QLS Classic: Branford Marsalis

In the words of Questlove our guest for this classic episode, is "a part of one of THE most important musical dynasty's in music". His touch has been pivotal to the evolution of jazz, but that's not all folks! Branford Marsalis' contributions to the culture can be seen and heard through his acting, the products of his marriage of jazz and hip hop, his barrier breaking presence as a band leader on late night television, his compositions and his scoring, including for Netflix's adaptation of August Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom.  Now hear his story.....

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Yo, Yo, what's up y'all? This is Fonte Fontigelow with
this week's QLs classic. Back in December twenty twenty, we
interview my man jazz legend Branford Marcellus. You're gonna hear
me laughing a lot in this episode because Branford is direct,
he holds nothing back, he don't sugarcoat shit, and he
is also wrapping my alma mater, NCC Gorth Front the

(00:27):
City University. Even Bride up in this thing. We have
Overlappentie and this is just a guy that I truly
just love.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
And just admire his work.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
And we had a great time in this episode. Y'all
enjoy it.

Speaker 4 (00:39):
All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of
Quest Love Supreme.

Speaker 3 (00:56):
I'm your host Questlove. We have Teams Supreme with us. Uh,
we're a La Eels. So this one is quite an episode.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Is on vacation took. He's taking a pandemic vacation, a.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
Pandemic pandemication, all right, So we got a sugar.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
Steve and I paid Bill.

Speaker 5 (01:18):
How's going live in the street?

Speaker 1 (01:20):
I saw your anniversary photo on Sesame Street today on Twitter,
So gratulations.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Or made it congratulations on paper.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
Year eleven, dang, oh year eleven for you, but fifty
for the institution of Sesame Street.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
I get it.

Speaker 6 (01:36):
I said before that I hadn't held a job for
like fifty hours, so it's good I can have that one.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Well, bruh, I'm proud of you. I'm super proud of you,
ladies and gentlemen. Uh what can I say? Our guests
really doesn't need any introduction, but he's so legendary. You know,
this gentleman is part of one of the probably one
of the most important musical dynastiest music.

Speaker 3 (02:05):
Second to the Jacksons.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
Yo, I mean yo, man, accept your flowers, yo, like
no cat, no cat, real flowers right now.

Speaker 3 (02:12):
He's trying to stop me already, you know.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
Saxophonist, uh, jazz historian, hip hop aficionado, actor, late night bandleader, composer, conductor, scorer, everything, Uh,
this this, this, this man is a true renaissance gentlemen.
We're very honored to have him on the show. Please

(02:36):
welcome be great brand from Marcellos to quest lof Supreme.

Speaker 3 (02:40):
Sir, how's it? Where are you right now? North? Carolina.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Oh, okay, you're right round the right for me. I'm
in Raleigh. Wow, all right, I didn't know if you
were still in the area. I saw you. I think
we saw each other. It was on a flight. This
has been like pre Rona times. We saw you on
a flight.

Speaker 3 (02:59):
And what's right to you?

Speaker 2 (03:01):
For real?

Speaker 3 (03:02):
Right? Yeah, that's what here? Okay, So you're you're still
at You're teaching at u n C s C Central?

Speaker 2 (03:14):
Right?

Speaker 3 (03:15):
How many? How many?

Speaker 5 (03:17):
I one day?

Speaker 3 (03:18):
I want? I want someone? They properly explained to me.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
All the North Carolina institutions.

Speaker 7 (03:24):
North Carolina State is in Raleigh, is an engineering school?
Uh hm in the triangle alone, I think we have.

Speaker 3 (03:33):
Three HBCUs Shaw, Saint All and n CCU. Yes, sir,
North Carolina Central. I see. And how how long you've
been at North Carolina Central? Since two thousand and five?
I think? And what are you teaching there? Right now? Music?

Speaker 5 (03:52):
That's economics right right?

Speaker 7 (03:59):
You know it's actually more of a philosophy course than
anything else. It's not really a course, it's just how
to think in musical terms.

Speaker 5 (04:08):
That's cool.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
Okay, Since since you've been there for fifteen years, do
you find is it harder each increasing year to get
people to understand a point of view of music that
might have seemed easier, say when if you were teaching

(04:29):
a class of like, say nineteen ninety six, nineteen ninety seven,
that's closer to the music that you were involved in,
as opposed to dealing with gen Z in their way
of life? Or are they teaching you? There was a
point where I was teaching my students, and then the
last year of school, I slowly realized, oh, they're teaching me,
and that that was scary to me, right, But it's.

Speaker 3 (04:50):
Always an exchange. I teach them more than that they
teach me.

Speaker 7 (04:55):
But almost all of the kids that are at the
school are from the North Carolina here uh and they all.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
Basically come out of the church.

Speaker 7 (05:05):
Okay, So their exposure to jazz per se is when
they get to school.

Speaker 3 (05:10):
They didn't grow up playing jazz, they didn't grow up
listening to it. And I enjoy that. I enjoy that.

Speaker 7 (05:17):
And the goal is not to create jazz musicians, but
to use jazz's kind of a template to develop a
thought process regardless of what style of music you end
up playing. Most of our students that are doing well
don't play jazz.

Speaker 3 (05:30):
And that's that's okay with you. Oh, I'm horrified. It's terrible.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
What what's hard fining about it?

Speaker 7 (05:39):
What making I'm learning every bit what I did for
twenty years of my life.

Speaker 3 (05:45):
No, I can't. I get that.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
But people arrive at a different place in their life,
at different points in our life.

Speaker 3 (05:53):
And no, but I'm at a different place in my life. Okay.

Speaker 7 (05:57):
It doesn't mean that everybody else needs to be in
a place where I am.

Speaker 3 (06:00):
All right, I got to ask the hard questions. I
was talking to the students today and it was about that.

Speaker 7 (06:06):
It was about like, how I'm like, I'm sixty now,
so I don't listen to the same music that I did.

Speaker 3 (06:11):
When I was thirty, and I definitely would listen to
it in the same way.

Speaker 7 (06:15):
Okay, And the idea, And the idea isn't a question
of liking or hating. It's just just like, at various
points of your life, without gradually knowing it, without knowing it,
you very gradually just move away from things.

Speaker 3 (06:30):
It doesn't mean that you hate them, you just just
move away from it.

Speaker 2 (06:34):
What's an example of something you listen to, say when
you were thirty and you listen to now and you
hear it in a different way. What's different about it?

Speaker 3 (06:41):
Oh? No, it depends on what it is. Okay. If
I'm listening to like one of those old show beers
in AG records, yess her, it sounds like it did then.

Speaker 7 (06:54):
I mean, it's not like, oh no, oh, I didn't
never heard that before, you know, of like Premier's records
or just stuff that I was around, you know, Public
Enemy or KRS, just that whole style. Like what is
hip hop now is like vastly different in general from.

Speaker 3 (07:13):
What it was back then.

Speaker 2 (07:15):
Oh you got to tell me, do right.

Speaker 3 (07:20):
This is a whole different kind of thing.

Speaker 7 (07:22):
So when I hear it, it's like, oh, it brings
me back to that time, and I enjoy it. But
like like unlike a lot of my friends from high school,
and they openly tease me about it, and I tease them.

Speaker 3 (07:35):
I am the person least likely that listens to listen
to seventies classic R and B radio.

Speaker 7 (07:43):
You know, I did that, and I was there and
I loved it, and then I move on to this
other thing and I keep moving forward. Even if the
music is one hundred years old, it's new to me.
I get exposed to things and I try not to.
And it's not like I'm cool with the style. If
it comes on, I'm gonna listen to it.

Speaker 3 (08:01):
And go, Man, I love that, but I'm not going
to actively put that on.

Speaker 2 (08:06):
Yeah, I think the playlist, like culture now, the way
people consume music is really kind of made that even
more pronounced because now there's really no such thing as music.
There's no such thing as old music or new music.
It's just either you know it or you don't. So
if I'm listening to a playlist and it's a song
on there from twenty fifteen, I don't know, you know

(08:28):
what I mean. I could have been yesterday, you know
what I mean.

Speaker 1 (08:31):
And I guess the temptation to not go to your
default place, Like right now, I'm really trying to force
myself to not go to the playlist I curate, because
I'm gonna I fall in a rabbit hole of just
the stuff that I'm used to, And you know, I'm
trying to discover new music and I'm kind of running
the well is getting a little dry right now, So

(08:51):
I don't know. There's a few friends that I trust
in their playlist and I'll sneak on their Spotify is
to see what they got, and you know, I might
discover like five or six new songs I have. But
now that the wells getting dry, like the temptation to
just not go to my default comfort zone is that's
a scary thing now, Like I'm running out of music
that I don't know about, and that's that's a scary

(09:15):
thing to me because I know there's much more out there.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
What's the difference, I'll be curious to know, branth or
your take on what is the difference between music? What
would you say is the difference between music that is
challenging versus something that you just don't like, you know
what I mean? Like me's talking about, you know, kind
of getting out of your comfort zone. But where is
that line for you between Okay, this is something that's
challenging me a little bit versus this is just something

(09:40):
that I just ain't I ain't really rocking with.

Speaker 3 (09:42):
Well, for me, the musicians have to sound like they're
interacting with one another for me to like it. I
can kind of tell when.

Speaker 7 (09:51):
Records are kind of produced in a way that one
track was done on Wednesday and another track was.

Speaker 3 (09:56):
Done on Thursday. A lot of records are productions now right.

Speaker 7 (10:01):
All you have to do is put on just about
any record in any style from the sixties and compare
it to now. And there's an organic energy in those
records because it was human beings in a room.

Speaker 3 (10:12):
That's the stuff that I prefer to listen to.

Speaker 7 (10:16):
But I don't really I don't really get with the like,
you know, like I don't hear things and go oh,
you know, I don't.

Speaker 3 (10:23):
I don't like that. I'll listen to it first and go, yeah,
that's not my thing.

Speaker 7 (10:27):
But challenging music is interesting because it goes against kind
of the tenets of popular culture. Because if it's something
that's really challenging, really good, your first instinct is not
to like it.

Speaker 3 (10:37):
You have to grow to like it. And we don't
usually give music that much time. You know.

Speaker 7 (10:43):
It's not like it's like it's not like, yeah, this
shit sucks, I'm gonna put it on tomorrow.

Speaker 3 (10:50):
It's like, no, it is over.

Speaker 1 (10:54):
Yeah, I mean, but sometimes I mean I might, I
might get fomo. There will be something like I I'll
give you an example, when the Chronic came out. I
hated the Chronic, right, and I said, Yo, this shit sucks, man,
you hate this ship. And but I had fomo because
everyone else had this whole fifty million Elvis fans can't

(11:14):
be wrong.

Speaker 3 (11:15):
And I thought like, well, what is it me that's
not accepting it?

Speaker 1 (11:18):
And I realized that, you know, sonically, doctor Dre was
taking I wanted my hip hop dirty and nasty and
kind of like this amateurist uh diy thing, and he
he just made it sound so clean that you know,
it took me a good decade to really open up
and accept that. Okay, this really great piece of work.

(11:41):
So it's a lot different than the East Coast sound.
It really well at that time it was well, yeah,
it was.

Speaker 3 (11:47):
I wasn't used to that cleaning cleanliness. You know, hey,
where do you? Where do you fall in your you're brewed?
And and your brothers? Where do you? Are? You the
the top number one? You're the oldest? Okay?

Speaker 1 (12:02):
So what the question we start with as far as
like your musical discovery? Do you remember the first album
you ever purchased?

Speaker 3 (12:10):
Yeah? I remember the first two albums, ever, what is it?

Speaker 7 (12:13):
The Elton Ghen record called Honky Chateau and a record
Chawn called the Big.

Speaker 2 (12:19):
Bamboo Smoky shat told. Is that the one with Mona
Lisa's and Manhatters on it?

Speaker 7 (12:24):
No, maybe it did, ba Bay, that's the one with
a Honky Cat on Okay, okay, wait, maybe.

Speaker 3 (12:32):
Mona Lisa's is on that record. Maybe Mona Lisa's is
on that records.

Speaker 2 (12:35):
Well, okay, you'll cover that. That was the first time
I ever heard that song.

Speaker 3 (12:40):
I saw, great, it's like one of them things.

Speaker 7 (12:42):
But when I heard it as a kid, I said,
one day, when I make a record, I'm going to
record this song. And thirty years later we were sitting
there with Premier said, man, what are we gonna do?
I said, I got an idea. I want to do
this song. I'll be wanting to do it since I
was ten. We yeah, we kind of sketched out there,
you know, the arrangement of it, and uh, it was
you know it probably is, you know, I don't that's

(13:04):
a long time ago. I don't I know the songs,
but I don't remember. And I had so many John records,
I don't know which ones was on which.

Speaker 5 (13:11):
On that side too, yeah, side too of that.

Speaker 3 (13:13):
Oh it's on side to a Honkey Chatau. Thank you. Yeah,
that's a good record. Man, but those are the first
records I have a buck.

Speaker 1 (13:20):
Okay, well this I guess I'm just going to dive
in the fire. I was shocked because, you know, I
guess the perception that most people have of anyone that
comes from the Marcella's household is that you guys were
intravenously breathing, sleeping, and eating anything jazz and nothing else.

(13:40):
At least, that was the kind of perception that most
of us have had.

Speaker 7 (13:44):
About That's fair enough, because I mean a lot of people,
when you decided to play something that's not popular, people
try to try to invent an explanation for.

Speaker 3 (13:53):
Why that is.

Speaker 7 (13:55):
Oh, you know, they've been doing it since they were kids.
I hated jazz when I was a kid, just did
not like.

Speaker 3 (14:00):
It at all.

Speaker 7 (14:01):
Okay, went and started digging it when he was about twelve,
and I was like, yeah, that's nice, man, keep listening
to that shit if you want to. Yeah, you know
that was My dad was a jazz musician. He was like,
you know, to me, no different than the dude. You know,
some dads some moms are lawyers. Some moms some dads
of carpenters. My dad played music, you know, and it

(14:23):
wasn't like, oh jazz. You know, my dad would put
on these jazz records, I leave the room.

Speaker 3 (14:28):
Oh. So he tried to force like King Oliver on
you guys.

Speaker 7 (14:31):
And it's just like I didn't even know that he
was mostly a post bop dude.

Speaker 3 (14:35):
You know.

