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 in North Carolina

(00:27):
sixty University. Even bride up in this thing. We have
Overlappentie and this is just a guy that I truly
just love and just admire his work. And we had
a great time in this episode. Y'all enjoy it all right, Age.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to another episode of Quest Love Supreme.

Speaker 1 (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 4 (01:15):
Steve and on paid Bill, how's going.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Live in the street? I saw your anniversary photo on
Sesame Street today on Twitter.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
So gratulations 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. I get it.

Speaker 5 (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 6 (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. He's trying
to stop me already, you know. Saxophonist, uh, jazz historian,
hip hop aficionado, actor, late night bandleader, composer, conductor, scorer, everything. Uh,

(02:29):
this this, this, this man is a true renaissance gentlemen.
We're very honored to have him on the show. Please
welcome be great brand from Marcellos to quest lof Supreme. Sir,
how's it? Where are you right now?

Speaker 6 (02:45):
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 6 (02:59):
And what's right to you?

Speaker 2 (03:01):
For real?

Speaker 6 (03:02):
Right? Yeah, that's what here?

Speaker 1 (03:06):
Okay, So you're you're still at You're teaching at U
n C s.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
C Central Right?

Speaker 6 (03:15):
How many? How many?

Speaker 4 (03:17):
I one day?

Speaker 1 (03:18):
I want I want someone to properly explained to me
all the North Carolina institutions.

Speaker 6 (03:24):
North Carolina State is in Raleigh. Is an engineering school?
Uh hm? In the triangle alone, I think we have
three HBCUs Shaw, Saint All and n CCU. Yes, sir,
North Carolina Central. I see.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
And how how long you've been at North Carolina Central?

Speaker 6 (03:47):
Since two thousand and five? I think? And what are
you teaching there?

Speaker 1 (03:49):
Right now?

Speaker 6 (03:51):
Music?

Speaker 4 (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 4 (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.

Speaker 6 (04:49):
Right, But it's 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 6 (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 6 (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.

Speaker 6 (05:24):
Process regardless of what style of music you end up playing.

Speaker 7 (05:27):
Most of our students that are doing well don't play jazz.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
And that's that's okay with you.

Speaker 6 (05:33):
Oh, I'm horrified. It's terrible.

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

Speaker 1 (05:39):
What making I'm learning every bit.

Speaker 6 (05:43):
What I did for twenty years of my life. No,
I can't.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
I get that. But people arrive at a different place
in their life, at different points in our life.

Speaker 6 (05:53):
And no, but I'm at a different place in my life.

Speaker 2 (05:56):
Okay.

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

Speaker 1 (06:00):
All right, I got to ask the hard questions.

Speaker 6 (06:03):
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 6 (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 6 (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 1 (06:41):
Oh?

Speaker 6 (06:42):
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 what.

Speaker 6 (07:14):
It was back then.

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

Speaker 6 (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.

Speaker 6 (07:26):
That time, and I enjoy it.

Speaker 7 (07:29):
But like like unlike a lot of my friends from
high school, and they openly tease me about it, and
I tease them.

Speaker 6 (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 6 (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 6 (09:42):
Well, for me, the musicians have to sound like they're
interacting with one another for me to like it.

Speaker 7 (09:49):
I can kind of tell when records are kind of
produced in a way that one track was done on
Wednesday and another track was done on Thursday. A lot
of records are productions now right. 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

(10:10):
human beings in a room.

Speaker 6 (10:12):
That's the stuff that I prefer to listen to. 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. 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 6 (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 6 (10:50):
It's like, no, it is over.

Speaker 1 (10:54):
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. And I thought like, well, what is it
me that's not accepting it? 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

(11:36):
to really open up and accept that.

Speaker 7 (11:38):
Okay, this really great piece of work. So it's a
lot different than the East Coast sound. It really well
at that time it was well, yeah, it was.

Speaker 1 (11:47):
I wasn't used to that cleaning cleanliness.

Speaker 6 (11:49):
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 6 (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 Bamboo.

Speaker 2 (12:20):
Smoky 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 6 (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 6 (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.

Speaker 6 (13:04):
I don't.

Speaker 7 (13:05):
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 4 (13:11):
On that side too, yeah, side too of that.

Speaker 6 (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 6 (13:53):
Why that is. Oh, you know, they've been doing it
since they were kids. I hated jazz when I was
a kid, just did not like it at all.

Speaker 7 (14:01):
Okay, went and started digging it when he was about twelve,
and I was like, yeah.

Speaker 6 (14:05):
That's nice, man, keep listening to that shit if you
want to. Yeah, you know that was My dad was
a jazz musician.

