7: all that had access to and the drive to generate
Speaker 7: music was so strong that they're like, Yo, we don't
Speaker 7: have tellos, we don't have violins, but we have all
Speaker 7: this stuff around us. Let's just make what we need.
Speaker 7: And again, like that creative impulse of generating something out
Speaker 7: of nothing is incredible. And for those of us who
Speaker 7: have like infinite access to these resources, I sort of
Speaker 7: feel like it's our responsibility to expand the spread it
Speaker 7: and then spread it. If you have all that surplus,
Speaker 7: like go find some musicians who are actually trying to
Speaker 7: make some ship and like offer your access to them
Speaker 7: instead of do it, you do it. I know you
Speaker 7: do it.
Speaker 4: Sometimes To get out of here, We're going to continue
Speaker 4: talking so we can come to terms.
Speaker 1: Everything thank you, Thank you so much. You love Your
Speaker 1: Must Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Great.
Speaker 4: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 4: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.