Speaker 7 (14:36):
It's like, you know, all that late forties up until
when he started having kids and couldn't afford to buy
records no more so from late forties to sixty that
was more his thing, especially Coltran, fifty seven Coltrane all
the way up to sixty seven Coltrane.

Speaker 3 (14:51):
That was that was his.

Speaker 1 (14:52):
That was very My introduction to your dad was via
your brothers thank you at the the Grammy Awards, right,
and your brother thanked your dad for forcing him to practice,
which sparked a fire in my own dad, who was watching.

Speaker 3 (15:13):
You know. That was the year that Michael Jackson had.

Speaker 1 (15:16):
That was the year that Michael Jackson had, you know,
won all those awards, and your brother had won for
Classical in Jazz, and that was like kind of his
his arrival party, and that moment was such a profound
That was one of the worst moments of my life
in eighty four and my dad will say that was
the most profound moment of his life because that's when

(15:37):
he was like, all right, you're now going to come
straight home after school and start practicing four to five
hours every day, I feel. And so, what like was
practice mandatory in this household or was it just like,
at what point were you guys to take your missicians?

Speaker 7 (15:58):
Well, specifically you uh as the oldest like that knows
how to tell a good story. I mean, my dad
didn't make anybody practice.

Speaker 1 (16:06):
Man, don't tell me that I freaking sacrificed my damn
wife off of an urban legend.

Speaker 3 (16:12):
Yep. Fuck it worked out well for you. Don't worry
about getting hurt. Man.

Speaker 1 (16:19):
This is this is this is worse than finding out
the Sugarfoot Love roller coaster scream wasn't a real thing.

Speaker 2 (16:25):
It wasn't real.

Speaker 3 (16:26):
I went up to him like, hey, wasn't a really
stone boy. That wasn't a real thing. Yeah y'all heard that.

Speaker 7 (16:34):
Oh yeah, it's actually it was actually fop that was
a girl getting murdered.

Speaker 3 (16:39):
No, I'm telling you. People think it's love roller coaster.

Speaker 1 (16:41):
At the end of Fop on on side to was
that murderous scream.

Speaker 3 (16:47):
And it was just there's this one. I love roller
coaster too. In the second half after they break it down,
there's the worst one on FIP. Trust me, i'n't heard
the going on FIP. Yes, I was just listening in
the FOP couple of weeks ago. Man.

Speaker 7 (16:59):
I did a nostalgia run for my kids because they't
never heard none of that stuff.

Speaker 3 (17:02):
They never heard it.

Speaker 6 (17:03):
Okay, okay, So your career is based off of a
Winton Marcells live.

Speaker 2 (17:07):
So there you go.

Speaker 3 (17:08):
I could go regulated regulation. No.

Speaker 7 (17:12):
Winton was very self motivated. He practiced three hours a
day on his own, and he did just three I
was five.

Speaker 3 (17:19):
Well, Winton was. He was an interesting specimen.

Speaker 7 (17:22):
He was a national A merit scholar, so you know
he had like you know, he got free ride scholarships
from Stanford and from Harvard and all these places because
he was academically on the top of it. He was
a national A merit scholar, and he would have to
practice in increments. They practiced by half an hour day
in the morning before school. They would come home for lunch.

(17:44):
We practicing a half an hour between lunch. Then we
would go to the music school. Because we had this
interesting thing. We had to go to academic school from
eight to twelve and the music school from one to six.
So then we went to the New Orleans Center of
Creative Arts, and you practice for an hour or so
at school in between classes. It adds up to an hour,
and then at Homie practiced for an hour after the

(18:05):
homework and then repeat that cycle every day.

Speaker 3 (18:08):
I was impressed, and I'm glad it wasn't me, but
I was impressed.

Speaker 7 (18:13):
So what were you doing during this time here? Because
I mean I was learning Bob. I was listening to
Parliament Funkadelic, the Barcades. I was fourteen years old. I
was in a R and B band with a bunch
of men who had jobs. So I was basically the
piano player in that band, and I was learning all
the songs that won the radio and all their parts
because they had real jobs.

Speaker 3 (18:35):
So I promised them, like when.

Speaker 7 (18:36):
We had practice on Thursday, I wouldn't know all their
parts too, so they wouldn't have to deal with it
then because if because what I noticed when I joined
the band, we were playing like the same ten songs
every week.

Speaker 3 (18:48):
You know, the Love I Lost, Wake Up Everybody?

Speaker 7 (18:52):
And I was like, man, are we going to do
anything else, and they're like, we got real jobs. We
ain't got no time for that shit. All right, I'll
learn the songs. I learned the songs. I would learn
all the songs that would hear a song on the radio.
I go by the forty five ninety nine cents. Learned
the songs, and they didn't read music, so it's not
like I could write a chart. So I would learn
the bassline, the guitar part, everybody's parks, and then I

(19:14):
would sing the parts. Didn't if they were questionable about anything.
And my mother was pissed. She was like, you know,
they just using you, And my dad is like, man,
that's good hit training and lead the boy alone.

Speaker 3 (19:24):
Let him do it. So after about a year of
doing that, it was hard at first.

Speaker 7 (19:30):
By the time I was fifteen, I could learn the
song off the radio as it was coming off the radio,
because you know, the whole point of those songs is
that they're not hard to listen to.

Speaker 3 (19:37):
That's part of the appeal.

Speaker 1 (19:39):
So you just start writing the chord charts right there.

Speaker 3 (19:42):
They didn't read.

Speaker 7 (19:43):
I was nobody in the band read but me and
my brother, So no, I wasn't writing nothing down. I
was just learning songs and telling them what the notes
were and singing the bassline, sing.

Speaker 3 (19:51):
The guitar part. We put the forty five on.

Speaker 7 (19:53):
I bring the forty five to practice, put them on,
and we learned songs that way, and that way we
could play more of a variety of songs.

Speaker 1 (20:00):
What was the level of musicians, like, I'm assuming this
is New Orleans, correct, as in New Orleans? All right,
So what was the level of musicians, especially funk musicianship? Like,
can I assume that for every meters there were forty
other bands that could kick their ass that we just
never heard of.

Speaker 3 (20:17):
Or all meters were special man, okay needed special? There
were you know, there were a lot of good bands
in New Orleans. Either meters come on, that was something else.
I mean, we would always go and check them out.

Speaker 7 (20:28):
And there was a place called the Labor Union Hall
on North Clayborne Street and they'd be playing that for
five bucks, you know. So here the Meters, Yeah, I
was some special ship man, you know. And that's the
music from their neighborhood. I grew up in their neighborhood.
I grew above town. So I mean they you know,
their neighborhood, they had that thing. But there were a
lot of.

Speaker 3 (20:47):
Great musicians in town, you know, a lot of great musicians.

Speaker 7 (20:51):
We had brass band musicians, we had jazz musicians, we
had trad musicians, R and B musicians, rock and roll musicians,
R and B musicians. We had that New Orleans flunk,
like Professor long Hair and all that stuff. Yeah, Professor
long Hair. And then then his his descendant was H.
James James, with doctor John too. But see, by the
time I was conscious, doctor Mackett already moved.

Speaker 3 (21:13):
To La Body.

Speaker 7 (21:14):
Oh okaytch mac was gone by the time, like in
the seventies. My my musical consciousness starts around nineteen seventy
seventy one, and Mackott already moved to LA and you
know he was doing like was that song that a
big hit?

Speaker 3 (21:28):
Right place, wrong time, right wrong time, you know, And
my dad would laugh whenever it came on. He goes,
manlet's know, old man, that's great. And that's what I
loved about ving from Like we didn't have you know,
when I.

Speaker 7 (21:38):
Moved to New York and suddenly they were like jazz
camp over here, R and B camp over here. But
in New Orleans, I mean it's such a small city.
All the musicians was just in there. So anytime anybody
get well, everybody cheered. Yeah really in wait Philly is
that way too though? No, No, we're the worst fans
of all time.

Speaker 8 (21:55):
So about as the musicians musicians and for what with
my outsider interpretation of Philly musicians don't really.

Speaker 7 (22:05):
They don't, they don't. They're like the cross genre really easily.
They're not trying to be especialist in a category. That's
my perception in the little time that.

Speaker 3 (22:15):
I spent there.

Speaker 7 (22:17):
Okayheas in New York it's very territorial and I kind
of laughed at them, but you know, New Orleans was
just great that way.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
So if you're saying that at the time when you
were in this band, how old were you were you
like fourteen, fifteen, twelve?

Speaker 3 (22:33):
Son nineteen seventy two? Wait, how old were they? If
you were twelve? There were men bad jobs? Oh Okay.

Speaker 1 (22:41):
At this point, are you saying that this is what
you want to do or I know what I wanted
to be?

Speaker 3 (22:46):
So when did you take your musicianship seriously? I took
that shit seriously then, but it didn't mean that I
wanted to do it, okay, you know, think of it.
You know, it's like, you know, it's I played sports.
I tried to play football. I took it seriously. I sucked.

Speaker 7 (23:02):
I wasn't gonna be nobody's football player. But it's not like, well,
I'm I'm not gonna take it seriously since I'm not
gonna play it in college. I'm not gonna play in
the NFL. It's like, you know, you out there trying
to play, you out there trying. So I was in
this band, and I took it very seriously. I learned everybody,
learned everybody's damn parts.

Speaker 3 (23:17):
How's definitely not taking it seriously.

Speaker 7 (23:19):
I knew I was like a musical director, and I
was thirteen, so you know, I took it very seriously,
and I was prepared, and I learned all these songs
and I did all my stuff, and that was where.

Speaker 3 (23:31):
My head was, you know.

Speaker 7 (23:33):
And then went got to Clifford Brown and classical music,
and I thought it was great.

Speaker 3 (23:38):
I played classical music when I was younger. I played
clarinet in the youth orchestra. Right.

Speaker 7 (23:43):
I remember this is actually the most well, it's as
an old man, it's pathetic.

Speaker 3 (23:48):
As a young person.

Speaker 7 (23:48):
It's probably a very common story every so when you
switch to play saxophone. I said, I was thirteen years
old and I saw these girls and it was like
the first time that I saw girls.

Speaker 3 (24:00):
Damn they fun.

Speaker 7 (24:02):
So they're walking and I'm like filing behind them because
I don't know what to do. And they walked into
a dance and I went in and there was a
band player, you know, And I looked in and I
saw the band, and I said, I got join one
of those bands so I can eat girls. So I
went home and said, I want a saxophone. Said so
I joined the band, and my dad laughed and said, okay,

(24:23):
whatever that's you know. And then Christmas I got in saxophone.
I was already in the band playing piano. I didn't
want to play piano. I wanted to play saxophone in
the band. So when I was fourteen, I convinced his
friend of mine, Kerman Campbell, who was a really great
piano player, because I was. I was not a great
I was a functional piano player, you know, three note chords,
the whole thing. I got Kerman, who was in this

(24:46):
other band. I think it was like jam incorporator. I said, man,
come join the creators man, and he thought I was
trying to double where. I say, wait a minute, man,
you played piano. I said, not really, I.

Speaker 3 (24:55):
Don't play the vienna. Join the vienna player.

Speaker 7 (24:57):
You should come join the band because I want to
get a horns because we have one horn player. John
Roche was the trumpet player, said I want to get
a horn section, and I want to get me on
alto and went into the other.

Speaker 3 (25:08):
Trumpet, and we have this three piece horn section. It'd
be great. I don't know, bro, I don't know.

Speaker 7 (25:12):
I said, come on, Kerman and he did it. So
then I played saxophone in the band and Kerman took
over there. And then Kermit is a really musically knowledgeable guy.
You know, he played in church. So we really got
this music thing happening in the band. So the bass
player was like, Okay, it's getting too heavy for me.
I'm just going to be the manager.

Speaker 3 (25:28):
Why don't you go get a better bax What the hell?

Speaker 2 (25:32):
Wow?

Speaker 3 (25:33):
He was right. I mean we were going to the
fire him if he didn't do that anyway, and.

Speaker 2 (25:36):
He saw it.

Speaker 7 (25:38):
So he became the manager of the band and we
got the Hamilton Brothers the drummer got mad at me
and just quit Bertrane and said, you know, who do you.

Speaker 3 (25:45):
Think you are?

Speaker 9 (25:46):
Man?

Speaker 3 (25:46):
You know your little punk? I mean, I'm a grown
ass man. I quit. Damn great.

Speaker 7 (25:53):
So he quit, and then we called the Hamilton brothers,
Shannon and Anthony Hamilton.

Speaker 3 (25:56):
They joined the band, and that was pretty much what
the band was for a long time.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
And you, it was you and your brother went in
this band, Me and Wynton and John Rochie with a
horn section, Anthony Hamilton on bass, Shannon Hamilton on drums,
Michael hs on.

Speaker 3 (26:10):
Guitar, Gavin Bell was the singer, Kermit was the keyboard player.

Speaker 1 (26:15):
Pretty much it Wow, Okay, I'm glad I knew this
story again. Like I guess, my all time profession was
that you guys were just born with these scepters and
capes of.

Speaker 3 (26:30):
World, and everybody wants to believe it. I don't know
why they want to believe it, but it's fine.

Speaker 1 (26:35):
So I'm not the only person that comes to you.
You're already flying, you're already swatting flies. All my questions,
I don't know, do you know what's coming?

Speaker 3 (26:44):
No, it's just like you know, yeah, it's not true.
But people need to believe it's fine, you know, like, yeah,
we're we're the Black von Trapps. Ye, you know, we've
been singing.

Speaker 7 (26:55):
Dead stands over us and says no, let's do it.

Speaker 3 (27:00):
That's great.

Speaker 1 (27:03):
So you're telling me that, like your brother knows a
horn line that like pee wee from the Ohio Players
once did in this lifetime.

Speaker 3 (27:10):
Yeah, absolutely, I just refuse to believe that he knows
anything outside of jazz that. Okay, you're right, he doesn't
know it.

Speaker 7 (27:18):
Well, I see that. Okay, Well explain that to me.
And I don't want to make this about like you
can make it about whatever you want.

Speaker 3 (27:27):
I know that.

Speaker 1 (27:28):
I know it must be tiring answering all these questions
all this time, But you know I always saw you,
at least my perception. Again, this is like our first
real in depth conversation, and we've casually seen each other
passing by or whatever. But I mean I always saw
you as the king of yes, the king of open
I'll do this, and I'll do that, and I'll do
the other, whereas I would see your brother as the

(27:49):
polar opposite, which I mean, I respect it both because
I guess in hip hop, my true heart is kind
of close to where your brother was where I like tradition,
and I like people that are well skilled at their
talent and that.