Speaker 7 (14:13):
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 wasn't like, oh, jazz. You know,
my dad would put on these jazz records I leave
the room. Oh, so he tried to force like King
Oliver on you guys. And it's just like I didn't
even know that he was mostly a post bop dude.

Speaker 6 (14:35):
You know. It's like, you know, all that late forties
up until when he started having.

Speaker 7 (14:40):
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, that was.

Speaker 6 (14:51):
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 6 (15:13):
You know.

Speaker 1 (15:14):
That was the year that Michael Jackson had 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.

Speaker 6 (15:23):
Of his his arrival party.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
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 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

(15:52):
this household or was it just like, at what point
were you guys to take your missicians? Well, specifically you
uh as the oldest, like knows how to tell.

Speaker 6 (16:03):
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 6 (16:12):
Yep. Fuck it worked out well for you. Don't worry
about getting hurt.

Speaker 1 (16:19):
Man. 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 6 (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 6 (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 6 (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.

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

Speaker 6 (17:02):
They never heard it.

Speaker 5 (17:03):
Okay, okay, So your career is based off of a
Winton Marcells live.

Speaker 6 (17:07):
So there you go. 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 6 (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 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.

Speaker 6 (17:51):
From eight to twelve, and the music school from one
to six.

Speaker 7 (17:54):
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
homework and then repeat that cycle every day.

Speaker 6 (18:08):
I was impressed, and I'm glad it wasn't me, but
I was impressed.

Speaker 1 (18:13):
So what were you doing during this time here? Because
I mean I.

Speaker 7 (18:16):
Was learning Bob, I was listening to Parliament Funkadelic, the Barcades.

Speaker 6 (18:21):
I was fourteen years old.

Speaker 7 (18:23):
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 6 (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 6 (18:48):
You know, the Love I Lost, Wake Up Everybody? And
I was like, man, are we going to do anything else?

Speaker 7 (18:56):
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 would sing
the parts. Didn't if they were questionable about anything. And

(19:18):
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 6 (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 6 (19:37):
That's part of the appeal.

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

Speaker 6 (19:42):
They didn't read. I was nobody in the band read
but me and my brother. So no, I wasn't writing
nothing down.

Speaker 7 (19:47):
I was just learning songs and telling them what the
notes were and singing the bassline, sing.

Speaker 6 (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 6 (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, you know, their neighborhood,
they had that thing. But there were a lot of.

Speaker 6 (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 6 (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 6 (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.

Speaker 6 (21:49):
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 I spent there. Okay,
Wheas 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 6 (22:33):
Son nineteen seventy two?

Speaker 1 (22:35):
Wait, how old were they? If you were twelve? There
were men bad jobs? Oh Okay. At this point, are
you saying that this is what you want to do
or I know what I wanted to be?

Speaker 6 (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 6 (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.

Speaker 6 (23:27):
Prepared, and I learned all these songs and I did
all my stuff, and that was where 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 6 (23:38):
I played classical music when I was younger. I played
clarinet in the youth orchestra.

Speaker 7 (23:42):
Right, I remember this is actually the most well, it's
as an old man, it's pathetic. As a young person,
it's probably a very common story every So when you
switch to.

Speaker 6 (23:51):
Play saxophone, I said.

Speaker 7 (23:53):
I was thirteen years old and I saw these girls
and it was like the first time that I saw girls.

Speaker 6 (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, whatever.

Speaker 6 (24:24):
That's you know.

Speaker 7 (24:25):
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.

Speaker 6 (24:38):
Player, because I was.

Speaker 7 (24:39):
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 other band, I think it was
like jam Incorporated.

Speaker 6 (24:48):
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 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 6 (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 Kermit took
over there. And then Kermit is a really musically knowledgeable guy.
You know, he played in church.

Speaker 6 (25:21):
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.
Why don't you go get a better bax What the hell?

Speaker 2 (25:32):
Wow?

Speaker 6 (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.

Speaker 6 (25:42):
The drummer got mad at me and just quit Bertrane
and said, you know, who do you think you are?

Speaker 9 (25:46):
Man?

Speaker 6 (25:46):
You know your little punk? I mean, I'm a grown
ass man. I quit.

Speaker 7 (25:50):
Damn great, So he quit and then we called the
Hamilton brothers, Shannon and Anthony Hamilton. They joined the band,
and that was pretty much what the band was for
a long time.

Speaker 6 (26:00):
And you, it was you and your brother went in.

Speaker 7 (26:02):
This band, Me and Wynton and John Rochie with a
horn section, Anthony Hamilton on bass, Shannon Hamilton on drums,
Michael As on.

Speaker 6 (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 6 (26:30):
Want, 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 7 (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.

Speaker 6 (26:50):
Yeah, we're we're the black Von Trapps. Yeah, you know
we've been singing dead stands over us and says no,
let's do it. 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. Yeah, absolutely, I just refuse
to believe that he knows anything outside of jazz that.

Speaker 6 (27:15):
Okay, you're right, he doesn't know it.

Speaker 1 (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. I know that.
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

(27:38):
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
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

(28:00):
talent and that sort of thing. 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 things that

(28:24):
we would otherwise think that I didn't have.

Speaker 6 (28:26):
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.

Speaker 6 (28:51):
Didn't play it like you know, he 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 6 (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 Winton's in it, and I'm trying to find his
picture so I can send it to you.

Speaker 6 (29:26):
Boy.

Speaker 1 (29:26):
Okay, what is your what's your preferred weapon of choice
as far as your access concerned?

Speaker 6 (29:32):
And you know Bourbon.

Speaker 1 (29:39):
Well, okay, so I'm asking this only because I know
that you're proficient on tenor and soprano, and like, no
disrespect to you know, Sydney 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

(30:04):
sort of not ruined the soprano, but has he made
it a hard mountain to climb for people to pursue
a career in soprano because you've stuck to soprano?

Speaker 6 (30:18):
No, not really.

Speaker 7 (30:19):
Coltrane wasn't really what I would call a good soprano player.
What John did was he ran out a room on
the tennant so he picked up the soprano because he
wanted the notes to get higher.

Speaker 6 (30:31):
What made Wyn's shortest.

Speaker 7 (30:33):
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.
One of the most incredible soprano players I've ever heard,

(30:55):
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 6 (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.

Speaker 6 (31:17):
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. 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

(31:44):
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 6 (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 a.

Speaker 6 (32:11):
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 6 (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 6 (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.
So the 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 6 (33:24):
I was just talking to that guy about that had
never heard about.

Speaker 7 (33:26):
His body is incredible, like the way he sounds on
the instrument, but he is completely out of cold traning school.

Speaker 6 (33:32):
As a matter of fact, he was playing with Johnny
when he got so his whole thing is he comes
out of cold training 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,
and it was something that was very inspiring. And uh
remember when uh phil Peeling Philips Hymen 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

(34:01):
Pharaoh played that solo and as.

Speaker 6 (34:03):
You are, yeah, I don't want to yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
just flipped it, you know. 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 6 (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. So let'sten, let's
let's make cuche. But anyways, Wayne comes out of cold.
Wayne know, I got that. I know that.

Speaker 7 (35:03):
Wayne soprano sound is molded in a different it's much
rounder sound, the sound that I prefer.

Speaker 6 (35:10):
Other people totally preferred 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 6 (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 6 (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 6 (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 6 (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 6 (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.

Speaker 10 (36:37):
Really, I tell you I love The bass player's job
is like you know, okay, it's really nice if.

Speaker 7 (36:49):
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? Is it just
like you know the bassis? You know, it's like just
regular people hearing jazz. One of the reasons they hate.

Speaker 6 (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 shit now, So the bass players
are playing the same.

Speaker 6 (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.

Speaker 6 (37:29):
Now they all playing the same two five one legs.

Speaker 7 (37:31):
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.

Speaker 6 (37:38):
To me, I would rather hear a bass player sound
like a bass rather than go and you know another
music to be like whoa. I'm like, man, play the guitar,
then so can I ask what does that mean for? Uh?

Speaker 1 (37:57):
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 6 (38:09):
Solo, doooo peopo do peer boo boo boo.

Speaker 7 (38:15):
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, 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

(38:36):
to take these big modern bass los. 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 or like, no, no.

Speaker 7 (38:47):
Way, he plays acoustics, so it's hard to play like
you can't play that on acoustic bass.

Speaker 6 (38:51):
You just can't. All right, well mcbrithan, you know, well, no,
he's older than Chris.

Speaker 7 (38:56):
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 6 (39:04):
I said, I would appreciate it. If you wouldn't do it, You're.

Speaker 1 (39:08):
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. I said, you 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.

Speaker 6 (39:52):
Going d D D D.

Speaker 7 (39:54):
The 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 6 (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 6 (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 6 (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 6 (40:39):
I get it now. So it's just like I'm more
impressed with the pocket than I am with how 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.

Speaker 7 (40:56):
Really adventurous, highly technical, high and skilled musicians playing for
other musicians.

Speaker 6 (41:00):
And you know, gospel chops dot com is musicians playing
for musicians.

Speaker 7 (41:04):
I mean, if I was able 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 feeling the spirit
I win. And that's what I'm talking about when I

(41:26):
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
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 6 (42:02):
And the song requires it no other time. Gotcha? If
I played with the Grateful Dead, that shit is never required,
I could do it. But who's that for, right?