Speaker 3 (28:01):
Sort of thing.

Speaker 1 (28:02):
But I you know, I also understand that I'm in
a whole another generation now, and what I perceived as
great might not be what someone born in two thousand
things is great. So I mean I get it, But like,
what made you just stick to your guns to be
open to.

Speaker 3 (28:22):
Things that we would otherwise think that I didn't have
to stick to any guns. Went and stuck to his guns.

Speaker 7 (28:29):
I mean I always when I was okay, I'm telling you,
I played with the creators, I played in youth orchestra,
I played trad jazz, I played all of these things,
and uh, you know, I mean I liked them and
I was good at it. Went is one of the
greatest trumpet players in the world. He played funk, but

(28:49):
you know, he didn't play it like you know, he.

Speaker 3 (28:53):
Didn't kill it. He just played it.

Speaker 7 (28:55):
And he was a great trumpet player. I mean John Roche,
who was a more natural funk player, was like, bruh.

Speaker 3 (29:00):
I ain't even heard of fucking trumpet? Sound like that?
What's wrong with him?

Speaker 7 (29:03):
But Lincoln couldn't even think of man just destined for
other things, and you know it proved to be right
for him. But for me, I mean, I always had
a knack I mean for playing funk. And I'm trying
to find his picture if you see my eyes on laundering.
Somebody sent me a picture of the band and wow
and Wenton's in it, and I'm trying to find his
picture so I can send it to you.

Speaker 3 (29:26):
Boy.

Speaker 1 (29:26):
Okay, what is your what's your preferred weapon of choice
as far as your access concerned, and you know bourbon? Well, okay,
so I'm asking this only because I know that you're
proficient on tenor and soprano, and like, no disrespect to

(29:51):
you know, Sidney pochet or or or Shorter or Lacy
or whatever, but I was just always on the impression
that I mean, for like as has Coltrane sort of
not ruined the soprano, but has he made it a
hard mountain to climb for people to pursue a career

(30:15):
in soprano because you've stuck to soprano.

Speaker 7 (30:18):
No, not really, Coltrane wasn't really what I would call
a good soprano player.

Speaker 3 (30:23):
What John did was he ran out a room on.

Speaker 7 (30:27):
The tennis, so he picked up the soprano because he
wanted the notes to get higher. What made Wyn's shortest
soprano playing fascinating to me was that he didn't play
the soprano the same way he played the tenor. The
soprano wasn't a higher extension of his tenor plane. He
treated it like it was a completely separate instrument. And
that was the thing that I was more drawn to.

(30:51):
One of the most incredible soprano players I've ever heard,
John Coltrane is one of the most incredible tenor saxophone
players I've ever heard, and he just transferred his tenor
ship to the soprano because the.

Speaker 3 (31:02):
Tenor wasn't the right sound. But biche, I can play
you recordings of.

Speaker 7 (31:08):
The set playing in a room in Paris in the thirties,
and you can hear the sound of the instrument double
backing in the room. The sound was so I mean,
I was like, that's the sound I want.

Speaker 5 (31:22):
So it was harder to find a sound on though.
I feel like the soprano.

Speaker 6 (31:27):
I grew up a player too, and I never got
laid playing the clarinet also, and I switch like like
I found the soprano that I could. I'm not you,
but like I never found the it always it was
easier to sound like someone else than it was to
the sound. Where I feel like the tenor, you're able
to create your own sound. Maybe that's totally well.

Speaker 7 (31:46):
The thing for me was that when this is how
I got a soprano was Grogo was playing played the
soprano right, and I said, damn, I want a soprano.
So my grandfather said, ram block one of them things.
So there was a company called California Music.

Speaker 3 (32:04):
Instruments, and you call them.

Speaker 7 (32:07):
Send them whatever was six hundred dollars or whatever, and
they would send you.

Speaker 3 (32:11):
A soprano in the mill. So I got it, and
I was excited, but I'm like, well, why the hell
am I gonna play it?

Speaker 7 (32:16):
So I just kind of had it, and all I
would do is pick it up, and what I would
do is use it. I could make it sound like
a clarinet, So I would just pull out clarinet music
and play the soprano and make the tone sound like
a clarinet. I think a lot of people that played
a soprano the only person they ever listened to is Coltrane,
which has that real bright, pinched kind of whining sound

(32:37):
on the soprano.

Speaker 3 (32:38):
They don't even listen to these other guys.

Speaker 7 (32:40):
So for me, just the idea of creating that clarinet
sound on a soprano immediately gave it more of a
woody sound than a tiny sound. And then listening to
Wayne Shorter, who also had a more round.

Speaker 3 (32:54):
Sound than a bright piercing sound, that.

Speaker 7 (32:57):
Kind of set me in a place whereas the already
in my colleagues were going straight from the train thing.

Speaker 3 (33:02):
So their soprano sound was real thin, kind of bright.
I had the exact opposite sound.

Speaker 2 (33:08):
What was your in your opinion? Where does Pharoh Sanders
fit into all of this, because he's like one of
my favorite I mean just I'm not a jazz musician
or like a jazz like nerd like that, but I
just love his I just I just love his sound.

Speaker 7 (33:24):
I was just talking to that guy about that had
never heard from his body is incredible, like the way
he sounds on the instrument.

Speaker 3 (33:29):
But he is completely out of cold traning school. As
a matter of fact, he was playing with Johnny when
he got so his whole thing is he comes out
of cold traning school.

Speaker 7 (33:41):
But the sound he has on the instrument, the hef
of his sound is an amazing thing to listen to.

Speaker 3 (33:45):
And it was something that was very inspiring. And uh
remember when uh phil peeling Philips Hymen.

Speaker 7 (33:53):
Saying on that on on that uh on Gene Karn's
husband's record. I think it was maybe un com as
you are when Pharaoh played that solo and as you.

Speaker 3 (34:03):
Are, yeah, I don't want to.

Speaker 1 (34:07):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, just flipped it, you know.

Speaker 3 (34:12):
And that's my first time checking him out. Man, that's
killing man, you know, other than you know, what's the
other thing Googie.

Speaker 2 (34:20):
Created as a massive plan.

Speaker 1 (34:23):
So fante, I'm realizing now because he dropped a hot
take in saying that Wayne Wayne is slightly not more
advanced in his soprano playing than Coltrank, that I realized
that Branford might be the f m W j of of.

Speaker 3 (34:46):
Of jazz opinions. Wait, I just want to drop this
gym in there. I didn't say that, Okay, okay, because
that's right. I've I've misquoted you before.

Speaker 7 (34:55):
So let'sten, let's let's make a cuche. But anyways, Wayne
comes out of cold. Wayne know I got that. I
know that Wayne soprano sound is molded in a different
it's much rounder sound, the sound that I prefer.

Speaker 3 (35:10):
Other people totally preferred.

Speaker 7 (35:12):
Trained sound, and that they're they're entitled to that. But
for me, Wayne was always the guy I wanted to.

Speaker 2 (35:17):
Sound more like just one of the listeners. We're talking
about Wayne Shorter. Just to be clear, that's the all.

Speaker 3 (35:23):
About about Wayne Newton.

Speaker 1 (35:26):
Sometimes we got to break it down my homeboy, don't
even get me started anyway. So wait, there's all right.
So there's there's a good friend of mine that is
well respected in the jazz world who kind of broke
my heart when he told me that that Carter wasn't

(35:47):
even in his top five.

Speaker 3 (35:51):
Bass player Ron Carter.

Speaker 1 (35:52):
Well you know, okay, okay, right, And the thing was no, no, no,
And I had to investigate this and everyone was like,
oh yeah, Miles never let Ron solo on any of
his things because he wasn't a good soloist.

Speaker 3 (36:06):
And I didn't go to the bass.

Speaker 1 (36:10):
I didn't realize that that was a popular like what
what other.

Speaker 3 (36:15):
Bass is the anchor of the band and not to
be solo. The purpose of the bass.

Speaker 7 (36:19):
You can solo if you want, but the purpose of
the bass is to anchor the band in any style
of music.

Speaker 3 (36:26):
You know what I mean? I mean, like you take
a song like Hocky good Time. What is the bass player?
People of du bo people do b beople dubb for
seven minutes? Can he solo? I don't know, like give
a fuck, not really, I tell you, I love.

Speaker 7 (36:44):
The bass player's job is like you know, Okay, it's
really nice if you have a seven foot guy who
can dribble the ball like a point guard. But we
don't need you to play point We need you to
dump there in the paint and get your assat and
take them bits. I need bass players that can play
the bass. And whoever your guy is, all that is

(37:04):
is just like you know, the bassis. You know, it's
like just regular people hearing jazz. One of the reasons
they hate.

Speaker 3 (37:11):
Jaz because they say it all sounds the same.

Speaker 7 (37:13):
And one reason it all sounds the same is because
everybody's playing the same ship now, So the bass players
are playing the same.

Speaker 3 (37:19):
Shit that the saxophone players play. If you listen to
a record.

Speaker 7 (37:22):
From the forties, the one thing that's is that saxophone
players sound different than trumpet players, who sound different than
bass players who sound different than drummers. Now they all
playing the same two five one legs. So of course
to an untrained ear, it all sounds the same. Because
I have a trained deer, and the ship all sounds
the same. To me, I would rather hear a bass
player sound like a bass rather than go.

Speaker 3 (37:46):
And you know another music to be like whoa.

Speaker 1 (37:47):
I'm like, man, play the guitar, then, so can I
ask what does that mean for uh not even I'm like,
what does that mean for Ray Brown's or Mingus legacy
or mingas?

Speaker 7 (38:04):
Mingas didn't do a lot when he did, and when
he did solo, he sounded like a bass player when he's.

Speaker 3 (38:09):
Solo, dodoo pop boo do peer boo boo boo. He
didn't go, but he didn't do that ship. He played
bass solos and then he would just swing you to death.
I means, come on, man, that's bass.

Speaker 7 (38:28):
Because the whole thing is all right, because because my
bass player, we got into this thing ten fifteen years ago.
It was more of like fifteen where he started like
wanting to take these big modern bass lofers.

Speaker 3 (38:39):
I'm like, man, can you please not do that ship?

Speaker 1 (38:40):
Because he hears a Pastorius head or like was he
a jack ohead?

Speaker 3 (38:45):
Or like no, no way. He plays acoustics, so it's
hard to play like you can't play that on acoustic bass.
You just can't.

Speaker 7 (38:51):
All right, well mcbrithan, you know, well, no, he's older
than Chris. I mean, we all love Christian so but
it was just more like he's he's you know, because
there's a legacy of that, you know, Ray Brown and
Oscar Peditford, all of these guys.

Speaker 3 (39:04):
I said, I would appreciate it. If you wouldn't do it,
You're like, man, you know, I got to express myself.

Speaker 7 (39:10):
What about I said, all right, tonight, when we play
this song, rhythm changes, I'm like, go ahead, play whatever
you want. And then the second night, I said, I
want you to just walk a base baseline, walk a
bass solo. So he's walking the bass solo and if
he's doing it, you hear the audience. By the fourth course,
they're all ploding and screaming. And I said, he says,

(39:32):
I don't even understand that.

Speaker 3 (39:33):
I said, you.

Speaker 7 (39:34):
Gotta think like people who don't know nothing about music,
you're the only instrument that can do that. Like if
I started solo and I started going. It sounds ridiculous
for me to do that. It's not the function of
the saxophone. But if you walk in the bass and
walking with intensity, it's going d D D D. The

(39:55):
only only instrument on the stage that can do that.
So when you do that, the audience has never heard
anything like that. So an audience is sitting there trying
to like the music, and they hear a piano player
and a sax player and a trumpet player, not a
damn base play.

Speaker 3 (40:06):
It's gonna sound just like them.

Speaker 7 (40:07):
There's no change in color everything, no change in anything.
It's all these same licks regurgitated over and over and
over again.

Speaker 3 (40:14):
Song. Everybody's ready to leave. There's no changes in color,
no changes in dynamics. All right. So I'm trying to
now parallel this to my world.

Speaker 1 (40:24):
So maybe what I figure saying is the way that
I sort of feel about gospel chop.

Speaker 3 (40:32):
Patty started. Man, that's just got nothing to do with it.

Speaker 2 (40:35):
Go in, go in, go in.

Speaker 3 (40:39):
I get it now.

Speaker 1 (40:40):
So it's just like I'm more impressed with the pocket
than I am with how.

Speaker 7 (40:44):
Many you know, except the musicians. I mean, this is
what jazz has become. It's like a bunch of musicians
playing for other musicians, and in a lot of ways
in some of the classical music communities, that's what it is.
Really adventurous, highly technical, high and skilled musicians playing for
other musicians. And you know, gospel chops dot com is
musicians playing for musicians. I mean, if I was able

(41:06):
to get a band and they had some band full
of young gospel cats and they all playing, and I
just started going, I'd win every time. Every time I win,
the audience would start clapping, they start screaming, they start.

Speaker 3 (41:22):
Feeling the spirit I win.

Speaker 7 (41:25):
And that's what I'm talking about when I talked about
the bass earlier, is that music has a function. Depending
on the style of it is and the context it is,
it has a function. And what modern musicians want to
do is remove the function from their instrument because suddenly
being a great instrumentalist is more important than.

Speaker 3 (41:43):
Being a great musician.

Speaker 2 (41:45):
I was gonna ask for you, braver, how do you
determine as a musician kind of when to walk the
line between just kind of you know, being you know,
a musician and then kind of being more you know,
a virtuals Like when is it when is it time
to show off or is there ever a time to
show off?

Speaker 3 (42:02):
And the song requires it? No other time? Gotcha?

Speaker 7 (42:05):
If I played with The Grateful Dead, that shit is
never required, I could do it. But who's that for, right?
That's just like a certain kind of self aggrandizement where
you go in and you play all of this hardcore
shit and they ain't but literally, two people in a
room full of eighteen thousand people that will even know

(42:25):
what it is you suddenly become so disconnected from what
it is you're supposed to be doing. You playing a
horn section, what does that mean? That means you in
the background. That's what it means. You're gonna have your
horn parts, You're gonna be dancing, You're gonna be doing
all your things. I mean, you know, you go to
Earth Wind and Fire concert. There a great horn section.
You know, Don Mark was playing alto killing. Didn't nobody

(42:47):
in the audience know the name of the horn section?
Didn't even notice it. You know, everybody knew who Verdeine was,
everybody knew who Maurice was, you know what I mean,
everybody knew.