Speaker 7 (42:14):
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
what it is you suddenly become so disconnected from what
it is you're supposed to be doing.

Speaker 6 (42:31):
You playing a horn section, what does that mean? That
means you in the background. That's what it means.

Speaker 7 (42:35):
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 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 6 (42:55):
Philip Bailey was. They didn't know what the horn section was.
But that's the thing.

Speaker 7 (42:58):
We always function in the background. So I come from that,
and then I start playing jazz. I'm still cool with
being in the background. I don't need to be the
center of.

Speaker 6 (43:07):
The attention, even though the nature of what it is,
I wind up being the center of attention.

Speaker 7 (43:11):
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.

Speaker 6 (43:20):
Are gonna look 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 de do soh the piano players
planning let me check him out. 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

(43:45):
once a year, and they would always.

Speaker 6 (43:46):
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, I'll
get back to you. So I said, Uh. I called
Lou Solof, who was the trumpet player with Blood Sweating
Tears and played in the Saturday Night Live band.

Speaker 7 (44:00):
I said, look, let's do this gig. 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, mane.
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.

Speaker 6 (44:21):
Just leave me alone. Let me do my thing. 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.

Speaker 2 (44:33):
On you, you know, oh wow, screaming hawkins I put.

Speaker 6 (44:42):
From me. I used that once in the beat. That
was great, anyway, I know y'all know so.

Speaker 7 (44:48):
And then it came for the solo and I'm playing
the solo and Steve Cropper turns around and says.

Speaker 6 (44:54):
God, damn somewhere you're from New Orleans. Yeah, figures when
we got back to say.

Speaker 2 (45:00):
Fine with me.

Speaker 1 (45:01):
Wait, that's the first time you met Steve Cropper. It's
the first time you met me.

Speaker 7 (45:05):
Ah.

Speaker 6 (45:06):
Yeah, I was about to say you were brand from Marcellus.

Speaker 7 (45:09):
I don't mean shit to him. 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 1 (45:27):
That was it. You know. 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

(45:49):
on his terrain trying to refine or redefine himself, and
just at the time you 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.

Speaker 6 (46:12):
Bran, will you work with me at what age were
you when when you arrived? What age were you?

Speaker 7 (46:20):
Because I'm asking this because myself.

Speaker 1 (46:24):
Yes, when did you feel that? When was your arrival?
When when your father was like, yeah, my son's killing it.
As far as that, my.

Speaker 6 (46:31):
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 of as the old jazz guard. And you know
I've talked to like David Murray and all those cats
like in mbase trying to do their thing.

Speaker 6 (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 I guess it.

Speaker 7 (47:03):
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 6 (47:11):
No, I love it.

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

Speaker 1 (47:14):
Well, then's my question, like what was it in that environment?
Like you just didn't care about jazz critics and jazz critics.

Speaker 6 (47:23):
Please, it was a simple environment. There's a simple question
for me. Right, that's the young man in nineteen fifty seven.

Speaker 7 (47:29):
You got all these dudes that can play all these
sixteenth notes, they can't play a fucking eighth notes solo.

Speaker 6 (47:35):
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 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.

Speaker 7 (47:52):
If my friend Barry Abart flew in here from the
Jet Proportion laboratory where he works and I said, hey, man,
my daughter is a sophomore and high school, can you
help up with this math? 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 6 (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.

Speaker 6 (48:18):
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?

Speaker 1 (48:23):
Well, you know what I can't either, but I'm gonna
learn how Man, when.

Speaker 6 (48:26):
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 6 (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 was never
good enough to play.

Speaker 6 (48:53):
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.

Speaker 6 (49:06):
On the studio. What Jim should have done? It said,
you know what, you got a point.

Speaker 7 (49:12):
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 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

(49:33):
gonna reserve ten minutes for you and you can come
on stage and you can do whatever you want. You
can read poetry, it don't matter. You ain't got to
sing a song. Yeah, the ten minutes are yours.

Speaker 6 (49:48):
And he received the universal condemnation.

Speaker 7 (49:50):
From all these critics because they know, because 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.

Speaker 6 (50:07):
And that's how I feel. And it ain't like I'm because.

Speaker 7 (50:09):
Like people would say, you know, man, critics are really
killing you. 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 6 (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 6 (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 6 (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. So part Blakey was like, man,
you can't play a ballot where the ship you know,

(51:16):
you're horrible. 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,
all right. I listened to it a little bit, not
a lot. 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,

(51:37):
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.

Speaker 6 (51:45):
Yeah, two cassetts. Because the walkman was that they didn't
have disc men yet. 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 and trio and the other one strings.

Speaker 6 (52:01):
I listened to these shits every day for a year
and a half.

Speaker 7 (52:06):
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. I would listen to both of
these cassettes, and a year and a half later, I
could play like Ben Webster without.

Speaker 6 (52:19):
Even trying to play. It just came out gorn. I'm like, damn,
that works, okay, great, And that was just the beginning.
But in the break in the middle, of it.

Speaker 7 (52:30):
We 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 6 (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.

Speaker 1 (52:47):
And I said, I know, I know, I'm working on it.

Speaker 6 (52:49):
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.

Speaker 6 (52:57):
I said, but I've been listening for a year and
it sounds like shit. 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 6 (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?

Speaker 6 (53:31):
I don't want to do that, sure.

Speaker 7 (53:32):
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 2 (53:46):
And then after Sunny you just learned how to 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.
I know, Stanley was one for always wanting to fight out,
you know. My He gave me this record, The Shape
of Jazz to Come, and I listened to it for
a week. 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 6 (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.

Speaker 1 (55:10):
What is it?

Speaker 6 (55:10):
There's a there's a documentary on Rassian that you should
check out. I can't remember the name of it, The
Three Sided Dream. Thank You Faced 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.

Speaker 6 (55:30):
Some of the documentary, it slows down. It's kind of boring.
And but then this makes like if you you check
out on Rassiana and that you.

Speaker 2 (55:40):
Good, you know, then I promise you I got it,
I got it down.

Speaker 6 (55:45):
You'd be like, oh, I get it? Was there? Was
your tenure?

Speaker 1 (55:48):
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 6 (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.

Speaker 6 (56:12):
Older, like ten years older than me.

Speaker 7 (56:13):
John Badakovich was on drums, David Torkanowski was the pianist's
dad was the conductor of Louisiana Philharmony of the.

Speaker 6 (56:20):
New Orleans and uh and uh 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.

Speaker 6 (56:31):
Play with us. So we had this one gig a
week where we would come in and play tunes.

Speaker 7 (56:35):
With these cats, and you know, went was firing and
I was just playing a pentatonic scale on everything because that.

Speaker 6 (56:42):
You know. But it was great.

Speaker 7 (56:43):
We had a great time. I mean everybody looked out
for us. I mean we had really cool experiences, 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 1 (56:57):
No?

Speaker 6 (56:58):
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?

Speaker 6 (57:06):
That's what I meant, because 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 mean here, yes, R Blake.
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.

Speaker 6 (57:40):
Jadge was concerned.

Speaker 2 (57:40):
Yeah, no, not true.

Speaker 6 (57:42):
That's not true. 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.

Speaker 7 (57:52):
Me and went and Dead with some new with James
Black and uh Charles Family, Yo Homie on base.

Speaker 6 (58:00):
That was the first thing, like with Winton's record. Yeah,
that was the first. 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.

Speaker 7 (58:14):
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, so we took an
alto and dropped it in octave so it sounded like
a baton. We did all these crazy things, so we
made like a six or seven piece horn section on
this song Mad.

Speaker 6 (58:34):
Mad Madira from this from this guy in New Orleans.
It was it was cool and I played a little
corny ass.

Speaker 1 (58:40):
So with I guess that debut record, whose idea was
it to use the classic H. Davis Quintet as the
background at least with Us Shorter and your brother's moles.

Speaker 6 (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.

Speaker 6 (59:19):
Fly to Tokyo. I flew to Tokyo. I see just
growing up listening to.

Speaker 1 (59:26):
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 that struck me about that record was the
title cut and the fact that you kind of predated

(59:50):
Doctor Dre Prince Paul as far as like you know
the way that you crafted that song as a you,
or as more like I don't know how to describe
it like Stevie 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 6 (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 in and out, like it's not mine.
That was unheard of an eighty four at least for
me as a thirteen year old, I never heard anything
like that.

Speaker 7 (01:00:36):
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.

Speaker 6 (01:00:43):
And I used my homeboy. Wendell Pearce was the narror
on it. That was Wendell Perce. Wow, WNDE. 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. 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 do me a solid,

(01:01:04):
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 then, but yes,
and the four in base wasn't established.

Speaker 6 (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. 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 was
a cool thing to do. So yeah, it was a
It was an old.

Speaker 6 (01:01:43):
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 atte Mofett, 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 1 (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 6 (01:03:07):
Say, 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 6 (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.

Speaker 2 (01:03:45):
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 and they airtain.

Speaker 6 (01:04:01):
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 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 6 (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 6 (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 6 (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.
I got to get to film before you even get
to your hip hop part. 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

(01:05:40):
when they would let filmmakers do these shorts, and I
guess Spike Lee, Yeah, Spikey.