Speaker 3 (42:55):
Philip Bailey was. They didn't know what the horn section was.

Speaker 7 (42:58):
But that's the thing we always function in the background,
so I come from that and then I start playing jazz.

Speaker 3 (43:03):
I'm still cool with being in the background.

Speaker 7 (43:05):
I don't need to be the center of the attention,
even though the nature of what it is, I wind
up being the center of attention. But when I would play,
people would say, why do you always walk to the
back of the stage when you ain't soloing, I said,
because if I stand there, people are gonna look.

Speaker 3 (43:20):
At me, and I want them to look at whoever
else is solo.

Speaker 7 (43:24):
So if I walk to the back of the stage
behind the piano and I've become a shadow, They're going
to look around and deduce.

Speaker 3 (43:28):
Soh the piano players planning, let me check him out.

Speaker 7 (43:31):
I'm not just gonna stand there in preen imposture because
I'm not that insecure. I don't need the attention to
be on me. You know, I remember Sting was doing
this this. You know he did these Rainforest Foundation concerts.
He do these Rainforest Foundation concerts for twenty years. He
did them at Carnegie Hall once a year, and they
would always have run team. And he caused me, He says,
I need some help. I need a horn section. We're
gonna do Stack to Night and I said, all right,

(43:52):
I'll get back to you. So I said, I called
Lou Solof, who was the trumpet player with Blood Sweating
Tears and played.

Speaker 3 (43:58):
In the Saturday Night Live band. I said, look, let's
do this gig.

Speaker 7 (44:02):
Called this trombone player from Berkeley, Tim Williams, and I said,
I got. It's a three piece horn section, Lose sol Off,
Tim Williams and me, And this think says, now, wait
a minute, mae. You know we don't have any of
these step off performances. I said, Man, I grew up
in a horn section. I don't need a step up performance.
I just want to be in the horn section. I
have never played these tunes. I love these tunes. Just
leave me alone, let me do my thing.

Speaker 3 (44:24):
You know, I'm not.

Speaker 7 (44:26):
We're playing these horn parts and were just having a
good ass time. And then there were a couple of
sax solos. It's like them eight ball little things like
I'll put a spell on you, you know.

Speaker 2 (44:35):
Oh wow, screaming hawkins.

Speaker 3 (44:42):
From me. I used that once in the beat. That
was great anyway, I know y'all know.

Speaker 7 (44:47):
So, and then it came for the solo and I'm
playing the solo, and Steve Cropper turns around and.

Speaker 3 (44:53):
Says, God, damn somewhere you're from New Orleans. Yeah, figures
when we got back to say.

Speaker 1 (45:00):
With me, wait, that's the first time you met Steve
Croppers the first time you met me? Ah yeah, I
was about to say you were brand from Marcellus.

Speaker 3 (45:09):
I don't mean shit to him.

Speaker 7 (45:11):
He's just old boy from Alabama playing some funky ass tunes.
He was like when he told me playing he turned away.
It was it was more of a compliment that he's like, damn, man,
that's how good where you from? You know, Vietnam was
the fact that he didn't know made it hipper, and
that was our games.

Speaker 3 (45:27):
That was it.

Speaker 10 (45:33):
You know.

Speaker 1 (45:33):
I never got a chance to really chop it up
with someone who was of age at the time when
jazz was really going through its eighties transition, you know,
with Miles sort of going on his terrain trying to
refine or redefine himself, and just at the time you

(45:55):
were twenty, I assumed by the age of twenty you
were serious about your craft, and you were at least
in the the young Lions category by this point, Like,
at what point are you no good and all right,
come on, Bran, will you work with me? At what
age were you when when you arrived? What age were you?

Speaker 3 (46:20):
Because I'm asking this because myself, yes, when did you
feel that?

Speaker 1 (46:26):
When was your arrival? When when your father was like, yeah,
my son's killing it. As far as that.

Speaker 7 (46:31):
My father never said that, but uh okay, I did.

Speaker 1 (46:35):
The whole point was that with two thousands with cats,
with cats like well, I'm just saying, with cats like
Crouch and George Butler, Sony and all that with them sort.

Speaker 3 (46:48):
Of as the old jazz guard.

Speaker 1 (46:50):
And you know, I've talked to like David Murray and
all those cats like an mbase trying to do their thing.

Speaker 3 (46:56):
Like what what was the environment?

Speaker 1 (46:59):
Was it a civil war environment of people wrestling trying
to figure out?

Speaker 7 (47:03):
I guess it may have been a civil war for
those who gave a fuck, But I wasn't one of them,
so I don't know civil war for me.

Speaker 3 (47:11):
No, I love it.

Speaker 2 (47:12):
I love it.

Speaker 3 (47:14):
Well, then's my question, like, what was it in that environment?

Speaker 1 (47:18):
Like you just didn't care about jazz critics and jazz
critics please, it was.

Speaker 7 (47:24):
A simple environment. There's a simple question for me, right,
that's the young man in nineteen fifty seven. You got
all these dudes that can play all these sixteenth notes,
they can't play a fucking eighth notes solo. You can't
play a lesser young solo with the right tone in
the right style. And that included me. So my thinking
is is that if we're moving jazz forward, how come

(47:44):
we can't play none of this other shit m Because like,
I have a friend who's a physicist, right, Physicists are
really good at math. If my friend Barry Abart flew
in here from the Jet Proportion laboratory where he works
and I said, hey, man.

Speaker 3 (48:01):
My daughter is a sophomore and high school, can you
help up with this math?

Speaker 7 (48:04):
He wouldn't say, well, you know that's cool, man, But
you know we're working on this new thing here and
I think it's way more advanced.

Speaker 3 (48:10):
That was cool back in this day. He would say, yeah,
no problem, I'm a physicists.

Speaker 7 (48:14):
Now you think about modern music, that old shit, Yeah,
that shit was cool, but you know that's that we've
gone beyond that. I say, is that French for you
can't fucking do it parallel? That's friend for you can't
play it cool? Well, you know what I can't either,
But I'm gonna learn how.

Speaker 3 (48:26):
Man, when you listen to that old shit fuck, do
your think? Do your think y'all? You know the critics say,
what do the critics play?

Speaker 7 (48:36):
It's like a friend of mine listens to these sports
you know, saxophone player friend named Paul Carry listens to
these sports radio shows, which.

Speaker 3 (48:44):
I'll listen to sometimes.

Speaker 7 (48:45):
A guy who's five foot six, who has strong opinions
about people who play a game that he.

Speaker 3 (48:51):
Was never good enough to play. How much credence can
I take in that? Seriously? Facts?

Speaker 7 (48:57):
You know, when Jim Rohme decided to call Jim every
who was a football player Chris Everett because he plays
like a girl, Jim made him famous by beating his
ass on the studio. What Jim should have done? It said,
you know what, you got a point. That's why I'm
gonna set it up so that you can come to
training camp and I'm gonna get you a uniform. We're

(49:17):
gonna film you, and you're gonna show us how to
do it. And I imagine if he had said that, Madgine,
if I mean, this guy from San Francisco is ripping
Sting saying Sting ain't shit band such blah blah blah.
Sting writes him a letter in the newspaper. Yeah, this
is a lot harder than you think. That's why when
we come back in six months, I'm gonna reserve ten
minutes for you and you can come on stage and
you can do whatever you want.

Speaker 3 (49:37):
You can read poetry, it don't matter. You ain't got
to sing a song. Yeah, the ten minutes are yours.

Speaker 7 (49:48):
And he received the universal condemnation from all these critics
because they know, because.

Speaker 3 (49:54):
They know, and they're like, you're the one who's rich
in famous, take your lumps. And he's like, no, I
ain't about taking lump. You are trying to make yourself
an authority on some shit you don't know how to do,
so come on up here and show me how to
do it. And that's how I feel. And it ain't
like I'm because like people would say, you know, man,
critics are really killing you.

Speaker 7 (50:12):
I'm like, so most of my real critics are like
these dead dudes, And I'm trying to learn how to
play like I got good enough years. I know if
I can play this ship well or if I can't
play it well. And if I can't play it well,
I have to figure out how to learn how to
play it well. And about me, they're not going they're
not gonna help me learn how to do that.

Speaker 2 (50:31):
It was an example of something that if it's an
older style or older music, something that you had to
learn how to play well.

Speaker 3 (50:38):
Dude.

Speaker 7 (50:39):
There's so many of those, but I think the easiest
one is playing balance. Most modern players don't know how
to play.

Speaker 3 (50:44):
But I tell you what I told y'all.

Speaker 7 (50:47):
So they, you know, because they listen to train, you know,
because train would play the melody and then you go
into a two field and start playing all this shit.

Speaker 3 (50:54):
So they're like, I want to do that.

Speaker 7 (50:56):
But the thing is is that if you listen to
train chronologically, he could also play a ballid very simply
and very beautifully. So what they do is they listened
to train at the end of his process and that's
where they start their process. And I was the same,
there's no different, gotcha.

Speaker 3 (51:12):
So part Blakey was like, man, you can't play a
ballot where the ship. You know, you're horrible.

Speaker 7 (51:18):
I'm like, great, okay, you know true, but that's all
you got. Is there a solution in there? And they
read said, yeah it go check out Ben Webster.

Speaker 2 (51:25):
All right.

Speaker 7 (51:26):
I listened to it a little bit at my brother Delphia.
We would we would always talk about music. I said, man,
I got to get some more Ben wefter. So I
was getting ready to go on stings first tour in
eighty five. My brother says, I got a package coming
for you, and it was two cassettes. Back in the
good old days we had cassettes, right, and a package. Yeah,

(51:46):
two cassetts because the walkman was that they didn't have
disc men yet.

Speaker 3 (51:50):
They weren't out yet play c D yet. They weren't
there yet.

Speaker 7 (51:54):
So it was a two Ben Webster records, one with
the Oscar pedis.

Speaker 3 (51:58):
And trio and the other one strings. I listened to
these shits every.

Speaker 7 (52:03):
Day for a year and a half. Now I was
playing with things, I was rocking out, but every day
at least once a day, sometimes I'm playing twice a day.

Speaker 3 (52:13):
I would listen to both of these.

Speaker 7 (52:14):
Cassettes, and a year and a half later, I could
play like Ben web without.

Speaker 3 (52:19):
Even trying to play. It just came out the horn.

Speaker 7 (52:22):
I'm like, damn, that works, okay, great, And that was
just the beginning.

Speaker 3 (52:27):
But in the break in the middle of it, we.

Speaker 7 (52:30):
Were off for six weeks and I went to the
Vanguard and I was playing with some people and this
old tenor man, Buddy Take, he played with Basie's band
in the thirties.

Speaker 3 (52:41):
I said, oh, Take, you know you got an advice
from me? Says, Son, You're the worst ballet player I
ever heard in my life. And I said, I know,
I know. I'm working on it. He says, really, you're
working on it? What you're doing?

Speaker 7 (52:51):
I said, I'm listening to these two Ben Webster see things.
He goes, that's gonna take care of it. You just
keep listening to them. I said, but I've been listening
for a year and it sounds like shit.

Speaker 3 (52:59):
He's his son.

Speaker 7 (53:00):
The only way to get better is to keep sounding
like ship till it don't sound like shit no more.

Speaker 3 (53:06):
There ain't no shortcuts. And I said, okay, cool.

Speaker 7 (53:09):
And then when I came back, it's like there it was,
you know. And then I would start playing all these
old songs and guys say, man, why are you playing
that old ship? And I'm like, why is a dog
lickors balls? Because he can't? You know, It's just like
why did I do it? Because I learned how to
do it. Why can't you do it? I don't want to.

Speaker 11 (53:32):
Do that, sure you don't like And it was just
like sing after thing I tried to learn, you know,
I practiced Sonny Rollins, trying to play like Sonny for
two years nothing and then like eight months later the
Sunny Stuff starts coming out.

Speaker 3 (53:46):
And then after Sunny you just learned how to.

Speaker 2 (53:48):
Play like I was gonna ask you. I was gonna
ask you about Ornate Cole when he was someone that
I never could get into. It was just so it
seems so far out from me, like what was his thing.

Speaker 7 (53:58):
That's the only that's the only time Stanley Krout and
I ever had a conversation where at the end of it,
I'm like, thanks, man, because you need to check out.

Speaker 3 (54:08):
I know Stanley was one for always wanting to fight out,
you know.

Speaker 7 (54:11):
My He gave me this record, The Shape of Jazz
to Come, and I listened to it for a week.

Speaker 3 (54:16):
I said, yeah, this just sucks, man. He goes, yeah,
you need to keep listening.

Speaker 1 (54:21):
You didn't like to save the Jazz to Come when
it first came out, But I know when it first
came out, when you first heard three years old, when
I first heard it, it was like, this sucks.

Speaker 7 (54:30):
Two weeks in. Three weeks in, I'm like, okay, that man.
It took four months of listening to this record every day,
and then in the fourth month suddenly I heard what
it actually was and I'm like, holy shit, it's not
even out. It's all in. It's all based on standard
song for him. And I came back and started telling
case y'all said, on that's out, this shit's in. It's

(54:52):
sand Just the man, You're crazy. That's not standard song
for song, standard song for you just have to listen
to it enough to fig it out.

Speaker 2 (55:01):
Him and the other cat Rassam Roll and Kurt out there.
It was the same kind of thing I was try
and I'm just like, all right, maybe I just don't
I'm not advanced enough to get it. What is it.

Speaker 7 (55:10):
There's a there's a documentary on Rassian that you should
check out. I can't remember the name of.

Speaker 5 (55:14):
It, The Three Sided Dream.

Speaker 3 (55:16):
Thank You Face, The Three Sided Dream.

Speaker 7 (55:19):
And he did an eight minute performance on the Ed
Sullivan Show at a time when jazz was not on
Ed Sullivan at all, and that is some of the
most electric shit you will see, Like some.

Speaker 3 (55:31):
Of the documentary. It slows down. It's kind of boring.

Speaker 7 (55:33):
And but then this makes like if you you check
out on Rassiana and that you good, you know, then I.

Speaker 2 (55:42):
Promise you I got it, I got it down.

Speaker 3 (55:45):
You'd be like, oh, I get it?