Speaker 6 (01:05:48):
Yeah, who 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 6 (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. They were living in Brooklyn on
Washington Avenue, basically six box from Spikes. He says, hey,

(01:06:23):
you know, hey man, Brandon Winne 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 1 (01:06:35):
He never brought it up.

Speaker 6 (01:06:36):
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?

Speaker 9 (01:06:42):
Yeah? How you know that?

Speaker 6 (01:06:43):
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 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,

(01:07:04):
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.

Speaker 7 (01:07:12):
Winton was eight, And they came to New Orleans and
sending some mic and phebe and that really freaked him out,
you know.

Speaker 6 (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. 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 6 (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 New hang
that means impressure on me. I hope it's still on YouTube. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:07:57):
It's basically short of Branford needing to rustle up some
money for for you know, diapers and a formula your
child and the great And I walked outside.

Speaker 6 (01:08:10):
I'm a musician, what do you want me to do?

Speaker 1 (01:08:12):
Go be a man?

Speaker 7 (01:08:13):
So I walked outside. I started playing for Chambers. Wait
who who was on Fulton Avenue.

Speaker 6 (01:08:18):
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 9 (01:08:32):
You, damn.

Speaker 4 (01:08:34):
I forgot about.

Speaker 6 (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 6 (01:08:55):
Anyway?

Speaker 1 (01:08:55):
Please please?

Speaker 6 (01:08:57):
Because you know what someone asked me.

Speaker 1 (01:09:00):
Someone asked me, what is the genesis of my laugh?
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 6 (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 2 (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 6 (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 look.

Speaker 11 (01:10:26):
At the tape, you instat as he drinks water, went
to he's sipping tea right now, he's literally.

Speaker 6 (01:10:37):
I wish I was sipping bourbon. Then I tell you
the story. 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. You know what I mean, you
didn't have to create that kind of tension. I mean,
they can create it on command. I really don't remember
us being mad because we went one hotel and they

(01:11:10):
won another one.

Speaker 6 (01:11:11):
I don't remember that at all. Maybe some people felt
that way.

Speaker 7 (01:11:14):
But not 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 6 (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 Conn
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 6 (01:12:22):
What is going on? That's all it does all.

Speaker 7 (01:12:25):
And Fishburn is absolutely furious because he says fight scenes
need to be choreographed. This is how people get hurt.
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

(01:12:47):
escalated to this thing.

Speaker 1 (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? Yeah?

Speaker 6 (01:13:21):
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 6 (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 on the film,
So we had account for that.

Speaker 1 (01:14:16):
I see we got to jump to My Rainie because
I got eaves by question all other ship.

Speaker 6 (01:14:23):
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 6 (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 6 (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
to do the filming in Pittsburgh, I saw some of
the early things. I said, look, I need to meet
with the musicians. You know, everybody has their handler. And
they're like, look, you know the musicians. It's like a

(01:15:24):
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.

Speaker 6 (01:15:29):
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. 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 is to make.

Speaker 6 (01:15:54):
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.

Speaker 6 (01:16:04):
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 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 6 (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 6 (01:16:31):
Miles Davis is two years old. You can't lay 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 6 (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 mm and the strider candles. You know,
so your hands go from left and right to the center.

Speaker 6 (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. 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 6 (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 he's going
to bumped bomb, bomped bump the whole time through all
of the changes. 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,

(01:17:51):
it doesn't matter. When they shoot you, they're going to
see your shoulders and if you're not playing the piano,
your shoulders won't move. 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. And
then Michael pots the acting, well, he just had to
show everybody up and learn how to play the damn bass.

(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 6 (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 6 (01:18:50):
And uh, where would you record? We recorded in New Orleans.

Speaker 7 (01:18:55):
Oh, okay, New Orleans musicians are perfect because they're the
only musicians left in then.

Speaker 6 (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.

Speaker 6 (01:19:42):
But Louis armstrong and got swear by. Man, you should
have hear everybody. Sure it's actually a good subject, Beau,
then you can mythologize all of it. No one knows anything.

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

Speaker 6 (01:19:56):
Everybody talks to. All the old guys used to talk
about him. Okay, the dunk god.

Speaker 4 (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.

Speaker 4 (01:20:18):
You're the you're the co leader, dude.

Speaker 1 (01:20:20):
I just wanted to this movie and scoring quexielm welcome
here you.

Speaker 2 (01:20:26):
Go all right?

Speaker 6 (01:20:27):
Anyway? Anyway, look, you're for raising the hip hop. Uh
have been legendary.

Speaker 1 (01:20:33):
I mean, you know we can name them all, fight
the power whatnot?

Speaker 6 (01:20:37):
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? Or I guess I can hear the
answer already. You're saying I didn't give a fuck, but.