Speaker 1 (55:47):
Was there was your tenure? Was your tenure with Blakie
your first time in a professional like established jazz unit.
And was that also in the studio or just on
the road?

Speaker 3 (55:59):
Well, we did it was all It was mostly on
the road.

Speaker 7 (56:02):
Yes, it was my first established I did some things
in New Orleans would established musicians and my dad and
we had this regular gig these uh, these older New
Orleans cats, I mean older, like ten years older than me.

Speaker 3 (56:13):
John Vadakovich was on drums.

Speaker 7 (56:16):
David Torkanowski was the pianist's dad was the conductor of
Louisiana Philharmony of the New Orleans and uh and uh.

Speaker 3 (56:25):
Jim Singleton on base.

Speaker 7 (56:27):
And they called me and went and said, hey man,
we got these gigs at Tyler's Beer Guard march y'all
come play with us. So we had this one gig
a week where we would come in and play.

Speaker 3 (56:34):
Tunes with these cats, and you know, went was.

Speaker 7 (56:37):
Firing and I was just playing a pentatonic scale on
everything because that you know.

Speaker 3 (56:43):
But it was great. We had a great time. I
mean everybody looked out for us. I mean we had
really cool experiences.

Speaker 7 (56:48):
You know, playing in bars when we were not legal age,
and it was great.

Speaker 2 (56:53):
Did you ever do anything anytime New Orleans ever do
anything with Alan Tucson?

Speaker 3 (56:57):
No? No, he didn't. They didn't. You know, they got
to call me. It's not like I'm because you know
it's female.

Speaker 2 (57:04):
But that's what I was thinking. Did he ever call you?
That's what I meant, because.

Speaker 3 (57:07):
By the time I left me once a seventy nine,
Oh okay, gotcha. And then when the whole when it
all started happening, I was in New York. He didn't.

Speaker 7 (57:14):
There were plenty of sacks players he could use at home.
He okay, but Christian, I.

Speaker 3 (57:19):
Mean here, yes, R Blake.

Speaker 7 (57:21):
It was my first professional organization and it was mostly
on the road. Even the record we did wasn't a
studio record. It was a live record at the Keystone
Corner in San Francisco.

Speaker 1 (57:30):
Okay, what's your brother's debut album? Your first time in
a studio setting. As far as jazz was concerned or yes,
as far as Jadge was concerned. Yeah, no, not true.

Speaker 3 (57:42):
That's not true.

Speaker 7 (57:43):
Because we had done this record called Fathers and Sons
with me and went and Dead and uh Chico Freeman
and Von Freeman on one side and me and went
and Dead with some new with James Black and uh
Charles Family, Yo Homie on base.

Speaker 3 (58:00):
That was the first thing, like with Winton's record. Yeah,
that was the first.

Speaker 7 (58:04):
Yeah, the second one, you know, and the first time
in the studio I was a kid. There was a
guy named It was a guy he did a song
called Mad Mad Mardi Gras. He hired me Winton and
this saxophone player, Donald Harrison to play the part. And
I wrote the arrangements because that was my I've been
listening to that stuff. So we didn't have a baritone sax,

(58:25):
so we took an alto and.

Speaker 3 (58:26):
Dropped it in octave so it sounded like a baton.
We did all these.

Speaker 7 (58:29):
Crazy things, so we made like a six or seven
piece horn section on this song Mad Mad Madira from
this from this guy in New Orleans. It was it
was cool and I played a little corny ass so
with I guess that debut record, whose idea was.

Speaker 3 (58:44):
It to use the classic H.

Speaker 1 (58:48):
Davis Quintet as the background at least with Us Shorter
and your brother's moles.

Speaker 3 (58:53):
But Ron Carter and.

Speaker 7 (58:56):
Well Wenton was playing with them. Wentton was doing a
tour with them as a quartet with Ron Herby and
Tony Okay he was playing. Was that by design or
just like, yeah, they hired him to play on the road,
So I'm saying, yeah, it was by design. So he
was on tour with them when they recorded that part
of the record. It was in Tokyo, and so went

(59:18):
and called me and said, hey, man, you're doing the record,
Fly to Tokyo.

Speaker 3 (59:21):
I flew to Tokyo.

Speaker 1 (59:22):
I see just growing up listening to your records, I
have to personally say that, you know, I got your
The first album I've got of yours was Scenes in
the City, and the thing that struck me, Like I
was thirteen when it came out, So the one thing

(59:43):
that struck me about that record was the title cut
and the fact that you kind of predated Doctor Dre
Prince Paul as far as like you know the way
that you crafted that song as a or as more
like I don't know how to describe it like Stevie

(01:00:04):
Wonder's the only person I know that used like uh
dialogue or Marlena Shaw, she did it a little bit
on that Uh uh, whose bitch is this?

Speaker 3 (01:00:15):
I forget that album on Blue Note.

Speaker 1 (01:00:16):
But what was at least with the title cut with
scenes of the city, what was in your mind frame
when you were crafting that, like as far as presenting
a story of poetry and the way that you weaved
in different music genres.

Speaker 3 (01:00:30):
In and out, like it's not mine.

Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
That was unheard of an eighty four at least for
me as a thirteen year old, I never.

Speaker 7 (01:00:35):
Heard anything like that. If you passed the prolog that
was a mingus mingus did it? If I heard it
in the city, Yeah, that would be great to do that.
And I used my homeboy. Wendell Pearce was the narrator
on it.

Speaker 3 (01:00:46):
That was Wendell Perce. Wow, Wendel. It just got to
New York. He was at ju Yord. Hey, bro, come
do this for me. I'll pay you. Yeah, man, I'll
do it. That's up. I'll pay you.

Speaker 7 (01:00:58):
You know, he's a student's struggling like yeah, I men,
you're gonna get paid for this shit. I mean like,
it's not like in New Orleans where you.

Speaker 3 (01:01:03):
Do me a solid, you know, and I'll write some
music for your movie. It was like, no, you're gonna
get paid to do it. Come do this thing. Steve
Coleman alto play on that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:13):
Steve Coleman, yeap, oh mom boy, Okay, Steve, all right,
So you had some inbased ties in there with the
but yes, and a four in base wasn't established.

Speaker 7 (01:01:25):
It was eighty three was recorded in eighty two out
of the vanguard. I'm like, I'm doing this song, man,
come do this hit with me.

Speaker 3 (01:01:33):
Okay.

Speaker 7 (01:01:34):
It was him in your Home where Robin you Banks,
you know, Smithy was on it, you know, and it
was just it was yeah, it was just it.

Speaker 3 (01:01:40):
Was a cool thing to do. So yeah, it was
a It was an old Mingus tune called scenes in
the City.

Speaker 1 (01:01:45):
And I talked about those cats because like I idolized those
cats growing up like tain uh Kirkland uh, even staring
at Montfett, like what were those cats like? Like in
general he described their musicianship or I get the I
get the already, I already know you're you're you're, you're
you're deflating my balloon of the romanticized musicians thing.

Speaker 7 (01:02:09):
So no, what I mean, you know, they were They
were complete musicians. It's like that thing everybody heard Tane
playing with. When I met Tange, Like when I got
to Berkeley, i was R and B saxophone and I'm like,
I'm interested in this jazz thing. When Tange got to Berkeley,
he was basically a fusion Okay, you know Billy cobbam
Nerod and Michael Walden. He was out of that gid

(01:02:31):
right and uh.

Speaker 3 (01:02:34):
Yeah, you know Early Atlantic, Yeah yeah, early well yeah,
when he was playing with.

Speaker 7 (01:02:42):
So it was like we both got there and started
checking out jazz at the same time, different things, but
our bass was something else. And then we started listening
to jazz and he got heavy into the oven thing,
and I was listening to Wayne playing with Miles Davis
and Lester Young and he was just a brilliant musician.
There were a couple of musicians, because I had never

(01:03:03):
played with Jeff and there were a couple of musicians.

Speaker 3 (01:03:07):
Said, yeah, man, Jeff Man, I don't know what he's playing. Yeah,
sh it's not happening. So I'm like, damn, it must
be happening then, because if they think it's not happening.
So I'd say, hey, man, let's do a session.

Speaker 7 (01:03:17):
And I heard him playing, I'm like, oh, it's killing
because it was so melodic and it defied what you
thought the drummer was supposed to do because he was
so used to hearing him and then playing in the
middle of song, you know, So he was kind of bringing.

Speaker 3 (01:03:30):
That y you know, along with the tony thing. And
his timing is immaculate. Yeah, and his musicianship is you
like we would like. Kurt Ellen was was doing a
record called The Question about three years ago. Yeah, I was.

Speaker 7 (01:03:45):
I was thinking about using tang like some musicians said
that he's just the kind of cat that's just going
to play what he wants to play. And it's really
funny when you have musicians that don't really understand jazz language.

Speaker 3 (01:04:00):
Can they airtain play? That's what they think he's doing.
They think he's just playing whatever he wants.

Speaker 7 (01:04:07):
And I just told Kurt Man Tane is one of
the best musicians on the planet, and he's going to
play your music and hook it up to the degree
that you will be depressed anytime you hear another drummer
trying to pay, and when the record was done, He's like,
I can already tell I'm going to be depressed a
lot because changes everything he plays is based on what

(01:04:29):
the melody of the song is.

Speaker 3 (01:04:30):
I mean, you know, his logic, his brain was is unbelievable.

Speaker 1 (01:04:34):
How much rope do you give him as a drummer too,
Because what I last storing to him is just his
ability to change time signature and reconfigure a song a
different way that you don't hear it. And that's the
one thing I borrow.

Speaker 3 (01:04:49):
From him the most.

Speaker 1 (01:04:51):
Where I'll be in the pocket, then I'll just you know,
I'll switch something in that's still in the pocket, but
it's a different time signature, Like when these songs, when
you're writing these songs and you're arranging these songs, Like
how much leeway are you giving him at least in
the studio. I know that live is a different thing
and you guys just go from your gut.

Speaker 3 (01:05:09):
But no studio is the same. Like what you hear,
what you hear, make it better, all right?

Speaker 1 (01:05:17):
I can nerd out on your jazz career a lot,
but there's other areas of your life we gotta get on.

Speaker 3 (01:05:23):
I got to get to film before you even get
to your hip hop part.

Speaker 1 (01:05:27):
The first thing I saw you and was on probably
one of the blackest episodes of Saturday Night Live. I've
ever seen Malcolm Jamal Warner episode with run DMC and
that's Mack in eighty six when they would let filmmakers
do these shorts, and I guess, Spike Lee, yeah, spikey.

Speaker 3 (01:05:48):
Yeah, warned plenty.

Speaker 1 (01:05:50):
Is that the first time you met with Spike or like,
how did you how are you even available or open
to even be in that lane.

Speaker 3 (01:05:59):
I did some theater in high school and I was
not afraid dad, but I met Spike Spike. It's really
funny story. Spike was going around the neighborhood trying to
get people to invest in She's got to have it,
She's gonna have that's right. So he rings the doorbell
me and went Now.

Speaker 7 (01:06:18):
They were living in Brooklyn on Washington Avenue, basically six
box from Spike.

Speaker 3 (01:06:22):
He says, hey, you know, hey man Brandon winning is
My name is Spike Lee. I'm a filmmaker.

Speaker 7 (01:06:27):
You know, my dad's a musician, you know, And it's
just like I just want to welcome you to the neighborhood.
He didn't have the courage to take throw us some
money for the movie.

Speaker 3 (01:06:35):
He never brought it up. He never brought it up.
He says, you know, my dad's a musician. I said, really,
what's his name? Bill Lee went and is the bass player? Yeah,
how you know that? He says, Man, we heard your
dad when he was we were little kids. He had
this band with like a folk band. And I said, oh,
ship the descendant of Mike in Phoebe. And he goes,
oh my god, y'all know that. Yeah, my dad. We

(01:06:57):
didn't want to go, but my dad said, your going
this guys from New York. And it was fun. I mean,
you know, it was storytelling, It was a little jazz
in it, little folklore. It was great. It was a
great little concert. I was like eight or nine, like
if I was eight, Winton was seven. I was nine.
Winton was eight, and they came to New Orleans and
the sending some mic and phebe and that really freaked
him out, you know.

Speaker 7 (01:07:17):
And we just hung out and had a great time
and we would see each other on the stupid And
he never asked for any money.

Speaker 3 (01:07:24):
As old you should have. I would have got a
return then some I would have done it, but we
just hit it off, you know, and I go to
his house and we would just sit around and then
he told me one day I had had to shoot
this short. You want to be in it. I'm like, yeah,
whatever you want, man, you know.

Speaker 7 (01:07:39):
And he's playing explaining what it was, and I'm like, yeah,
I'll stand on the corner in Brooklyn and play.

Speaker 3 (01:07:44):
Stand on the corner and play and crack jokes on
people that went by. He's like, just insult people when
they walk by. I say, yeah, I'm from Newman, mpressure
on me. I hope it's still on YouTube. Yeah. It's
basically short of.

Speaker 1 (01:08:01):
Branford needing to rustle up some money for for you know,
diapers and a formula.

Speaker 3 (01:08:08):
You child and the great And I walked outside. I'm
a musician, what do you want me to do?

Speaker 2 (01:08:12):
Go be a man?

Speaker 3 (01:08:13):
So I walked outside. I started playing for Chambers. Wait,
who who was the on Fulton Avenue. It was like
the premise of it, if you know Brooklyn is hilarious.
What kind of money you're gonna make on Fulton? Yeah,
there's also so how did you get and throw Mama
from the train? And like, at this point are.

Speaker 2 (01:08:32):
You damn, I forgot about.

Speaker 3 (01:08:37):
Yes, I think it was after they saw the Sting movie.
I was just talking all kind of crazy ship in
the movie. Wait, I do have one Sting question.

Speaker 1 (01:08:46):
Can you please tell me what you and Sting were
laughing at at the end of the title track of
Dreaming of the Blue Turtles?

Speaker 3 (01:08:55):
Anyway? Please please? Because you know what someone asked me.
Someone asked me, what is the genesis of my laugh?

Speaker 1 (01:09:04):
And I think hearing you two laugh and that goofy laughing,
what like, I can tell there's an inside joke so
obvious that I.

Speaker 3 (01:09:14):
When this ship ain't rolling, I'll tell you, Stink won't
tell me, you'll I'll tell you that's how you do.