Speaker 4 (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 6 (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.

Speaker 6 (01:21:27):
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 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 6 (01:21:52):
Well, it's not.

Speaker 1 (01:21:53):
It brings me back to the base that you came from, because.

Speaker 6 (01:21:56):
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. No,
I didn't even know you guys played jazz. I went
to Berkeley and Smittie Smith put on a never t

(01:22:18):
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 6 (01:22:35):
And I'm a musician, So no, I mean that. That's like,
I don't even know why musicians embark.

Speaker 1 (01:22:40):
On that line that they always come back to their base.

Speaker 6 (01:22:44):
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 wasn't so traumatic for me. I was just
going home. So when the Machines started in the seventies

(01:23:05):
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 6 (01:23:20):
Post sexual healing. Yes, I know. So I was like,
I'm like, the shit's over, It's over.

Speaker 7 (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 6 (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,
I wouldn't even waste my time.

Speaker 6 (01:23:59):
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 6 (01:24:13):
PROMI you would actually listen.

Speaker 1 (01:24:14):
To the records.

Speaker 6 (01:24:15):
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 6 (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 6 (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 6 (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 liking pop music, but nobody
gives pop musicians ship for not liking anything other than
pop music.

Speaker 6 (01:25:05):
I've never heard an interview.

Speaker 7 (01:25:06):
Where they say, oh, you know that she is cool,
but do you sing opera? But a jazz guy, well,
do you play anything contemporary? Do you play anything pop?
Why does he have to do that?

Speaker 6 (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 6 (01:25:23):
It's intimidated. 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
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

(01:25:46):
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 was kind
of sad.

Speaker 6 (01:25:56):
But those guys the song the song was.

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

Speaker 6 (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. It's just that this people
have this weird relationship with jazz.

Speaker 6 (01:26:23):
But the thing is is that they don't know this shit.
They have these opinions about the music 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 6 (01:26:40):
When you it's like, you know somebody who's a poet,
not a slam poet, but a poet. 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.

Speaker 7 (01:26:54):
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 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

(01:27:16):
guy who found.

Speaker 6 (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 2 (01:27:36):
I like it.

Speaker 6 (01:27:38):
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 6 (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 Yah,
I should have done that because I don't do those.

Speaker 1 (01:28:01):
Can I try him in here?

Speaker 6 (01:28:02):
Now?

Speaker 13 (01:28:03):
I'm in so I'm collaborated with the late Great Rob Washerman.
We have Bruce Hornsby on the show a few weeks ago.
I forgot to ask him about this. A song called White.

Speaker 6 (01:28:17):
Wheeled Limousine nice for on an album.

Speaker 14 (01:28:21):
Called Trios, and no one's ever heard of this album,
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. 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, man,
don't you cat down one of my tubes? And it
was because I think Bruce sang on the tune. Yeah,
so uh, Bruce said.

Speaker 6 (01:28:51):
Hey man, let's go do this thing with washermon. 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. He didn't really And I would always
like get in this space 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

(01:29:14):
Washman prior to that. 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. Yeah, yeah, man, I knew
all the cats man, So what what did you think
of his bass playing? It's kind of where where where
do you? I don't I don't try to place people.

Speaker 7 (01:29:37):
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.

Speaker 6 (01:29:49):
Yeah, y, he was playing upright, 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 4 (01:30:01):
Chapman stick, that Chapman stick.

Speaker 6 (01:30:03):
Okay, cool, Yeah, he was playing the Chapmain stick.

Speaker 1 (01:30:06):
Is that the only time you recorded with with with
Bruce Hornsby?

Speaker 6 (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 for.

Speaker 7 (01:30:43):
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.

Speaker 6 (01:30:50):
Workstations around, and I would have done it, but I
just said, 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 1 (01:31:18):
Like?

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

Speaker 6 (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 6 (01:31:34):
Yeah, and we just hit it off. 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 6 (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 7 (01:32:33):
She was She still lives in l A. 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.

Speaker 6 (01:32:46):
For a while. That's what's up. She's 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 6 (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 going to do another record like this,
so I'm just gonna put all kinds of shit.

Speaker 6 (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 6 (01:33:21):
Come play?

Speaker 2 (01:33:24):
You know.

Speaker 6 (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.

Speaker 1 (01:33:40):
He says, what is it?

Speaker 6 (01:33:41):
I said, I don't know, it's just this thing.

Speaker 7 (01:33:45):
And you got another song and were 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 6 (01:33:56):
But we didn't know what it was.

Speaker 7 (01:33:57):
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?

Speaker 6 (01:34:04):
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 6 (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 the classes with the bass.