Speaker 7 (01:09:22):
It's good, it's not really, it's mundane really, but still
it ain't gonna come from me on record.

Speaker 3 (01:09:30):
All good, I get it.

Speaker 1 (01:09:32):
I just when whenever that laugh breakdown happens, I just
you know, all right. You know, we've had Spike on
the show. We've we've we've talked about the scene for
five minutes, and then after the show was edited and completed,
I went back to look at this clip, and I
believe that you had a hand in that fight scene.

Speaker 3 (01:09:57):
In school days. He told you you didn't see it
wasn't it wasn't. Okay, Well.

Speaker 1 (01:10:05):
No, no, no, when we I asked him because someone
told I think I talked to Ernest Dickerson. Ernest told
me that when that step show happened, Uh, when when
the fight occurred? That was a real fight. And then
I asked Spike about it. He was like, yes, that
was a real fight. And when I went back to

(01:10:25):
look at the tape, you insta he drinks water, went
to he's sipping tea right now. He's literally I wish
I was sipping bourbon. Then I tell you the story.

Speaker 3 (01:10:40):
So and I was, what was the deal with school days?
And was the tension that real? For some? It was?
For some it was.

Speaker 7 (01:10:49):
I mean Spike tried to create this environment so the
light skinned people were in a better hotel and we
went this raggedy ass hotel. But the reality is is, man,
he's a professional actress.

Speaker 3 (01:11:00):
You know what I mean. You didn't have to create
that kind of tension. I mean, they can create it
on command.

Speaker 7 (01:11:05):
I really don't remember us being mad because we went
one hotel and they won another one.

Speaker 3 (01:11:11):
I don't remember that at all. Maybe some people felt
that way, but not.

Speaker 7 (01:11:14):
The crew I was hanging with. And the fight, well,
the fight was it was mostly in character. It had
nothing to do with off set anything. Is we were
ridiculing the g FI g's throughout the whole movie. Yeah,
So then they were doing their little song and we
came out with this daddy longstroke thing without we're gonna

(01:11:37):
do our step We're gonna do our step show, you know,
oh daddy.

Speaker 3 (01:11:44):
So we're coming onto the stage.

Speaker 7 (01:11:48):
Oh yeah, off of that stage. I don't really remember,
and TJ. Campbell's character said something to me, so I
said something to her. I ain't gonna tell you. I
don't even remember what I said, but it wasn't con
whatever it was. And gian Carlo says, don't you talk
to my woman like that? So I slapped him upside
his head and said, shut up, blankety blank, and then

(01:12:10):
he bum rushed me, and then everybody just bum rushes
and then it starts and it's on.

Speaker 2 (01:12:17):
So like with Spike Yell's cut, are y'all cool after that?
Or how does it? How does it go?

Speaker 3 (01:12:22):
What is going on? That's all it does all And
Fishburn is absolutely furious because he says fight scenes need
to be choreographed this is how people get hurt.

Speaker 7 (01:12:34):
And I didn't disagree with him. I didn't think that
would happen. It was just we were I was in
this character and I was the whole movie. I was
poking and priding at the g fids, you know, we
were all doing it, and it just went and it
escalated to this thing.

Speaker 3 (01:12:50):
How long did it take to alleviate that situation?

Speaker 7 (01:12:53):
I don't know, manute, maybe I mean just a minute.
It wasn't think about fighting. I mean, it's like it's
hard to fight for three I mean, you have a
tried boxing for three minutes, you know what I mean,
your arms get tired. So it was just all that
screaming and minute and a half Spikes laughing his ass often.

Speaker 1 (01:13:12):
You know, there's there's a scene in No Better that
I always wanted to know. First of all, was the
music created before the film was shot?

Speaker 3 (01:13:21):
Yeah? It had to be because they had to choreographed it.

Speaker 1 (01:13:23):
Okay, So that said, I was really impressed with the
authenticity of that first moment when Denzel comes to interrupt
Wesley solo on Stay Hey, and on the soundtrack, you
actually recreate that moment where you're mid solo and then

(01:13:47):
when it comes to the head and you stop. I
always thought that shit was so genius because I heard
the soundtrack first before I saw the movie and wanted
to know why was that mistake there? So even even
way before then, Spike asked you to create a moment
in which Terrence interrupts you're.

Speaker 3 (01:14:05):
Playing and you take that. Wow, Okay, yeah, it was
choreographed to the choreograph. They had to be that way
because he wanted it to be that way in the film.
So we had that count for that. I see. We
got to jump to My Rainie because I got Eves
by question all other ship. Yes, that was fun.

Speaker 7 (01:14:27):
Yeah, So My Rainy is very similar because the musicians
had to choreograph. They had the choreograph, you know, and
and and my my thing was always about and that's
the look real And it's really not that hard to do.

Speaker 3 (01:14:41):
You have to erase any notions of what you think
musicians are like and to look at films. You have
to have a physical presence where you're playing the instrument physically.

Speaker 7 (01:14:50):
And the most important part is that when there's no
sound on the on the recording, your fingers should never
ever be moving.

Speaker 3 (01:14:57):
So you need to learn it. You don't need to
learn how to play the instrument. You just need to
make sure that we're theos.

Speaker 7 (01:15:03):
No sound your fingers on a movie and you want
to closing your eyes and doing this and there's no
sound coming, that's the giveaway. So when we went to
h to do the filming in Pittsburgh, I saw some
of the early things and said, look, I need to
meet with the musicians.

Speaker 3 (01:15:19):
You know, everybody has their handler. And they're like, look,
you know the musicians. It's like a big thing. It's
like a c So the movie people were like, oh,
these guys are the stars and they don't have time
for this. I'm like, well, I'll be honest that the
Pirates are playing at one today. I'm getting bad. I'm good,
you know. So if you want them to look like
shit on the film, that's on you, fine with me.

(01:15:41):
So I went to The Pirates. Irque?

Speaker 1 (01:15:43):
Does it irque when directors are sort of dismissive of
musical authenticity because I am a cat that will watch
to see what the fingering.

Speaker 3 (01:15:52):
Is to make sure that I think it's to their detriment.

Speaker 7 (01:15:56):
Because you want people to believe that something's real, it
needs to look real and it's not super hard. Like
this was the whole thing that I was telling the
guys that are more better. It's like, you don't need
to learn how.

Speaker 3 (01:16:08):
To play an instrot, you just need to understand the
answering physically.

Speaker 7 (01:16:12):
So when Chadwick was playing, for instance, like they finally
told me where you can have them for half an
hour following day, so I.

Speaker 3 (01:16:18):
Had already seen them, so I knew what all of
the problems were like.

Speaker 7 (01:16:22):
So Chadwick was playing, and he was marching his back
and playing like that like Miles, and I said, yeah, man,
first of all, you playing a cornet number two.

Speaker 3 (01:16:31):
Miles Davis is two years old. You can't light like
Miles in nineteen twenty nine.

Speaker 7 (01:16:37):
Go get some YouTube videos and watch Louis Armstrong play cornett,
not trumpet, but watching There are a couple of videos.

Speaker 3 (01:16:45):
From him in the early thirties and watching it, he
holds his body and he came back the next day
he had it wowed down.

Speaker 7 (01:16:53):
He was just a consonant professional and with each musician
like Glenn Turnman was playing piano, and piano players back
then played stride h strider candles. You know, so your
hands go from left and right to the center.

Speaker 3 (01:17:08):
That's essentially what it is. Think that's what you know.
So your hands are going out and then in. So
when he was doing that, his hands were going in
too out. So I'm like, bro yeah, out in, not
into out. And there's certain rhythms.

Speaker 9 (01:17:29):
You have to know.

Speaker 3 (01:17:30):
And then the piano player who did the recording was great.
He kept it simple. So a lot of the music
he had this little this little rhythm where.

Speaker 7 (01:17:37):
He's going to bumped bomb, bomped bump the whole time
through all of the changes.

Speaker 3 (01:17:43):
And I said, that's your rhythm. Sing it every day.
And then when you sing it, play and he says,
but you know, I don't. I said, it doesn't matter.

Speaker 7 (01:17:52):
When they shoot you, they're going to see your shoulders,
and if you're not playing the piano, your shoulders won't move.

Speaker 3 (01:17:58):
So you have to play the piano and they're not
going to show you your fingers. You just have to
play that rhythm. And he got in. They all got
into it, and when you see them it looks like
they're playing. It made a difference.

Speaker 7 (01:18:08):
And then Michael pots the acting, well, he just had
to show everybody up and learn how to play the
damn bass.

Speaker 3 (01:18:13):
So he was actually playing the bass. Really, you're you're
how long did it take them to nail his parts?
He could play the damn bass. It took him no time.

Speaker 7 (01:18:22):
He played the BASSA made me say, all right, you
go away. And then Colman playing trombone.

Speaker 3 (01:18:30):
It was great.

Speaker 7 (01:18:31):
I mean, they were great, they really you know, they
took to you know, and you know, and then I
had a little station away from the set because.

Speaker 12 (01:18:38):
The set was closed, right and it was inside of
this big sound stage and we would just outside of
that with a little keyboard so they would come in
if they had any issues with rehearsals or questions about things.

Speaker 3 (01:18:50):
And uh, where would you record? We recorded in New Orleans? Oh, okay.

Speaker 7 (01:18:56):
New Orleans musicians are perfect because they're the only musicians
left in They.

Speaker 3 (01:19:00):
That had outside voices, I mean, speaking generically, but more
often than not, I see.

Speaker 2 (01:19:06):
Oh, there was a scene in the movie where Chadwick
his characters talking about Buddy Bolden and he's someone that
there was a movie made about him, like a couple
of years ago, but there's not a lot that's known
about him, Like what what was kind of his importance?

Speaker 7 (01:19:23):
Buddy Bolden is kind of considered to be the father
of traditional jazz, trump Be playing in New Orleans. Everybody
that heard him says he had the biggest sound they
ever heard in their lives. There are no recordings of him,
and there's only one picture of him. He had some
sort of breakdown, so he didn't you know, sometime in
his thirties. But Louis armstrong and got swear by man,

(01:19:44):
you should have hear everybody sure it's actually a good
subjectau then you can mythologize all of it.

Speaker 3 (01:19:50):
No one knows anything.

Speaker 2 (01:19:52):
Yeah, he was like the jazz or manigo.

Speaker 3 (01:19:56):
Everybody talks to. All the old guys used to talk
about him. Okay, the fun dunk god.

Speaker 5 (01:20:09):
People waited fucking ship Premiere Bucks, all the funk go.

Speaker 2 (01:20:14):
Come on, man, No, no, you're good. You're it's your show.
You're the you're the co leader, dude, I just wanted
this movie and scoring quexielm welcome here you.

Speaker 3 (01:20:26):
Go all right anyway? Anyway, Look, you're for raising the
hip hop. Uh have been legendary. I mean, you know
we can name them all, fight the power whatnot? What
was your attraction to it?

Speaker 1 (01:20:39):
And again, like coming from the traditional bass that you
kind of entered our our conscious like how easy was
this to explain?

Speaker 3 (01:20:51):
Or I guess I can hear the answer already. You're
saying I didn't give a fuck, but.

Speaker 5 (01:20:58):
Correct got it.

Speaker 1 (01:21:00):
Was there any blowback from like your your your inner
circle of New Orleans cats or no, or by that
you left New Orleans or your family or anything about you.

Speaker 3 (01:21:11):
No, my family. We got into it. It was the
whole thing with going on the road, and so that
wasn't that wasn't encouraged or I mean, it was more
about it was more philosophical.

Speaker 7 (01:21:21):
It was more like, you know, he could get anybody
to do that job, jazz is really unique and needs
you out there. And I say, well, way you're wrong
is he can't get anybody to do it that job.
I do that shit bet than anybody, So right, and then.

Speaker 3 (01:21:34):
It was over. It was like, you know, y'all do
what y'all do. I'll be back. I'll see it in
a couple of years. It's great.

Speaker 1 (01:21:39):
I had a great so weird man, because I maybe
I'm just shocked at the perception of that being so
short sighted, because that would draw me in seeing you
in spaces that quote you weren't supposed to be in.

Speaker 3 (01:21:52):
Well, it's not. It brings me back to the base
that you came from, because well not most people. That
might be you, because you're a musician, but most peop
will not make that journey. I already knew that. I watched,
you know, as a as a big you know, Headhunter
fan and a big Weather Reporter fan. I used to
hear all the musicians say, oh, yeah, you know, we're
just bringing jazz to the masses.

Speaker 7 (01:22:12):
No, I didn't even know you guys played jazz. I
went to Berkeley and Smittie Smith put on.

Speaker 3 (01:22:18):
A never t d record, he says, I said, Man,
who the hell is that? He goes Man, that's the
great Mom's nags with Wayne Short, I said, Wayne Shorter.

Speaker 7 (01:22:24):
Like the guy who plays with Weather Report. You give
me it's the same guy. I'm like, it is no idea,
Herbie Hancock, the guy from Headhunters.

Speaker 3 (01:22:35):
And I'm a musician, So no, I mean that. That's like,
I don't even know why musicians embark on that line
that they always come back to their base. If you
feel like doing some shit, do it. If you ain't
no good at it, maybe you learn how to be
better at it. But I was always good at it.
I was good at it as a kid, so it

(01:22:56):
wasn't so traumatic for me. I was just going home.
So when the Machines started in the seventies late seventies,
that whole sound was so milk toast to me.

Speaker 7 (01:23:09):
Remember the old t R Italy and all the R
and B songs were suddenly going like from hitting, you know,
from fop to like.

Speaker 3 (01:23:20):
Post sexual healing. Yes, I know. So I was like,
I'm like, the shit's over, It's over.

Speaker 10 (01:23:28):
So for me, when sampling started, I'm like, ship the
hits back, you know, the vibe is back, the attitude
is back to beat the.

Speaker 3 (01:23:37):
Swag, you know. And and that was the thing that
I liked about it the most.

Speaker 1 (01:23:42):
So have you tried to explain to your family that,
you know, the music that the Bomb Squad was doing
was just as urgent as something that they just.

Speaker 7 (01:23:53):
Because I wouldn't spend any time trying to tell the
Bomb Squad that they need to check all the love Supreme.

Speaker 3 (01:23:58):
I wouldn't even waste my time. Jazz cats Wing come
to you. I know Premiere must have because half the
stuff that he sampled Premiere is different.