Speaker 6 (01:34:33):
He's so used to doing these.

Speaker 7 (01:34:35):
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 talking about passive aggressive? And I said okay,
And I walked out there and I looked at the score.
I took a pencil.

Speaker 6 (01:34:49):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:34:55):
The score, he realized you knew what it was.

Speaker 6 (01:34:57):
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.

Speaker 6 (01:35:08):
And I'm like, nah, I know what I'm talking about here, bro,
get the base out of there.

Speaker 7 (01:35:12):
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.

Speaker 6 (01:35:20):
But I enjoyed that whole project. 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 6 (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 6 (01:36:08):
Think. So, we got our street team out there. I'm like,
you're a street team? Are you fucking crazy?

Speaker 1 (01:36:13):
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 6 (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 6 (01:36:39):
And I'm like, who aren't gonna play it? And they're
like and they just but they didn't.

Speaker 7 (01:36:42):
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 6 (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 6 (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 6 (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 7 (01:37:48):
I didn't want to.

Speaker 6 (01:37:48):
Ask answer your questions. I want this to be to
be Tonight's show, free interview. Oh it's fine.

Speaker 7 (01:38:00):
So I was doing it Tonight Show when we were
producing the first buck Shot record. 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 6 (01:38:15):
I can dig it.

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

Speaker 6 (01:38:20):
I think that, which is what I told you.

Speaker 15 (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.

Speaker 7 (01:38:35):
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 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

(01:38:55):
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 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.

Speaker 6 (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 6 (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 6 (01:39:56):
You didn't want to do it. You've done everything I forgot.
You're Chinese, is like, I love your smile. 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 6 (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 16 (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 6 (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 7 (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 6 (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 6 (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 6 (01:41:08):
It comes out. I'm like, no, I knew it was.
I knew everywhere I went I was gonna hear that.

Speaker 2 (01:41:22):
Frestmas bell Air.

Speaker 6 (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 think of, Okay, okay, like what
I don't even know, like no, no, no, I just
meant like a chance to do like a I don't know,
plan on a track call, quest record, like someone requesting

(01:41:55):
you to do something and you weren't able to do
it because of scheduling reasons.

Speaker 6 (01:42:00):
They were never, they were never. No, Okay, I don't
think that man.

Speaker 2 (01:42:04):
Yo. So I didn't realize have you and Dave Matthews
done anymore? Because I saw that you would play. It
was a live version of Loverlyay Down, which is like
one of my favorite Dave Matthew songs.

Speaker 6 (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.

Speaker 6 (01:42:27):
The one time that they played in New York and
playing at Jones Beach and I wanted to take my son.
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 6 (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 6 (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. Their catalog is so damn expansive. How long
does it take you to study that? Or like do
they just tell you to.

Speaker 6 (01:43:29):
Get in where you fit in, or like how does
that work?

Speaker 1 (01:43:31):
And I do?

Speaker 6 (01:43:32):
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 settlest I would always kind of
you lay back in the first churse, I wouldn't play,
And I was learning the learn, learning the forum and
listening to the ideas that they play in the little motiefs.

Speaker 6 (01:43:54):
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. And if I can,
I just won't play.

Speaker 2 (01:44:01):
I see, man, I wanted 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 6 (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 6 (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 6 (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 said,
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 together

(01:45:25):
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 6 (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 6 (01:46:28):
So it takes them almost a whole year to figure
out that I was just fucking with him.

Speaker 1 (01:46:35):
You know.

Speaker 7 (01:46:36):
The upper classmen know what it is because they went
through I don't say nothing, and the kids are scared down,
egg shells and all of it, you know, and then.

Speaker 6 (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.

Speaker 7 (01:46:55):
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.
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.
And then what the upper classmen do is because they're
half hour lessons. You know, before COVID, they would be

(01:47:16):
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 6 (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.

Speaker 6 (01:47:47):
I said, man, you want to play for people for
a vivid you better get used to the idea 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? And then they're like, all right, cool, Yeah,
so you have kids coming and sitting on another kids lessons.
This is a great it's a great situation. 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 6 (01:48:17):
Had an experience like the experience in Whip, I said, no,
I'd beat it if he touched me, Like.

Speaker 7 (01:48:24):
The writer was like, he was like, really trust me,
trust met me in the class.

Speaker 6 (01:48:32):
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 6 (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 17 (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 6 (01:49:55):
Can't imagine being nowhere else. It's awesome. Well on behalf
of it. I'm paid Bill Sugar, Steve uh Earn 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 6 (01:50:10):
The next garund Thank you very much, Yo, what's up?

Speaker 2 (01:50:15):
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 6 (01:50:31):
West Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio.

Speaker 1 (01:50:37):
For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
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