Speaker 7 (01:24:05):
Let's see what I'm saying is that, like, look, a
lot of guys sampled a lot of jazz stuff, but
they put the album on and they skip across until
they find something that they like.

Speaker 3 (01:24:13):
PROMI you would actually listen to the records. Premiere is different.

Speaker 7 (01:24:16):
I mean, you know, you can't use him as a
metaphor for everybody else. But like most people who are
good at the.

Speaker 3 (01:24:23):
Thing, that's the thing, they're interesting.

Speaker 7 (01:24:25):
It's like there was this there was this musician magazine
or Rolling Stone the eighties, and it's like, give me
your top ten records or top twenty.

Speaker 3 (01:24:35):
Or whatever it was. I think it was Top and
all these musicians and they stuck me in.

Speaker 7 (01:24:39):
And the hip hop guys picked ten hip hop CDs,
the rock and roll guys picked ten rock and roll CDs.

Speaker 3 (01:24:45):
I had all kinds of shit there. That's just me.

Speaker 7 (01:24:49):
So my thing is is that, all right, I'm already weird,
Like I listened to all these different styles of music.
I just think that a lot of people that gave
went and shit for not like in pop music. But
nobody gives pop musicians ship for not liking anything other
than pop music. I've never heard an interview where they say, oh,
you know, that she's cooler. Do you sing opera but

(01:25:10):
a jazz guy, well, do you play anything contemporary? Do
you play anything pop? Why does he have to do that?

Speaker 3 (01:25:15):
Prince?

Speaker 7 (01:25:16):
I mean, Prince said, like, look left handed things about jazz.
But I never took offense to it, because you know,
the ship is daunting to a lot of people.

Speaker 3 (01:25:23):
It's intimidated.

Speaker 7 (01:25:25):
We universitally thought that Prince was a genius, and you know,
he didn't really know a lot about jazz, so he
would always say, oh, jazz whatever, man, music.

Speaker 3 (01:25:35):
Is still great. It don't matter to me. He would
do us for a raising too. It bad versions of it,
I know, I know, I don't want to shout anywhere
that she was insult.

Speaker 2 (01:25:50):
So like mad House, I mean, the first eight was cool.
I mean, the song was that A one.

Speaker 3 (01:25:56):
Was kind of sad. But those guys the song the
song was.

Speaker 2 (01:25:59):
But I'm I wouldn't.

Speaker 3 (01:26:02):
Eric Leeds is my boy. It ain't got nothing to
do with jazz.

Speaker 7 (01:26:06):
He'll tell you that itself, you know what I mean.
Like Eric Lee's brother is like a James Brown fucking authority. Yeah,
I'm saying you know what I'm saying. So I mean,
and I'm good with that.

Speaker 3 (01:26:21):
It's just like this.

Speaker 7 (01:26:22):
People have this weird relationship with jazz. But the thing
is is that they don't know this shit. They have
these opinions about the music.

Speaker 3 (01:26:28):
That they have barely heard or barely listened to.

Speaker 7 (01:26:31):
And I'm not saying that they should, because you know,
when you do strange ship for a living, you really
something's really got to be wrong with you.

Speaker 3 (01:26:40):
When you it's like, you know, somebody who's a poet,
not a slam poet, but a poet.

Speaker 7 (01:26:47):
They know what that shit means. It means obscurity, and
you feel compelled to do it anyway. And you have
colleagues who are just as strange as you are. And
there are books, there are magazines about poets. Poets talk
to other poets, they have a war for poetry, and
they win these awards and nobody in the world gives
a damn. You know, I sat on a plane with
a guy who got an award because in the in

(01:27:08):
the atom chain it was already Einstein theorized that there
was seven quarks in the atom chain. They only found six.
But I was on a plane with the guy who found.

Speaker 3 (01:27:16):
The seventh cork. Don't nobody know his name. Don't nobody
give a damn. You think he's sitting around saying I'm
pissed off that I'm not recognized. You love what you do.
None of that other shit matters. And that's how I
feel about all of this. I don't you know, how
do you feel that people don't like this? I like it.
I don't give a damn.

Speaker 1 (01:27:35):
I don't care.

Speaker 3 (01:27:36):
I like it. You know, well, I like you when
you play with the dead Great. I like that shit too.
This thing was great, Yes, he was great.

Speaker 2 (01:27:47):
I like that too.

Speaker 3 (01:27:48):
What's the point. It's like, what are you trying to say?
If I didn't like it, I wouldn't do it. You
have you met up a collaboration that you were man,
I should have done that because I don't do those.
Can I try him in here? Now?

Speaker 13 (01:28:03):
I've in so I'm ti collaborated with the late Great
Rob Washerman with the We have Bruce Hornsby on the
show a few weeks ago.

Speaker 3 (01:28:13):
I forgot to ask him about this. A song called
White Wheeled Limousine nice for on an album called Trios
and no one's ever heard of this album.

Speaker 13 (01:28:24):
Like, like Nobe, people don't care whatever, But do you
have any recollections of that session or of playing with
Rob Washington.

Speaker 7 (01:28:33):
Yeah, well Rob was always kind of shy. He didn't
he wasn't a real rose cat. Like I was still
living in La then, and uh, and Bruce was living
in La then. He spent a lot of time he
was staying at Sringsteen's house. So Rob kind of said, hey, many,
don't you down one of my tubes? And it was
because I think Bruce sang on the tune. Yeah, so uh,
Bruce said, hey, man, let's go do this thing with washermon.

(01:28:53):
I'm like, yeah, cool, let's go do it. Met up,
you know, and I always tease him because you know,
he's really he wasn't very shy cat.

Speaker 3 (01:28:58):
He didn't really and I would always like get in
his face and be all from post and said what
do you think about that? He goes, come on, had
a good time. I mean we did one rehearsal take
and then the real thing and then we hugged and
we split. But you had known Rob Washman prior to that.

Speaker 7 (01:29:15):
Yeah, oh yeah, you know I made him through how
Will because Hal had him doing some stuff and then
I met Rob and I did some other thing with Rob.

Speaker 3 (01:29:24):
Yeah, yeah, man, I knew all the cats man, So.

Speaker 5 (01:29:27):
What what did you think of his bass playing?

Speaker 3 (01:29:30):
It's kind of where where where do you? I don't
I don't try to place people. But the thing is
is that Rob's bass playing was greatful the music he
was doing. Yeah, I mean, I mean, I like the
way he plays bass in the stuff that he was doing.
Like if he was trying to play a Love Supreme,
it probably wouldn't have worked. Yeah, y, he was playing upright,

(01:29:51):
but it was more like a stick base, you know.
It wasn't like an acoustic upright base. It was like this.
It was like this solid body electric thing that a stick.
I think they called it the stick.

Speaker 5 (01:30:01):
Chapman stick, that Chapman stick.

Speaker 3 (01:30:03):
Okay, cool, Yeah, he was playing the Chapmain stick.

Speaker 13 (01:30:06):
Is that the only time you recorded with with with
Bruce Hornsby?

Speaker 3 (01:30:10):
No. I played on a couple of Bruce's records, the
one with a Talk of the Town? I played on
that record. Aren't you want shadow Lands too? Is that
your soprano or is that someone else's? Probably? Okay, Yeah,
I was about to say I think you are which
record shadow Lands? Spike always uses that mean?

Speaker 1 (01:30:32):
Okay, I do want to know have you properly scored
a Spike movie at all? Or is that just always
Terrence's lane? Like I thought that would have been a
natural progression.

Speaker 7 (01:30:43):
For you if I asked me to do it and
I was on the road, you know, really funny thing
is is dead, you know, digital audio workstations around, and
I would have done it, but I just said.

Speaker 3 (01:30:52):
Man, I can't do the music justice, I'm not here.
Tarrence is here. Chance plays keyboards. He's a piano player
and a trumpet player. He great stuff. Just get Terrence,
you get Tea, that's your man. It would be great.
And it's been great because we lived four blocks from
one another, Okay, parents all the time.

Speaker 2 (01:31:10):
We had Premiere on the show a while back, and
he would always talk about the time y'all living together.
He said, y'all live together for our brother.

Speaker 7 (01:31:17):
What was that?

Speaker 3 (01:31:18):
Like?

Speaker 2 (01:31:19):
His premiere is a whole dude.

Speaker 3 (01:31:21):
Ain't that wow? Crew Son?

Speaker 7 (01:31:27):
Well, first of all, we were we were doing spite
wanting me to work with them on that jazz thing something.

Speaker 2 (01:31:34):
Yeah, and we just hit it off.

Speaker 3 (01:31:37):
We just hit it off. And you know they cool kid,
did you know? They cool? Cats and funny and they
just mentioned, you know, ship man we.

Speaker 7 (01:31:44):
Just got evicted and say, well, ship man, you know,
I got this big ass house in Brooklyn, me and
my wife and my kid, come on, come hang out.

Speaker 3 (01:31:52):
And it wound up being six months. What was that
last it was?

Speaker 9 (01:32:00):
It was like jayru the damage, But back then it
was just and Lil Dap, you know, from a you know,
so so I got to hang with the whole crew.
You know, it was good, It was fun.

Speaker 2 (01:32:15):
There was a song on on buck Shot, the first
book shot, not the music evolution when the first one,
ain't it funny? I can't remember who's the girl singing
on that? And what Tammy town Tammy Townsend? What's she
up to now? Like, what's her story? Do you I
really liked her voice.

Speaker 14 (01:32:33):
She was she still lives in LA and she's a
couple of shows. She was recently on some show on
one of those Disney Channel shows. Okay, I don't remember
which one it was, but she's been on that show
for a while.

Speaker 3 (01:32:48):
That's what's up Disney Channel shows.

Speaker 2 (01:32:54):
Okay. I always loved that song man that that.

Speaker 7 (01:32:58):
Was one of them things where it's like, you know,
I used to you know, I grew up listening to telphonics.

Speaker 3 (01:33:02):
Man I always wanted to write something like it.

Speaker 7 (01:33:05):
It was a really great thing too, because I said,
you know, I'm never gonna do another record like this,
so I'm just gonna put all kinds of shit.

Speaker 3 (01:33:10):
And that's what I told you here you wanted to be.
I said, that's the great question. Why do we have
to answer that question?

Speaker 7 (01:33:16):
And everybody that was on the project, I would call
him and say, hey, man, come you on this project?
Said what is I said, I have no fucking idea
what it is?

Speaker 3 (01:33:21):
Come play?

Speaker 7 (01:33:24):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:33:24):
It was a lofkin guitar player who was at that
time playing with Springsteen. I said, hey, I got this
song for you to come playing. What is it? I
don't know, just come played on one song and this
is great. You have the other songs. I'm like, yeah,
I play on this one. Greg villain Gains came in. Yes, Greg,
I need doing this thing. He says, what is it?
I said, I don't know, it's just this thing. And

(01:33:46):
you got another song.

Speaker 7 (01:33:47):
And we was just like we would make ten minute tracks.
Every song was ten minutes long. And they said, well,
when we figueret what the hell it is, then we
can whittle it down.

Speaker 3 (01:33:56):
But we didn't know what it was. Who was going
to sing? Who's gonna do this? We would put these
tracks together except for that song. Ain't it funny? And uh?
I got Tammy to sing it, and I used, when
was it? Claire Fisher wrote the string arranger?

Speaker 2 (01:34:11):
Whoa Claire Frisher read the strings?

Speaker 3 (01:34:13):
Claire Fisher bro so Claire raised the string arrangements. And
you know Claire's a herd ass. Yes, so he ranks
the string arrangers and he has both.

Speaker 7 (01:34:22):
He has Arco bass, So I'm like, okay, Claire, Yeah,
I don't need the Arco bass because we have a
bass player playing in it classes with the bass. He's
so used to doing these productions with these producers that
don't know shit. So he says, well, why don't you
come out here and show me the parts that you're

(01:34:42):
talking about passive aggressive?

Speaker 3 (01:34:45):
And I said okay, And I walked out there and
I looked at the score. I took a pencil. I
said from here to here, and he says, oh, oh no,
it's fine, no problem. As soon as he realized I
can read the score, he realized you knew what it was. Yeah,
I didn't have to deal with this ship anymore.

Speaker 7 (01:35:00):
But he's just he you know, he would like to
like get these poor producers in there and you hire me,
and he would like humiliated. And I'm like, nah, I
know what I'm talking about here, bro, get the base
out of there. And he struck the base and yeah,
it's not were good, you know, And it was a good.
It's great arrangement except you know, the basses. But I
enjoyed that whole project.

Speaker 3 (01:35:21):
It was great.

Speaker 2 (01:35:23):
Yeah, that was I was fifteen in the camp. That
was like my sophomore year high school when it came out.
You know, No, man, I was not you.

Speaker 3 (01:35:34):
I'm just telling you, like, like, right man, this record sucks.
I'm like, yeah, okay, what is it. I don't know.
That's the good, bro, I'm just telling you what happened,
right you. You weren't the one. I wasn't talking to you. Okay.
You have these writers and they say, well, there's a
rapper on it, so it must be hip hop. No

(01:35:54):
it's not right, it's not. It's just like not what
you're trying to make it. And even on Colombia.

Speaker 7 (01:36:01):
Columbia, they had this meeting with them and they said this,
you know, it's like they have this this is what
they do with black people.

Speaker 3 (01:36:08):
Think, So we got our street team out there. I'm like,
you're a street team? Are you fucking crazy? This is
not a street team record.

Speaker 7 (01:36:15):
No, it's gonna buy it. They're not gonna buy this record.
And they said, so we have our street team and
we put up stickers. All of us said, oh my god,
this is not that kind of record.

Speaker 3 (01:36:25):
But they didn't have a plan B for a black
person that wasn't making a jazz record.

Speaker 7 (01:36:31):
It's like they have this machine and they're gonna stick
you in the machine and they're gonna put the record
in the in the hands of DJ's.

Speaker 3 (01:36:39):
And I'm like, who aren't gonna play it? And they're
like and they just but they didn't. They couldn't conceptualize
the idea that they couldn't put it into the box
that they put all the arts.

Speaker 2 (01:36:50):
Was it a little better for the second album of
Music Evolution?

Speaker 3 (01:36:53):
Did they get it? But by then I was like, Okay,
I already know what this shit is. Yeah, you know
what I mean.

Speaker 7 (01:36:59):
I'm not I'm just if they tried to have a
publicity meeting with me, I'm just not even gonna attend
because we had a band by then and we were
touring and we were having a good time, and we started,
uh some of those what do they call it jam bands,
like string Sell Williams.

Speaker 3 (01:37:19):
We started playing with these bands and like it was
going to be its own thing. I don't know. I
just decided, yeah, I don't know if I want to
be doing this when I'm fifty. So, you know, we
got to that last tour. Frank wanted to go out
the single wanted to go out and do his own thing. This,
Frank McComb, Frank McComb, Frank McCall his own thing.

Speaker 7 (01:37:36):
The trumpet player, Russell Gunn wanted to go do his
own thing. So it all kind of just I said, well,
if y'all ain't.

Speaker 3 (01:37:42):
Doing it, I don't. I don't even want to do this.

Speaker 2 (01:37:45):
And were you doing Tonight Show as well around the time.

Speaker 3 (01:37:48):
I didn't want to ask answer your questions. I want
this to be to be Tonight's Show, free interview. No,
it's fine. So I was doing it Tonight Show when
we were producing the first buck Shot record.

Speaker 7 (01:38:06):
Okay, but I left the show in ninety five. I
left the show in ninety five to tour with the
band that you know that became Buckshot.

Speaker 3 (01:38:15):
I can dig it.

Speaker 2 (01:38:16):
Did you just enjoy that more than doing being on TV?

Speaker 3 (01:38:20):
I think that, which is what I told you.

Speaker 7 (01:38:22):
If Tonight Show were in New York, I probably would
have stayed. But there was no way living in Los Angeles.
There was no consistent creative musical outlet. So if I
was going to stay, I was basically going to be
saying that I was giving up playing music because there
was no place to play and there was no audience

(01:38:44):
for it. So we were playing gigs in restaurants. It
was just really and then and then I could start
a feeling slipping away. So it really wasn't about the
show or Jay or any of those other things. It's
just my instincts, you know. I just it was a
simple quest question. If you stay here, you're gonna make
a lot of money. So is that okay that you

(01:39:06):
make a lot of money and you do this show
and you cease being a functioning musician on the level
that you're accustomed to and the.

Speaker 3 (01:39:14):
And the answer was no.

Speaker 7 (01:39:16):
But if it had been in New York where I
could go still like play gigs at night and keep
my chops up and keep that whole music and get
that musical input, but it always a very isolating place.
It's a very isolating place. So I was really excited
for you all, especially when Jimmy was gonna move to
New York.

Speaker 3 (01:39:31):
I'm like, oh, this is great, man. You get to be,
you know, in the city, and you can play gigs
after us. If you want to do that, you're around.
He wanted to come to l A. For a second, what.

Speaker 1 (01:39:43):
They were they were trying to consider it, like MAYB,
where'd you go to l A? And but that's when
the other that's when the other Jimmy was starting to
pick up some heat.

Speaker 2 (01:39:54):
Ah got you.

Speaker 3 (01:39:56):
You didn't want to do it.

Speaker 1 (01:39:57):
You've done everything I forgot. You're Chinese, is like, I
love your smile.

Speaker 3 (01:40:02):
Yeah, all this shit. I get paid for that ship
either Norada got you? Damn man, I.

Speaker 7 (01:40:11):
Don't really care because all I would I got was
like two hundred and fifty bucks.

Speaker 3 (01:40:16):
Anyway, right, He's like, you know, you're like, do you
know the union rate? Whatever it was? I need whatever
we were playing.

Speaker 7 (01:40:23):
We're playing a gig at this jazz club, Caesar's East
in Memoryville, and Narady.

Speaker 15 (01:40:27):
Came to the gigs, man, I need you to play
on this too. I went, okay, yeah, sure when tonight,
I'm like, bro, come on, he goes, please creaking singing shitise, Wilson,
it's gonna be a big.

Speaker 3 (01:40:38):
Hit, said, I don't care if it's gonna be a
big hit. Man, I want to get to sleep. He said, man,
can you ass us that? Fine?

Speaker 10 (01:40:43):
So we went over the bridge to Marine County where
his crib was, and he said, this is her rough track.

Speaker 3 (01:40:49):
And I played at the rough time. I never met her.
Oh okay, never met her. I thought you negotiated that
shout out, so you know, no, I asked him not
to do it.

Speaker 2 (01:41:00):
He said wow.

Speaker 3 (01:41:00):
He said, uh yeah, man.

Speaker 7 (01:41:02):
I'm gonna get it to say blue brand for good.
I said, please don't do it, because okay, I won't.

Speaker 3 (01:41:08):
It comes out. I'm like, no, I knew it was.
I knew everywhere I went I was gonna hear.

Speaker 2 (01:41:16):
That frestmas bell Air.

Speaker 3 (01:41:23):
His cameo, oh yeah, I forgot what yeh, Well, we
were in the same studio. That's what made it work.
Oh okay, we would that's right, NBC. I forgot.

Speaker 1 (01:41:35):
Was there a collaboration opportunity that was presented to you
that you couldn't do that? Wound up being something significant,
not that I can.

Speaker 3 (01:41:43):
Think of, Okay, okay, like what I don't even know,
like no, no, no.

Speaker 1 (01:41:48):
I just meant like a chance to do like a
I don't know, plan on a track call, quest record,
like someone requesting you to do something and you weren't
able to do it because of scheduling reasons.

Speaker 3 (01:42:00):
They were never they were never. No, Okay, I don't
think that man. Yo.

Speaker 2 (01:42:05):
So I didn't realize have you and Dave Matthews done anymore?
Because I saw that you would played. It was a
live version of Loverlyay Down, which is like one of
my favorite Dave Matthew songs.

Speaker 3 (01:42:15):
We did that in Rolly.

Speaker 7 (01:42:17):
But yeah, well you know Jeff Coffin, the guy who
pleted the saxophone player in the band. Yeah, I guess
uh Leroy really liked me. I didn't really get to
know Larroy that well. The one time that they played
in New York and playing at Jones Beach and I
wanted to take my son.

Speaker 3 (01:42:32):
So they're like, come sit in with the band. I said, nah,
my son's ten, We're just gonna go to a concert.

Speaker 7 (01:42:36):
And they have like a you know, falling sun night
out go hear the music, you know, And then I
wrote them a nice letter because they hooked up the
tickets and I wrote them a nice letter to the
man in the same thanks.

Speaker 3 (01:42:46):
It was great, you know. And the next time I
come play and then Lroy had that weird ATV accident
and died. It was wild.

Speaker 7 (01:42:53):
But I know Jeff Coffin really well. So Jeff will
call me and say, hey, man, the guys want you
to come play, and I'm like, okay, yeah, sim Raley.
That's forty minute driving from me, so I'll come through.
And then it just started to do They say hey,
can you make this gig?

Speaker 3 (01:43:07):
And you do this? You know, yeah, anytime I could
do it, I'm happy to do it. That was fun.
I mean, it's a great band. I love the band
so and they write great songs.

Speaker 1 (01:43:16):
How long does it take you, especially when you're doing
a Dead and Company or even when you were doing
Grateful Dead.

Speaker 3 (01:43:23):
Their catalog is so damn expansive. How long does it
take you to study that? Or like do they just
tell you to get in where you fit in, or
like how does that work? And I do? Then I
go in to play and they just they call that
something like unlike a lot of men.

Speaker 7 (01:43:36):
Those guys used to just call the songs on the stage.
They didn't have a set list.

Speaker 3 (01:43:41):
I would always kind of you lay back. In the
first course, I wouldn't.

Speaker 10 (01:43:46):
Play, And I was learning them, learn learning the forum
and listening to the ideas that they play in the
little motiefs and where can I play and where is
it fit in? So then on the second churse if
I can get in there, I'll get in there.

Speaker 3 (01:43:59):
And if I can, I just won't play.

Speaker 2 (01:44:01):
I see, man, I want to know. I want you
to talk about your time is Central, that's my alma
mad I graduated in uh one. All right, what brought
you to Central? And what is the climate like? You
know you're talking earlier about all the gospel players. It
was very much like that when I was there as well.
Everybody came out of church. What's it like now?

Speaker 3 (01:44:21):
They're great? I mean this some of the most. I
mean there's some of the most. They're just great. They're
just great kids and they're not ambitious.

Speaker 7 (01:44:30):
And that's perfect for me because when you go to
those regular music schools, so many musicians are ambitious.

Speaker 3 (01:44:36):
You know. Like we had a situation where one of
our students had some problems.

Speaker 7 (01:44:42):
She had to go to the hospital, and all of
the kids start texting and saying, you know, we need
to go to the hospital.

Speaker 3 (01:44:50):
We need to be with our girl. I mean, men, men,
the whole thing. Everybody, when you're gonna come to me
when you going to the hospital that happened at Berkeley,
he'd be like, well, yeah, that's too bad, you know, Yeah,
so what time is the hit?

Speaker 7 (01:45:02):
I mean, it was just like a whole different kind
of thing, you know, the uh we uh Joey Calgarazzo
and I went to this restaurant and there were a
lot of the singers from the vocal on someboy and
so what a y'all doing this Because of COVID we
can't meet the freshman, so we just meet him here
and we sit around. So you got upperclassmen needing freshmens
to just have lunch with them because they can't be

(01:45:24):
together under the normal circumstance. So I just love the
camaraderie and the energy. I mean, it's it's it's it's
an amazing place. Ara Wiggins runs the program, and it
was there when I was there. Yeah, so Wigans, you know,
he's my boss. So I mean, they've just set up
such a great environment there, and the kids are really
curious and really smart, and some of them are super

(01:45:47):
talented too, you know, and they just use the material
and then move on and do other things.

Speaker 2 (01:45:54):
Do you have to have the talk with you know,
being who you are, do you have to kind of
have that talk with the students? Like I watched the
actually a elling like master class he was doing where
he just told the kids straight up, he was like, look,
this is not your big break, Like, we ain't here
for that. Do you have to do something similar with
the kids now? So do they understand this education and

(01:46:14):
not I'm trying to get on press Branford.

Speaker 3 (01:46:18):
Yeah, it's different. It's a different thing because it's not
a master class.

Speaker 7 (01:46:22):
I mean, I'm there, they see me all the time,
and I dog them when they first get there, so
I scared the hell out of them.

Speaker 3 (01:46:28):
So it takes them almost a whole year to figure
out that I was just fucking with him. You know.

Speaker 10 (01:46:36):
The upper classmen know what it is because they went
through I don't say nothing, and the kids were scared down,
egg shells and all of it, you know, and then.

Speaker 3 (01:46:45):
Eventually they realized he's just playing me. So then the
whole thing. It opens up and it's cool, you know,
it opens up and it's cool. But yeah, it's uh.
I take it very seriously and I can't around with him.
We joke. I mean, we have a good time, but
it's a serious thing, and it's more about thought process.

Speaker 7 (01:47:02):
Like I didn't really want to hear him play, you know,
And once they and I told him, I said, the
lessons ain't gonna get good till it ain't about playing.

Speaker 16 (01:47:10):
And then what the upper classmen do is because they're
half hour lessons. You know, before COVID, they would be
half hour lessons starting at ten thirty, So three people
would sign up for ten thirty, eleven, and eleven thirty,
and then it would all come at ten thirty and
we would just play music.

Speaker 3 (01:47:27):
And talk for an hour and a half.

Speaker 2 (01:47:29):
Wow, gotcha, you know.

Speaker 7 (01:47:31):
So and then it became this thing where the lesson
wasn't your private lesson. It was like a class that
other students were monitoring you. And sometimes people just come
in to check out the lesson. I'm like, yeah, come
on in, And then some of the students would say, well,
you know, man, I didn't think he was gonna be
I said man, you want to play for people for
a vivid you better get used to the idea.

Speaker 3 (01:47:51):
Of criticizing you and checking you out and all this
other shit. You know, you don't have secret lessons. I mean,
it's the big deal. You banded at something. Shit, what's
wrong with him knowing?

Speaker 7 (01:48:01):
And then they're like, all right, cool, Yeah, so you
have kids coming and sitting on another kids lessons.

Speaker 3 (01:48:05):
This is a great it's a great situation.

Speaker 2 (01:48:07):
That's what's up.

Speaker 1 (01:48:08):
See, I'm waiting for a black version of Whiplash to
come out in the movies.

Speaker 7 (01:48:17):
Had an experience like the experience in Whip. I said, no,
I'd beat it if he touched me, Like the writer
was like, he was like, really, trust me, trust.

Speaker 3 (01:48:28):
Met me in the class. Yeah, it's happening. It's going
down well. I mean, but do you come from a
place where you feel like this generation might be.

Speaker 7 (01:48:42):
Too used to praise and but I don't care. I
guess they are used to praise, but I don't care.
I mean, so you don't use the tough teacher approach,
like or to the JK approach. They would call it
a tough teacher okay, like throwing ship and all of that.
I'm not gonna throw something on it. They suck, they suck.

(01:49:03):
I just tell them they suck. But I'm gonna tell
them why they suck. I'm not gonna sit there. It's
not like I'm gonna have to.

Speaker 3 (01:49:08):
I'm not.

Speaker 7 (01:49:09):
I'm not trying to establish my dominance over you because
I don't have this deep tragic thing where I was
on a bandstand and I was humiliated. So I'm gonna
act that out on every student that psycho trauma that
you know JK.

Speaker 10 (01:49:22):
Simmons character had. Then they've been my experience. Oh okay, okay,
it's not been my experience. No, I appreciate it. And
you know I've been dying for this moment. But I
know that you hate cats be nerd out on you.
I do, you know, every second of the day. So
I really appreciate you taking the time. I appreciate you.

(01:49:44):
Thanks for inviting me to speak to me.

Speaker 2 (01:49:45):
No, thank you, man, And just as a as a
as a central graduate man, it really means a lot
that you're like, you know, at my university, man like that.

Speaker 3 (01:49:55):
Can't imagine being nowhere else. It's awesome. Well on behalf
of it. I'm paid Bill Sugar Steve uh earned in
bi bigelow.

Speaker 1 (01:50:05):
This questlove with the Great Brandon Marcellus or West Love
Supreme and we will see you one of.

Speaker 3 (01:50:10):
The next ground.

Speaker 2 (01:50:11):
Thank you very much, Yo, what's up? This is spontane.
Make sure you keep up with us on Instagram at
QLs and let us know what you think we should
be next to sit down with us. Don't forget to
subscribe to our podcast, all right peace.

Speaker 3 (01:50:31):
West Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. For
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