QLS Classic: Branford Marsalis

Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.

Yo, Yo, what's up y'all? This is Fonte Fontigelow with this week's QLs classic. Back in December twenty twenty, we interview my man jazz legend Branford Marcellus. You're gonna hear me laughing a lot in this episode because Branford is direct, he holds nothing back, he don't sugarcoat shit, and he is also wrapping my alma mater, NCC Gorth Front the City 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, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of Quest Love Supreme.

I'm your host Questlove. We have Teams Supreme with us. Uh, we're a La Eels. So this one is quite an episode.

Is on vacation took. He's taking a pandemic vacation, a.

Pandemic pandemication, all right, So we got a sugar.

Steve and I paid Bill.

How's going live in the street?

I saw your anniversary photo on Sesame Street today on Twitter, So gratulations.

Or made it congratulations on paper.

Year eleven, dang, oh year eleven for you, but fifty for the institution of Sesame Street.

I get it.

I said before that I hadn't held a job for like fifty hours, so it's good I can have that one.

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.

Second to the Jacksons.

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, 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? North? Carolina.

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.

And what's right to you?

For real?

Right? Yeah, that's what here? Okay, So you're you're still at You're teaching at u n C s C Central?

Right?

How many? How many?

I one day?

I want? I want someone? They properly explained to me.

All the North Carolina institutions.

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. And how how long you've been at North Carolina Central? Since two thousand and five? I think? And what are you teaching there? Right now? Music?

That's economics right right?

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.

That's cool.

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 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

Always an exchange. I teach them more than that they teach me.

But almost all of the kids that are at the school are from the North Carolina here uh and they all.

Basically come out of the church.

Okay, So their exposure to jazz per se is when they get to school.

They didn't grow up playing jazz, they didn't grow up listening to it. And I enjoy that. I enjoy that.

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

And that's that's okay with you. Oh, I'm horrified. It's terrible.

What what's hard fining about it?

What making I'm learning every bit what I did for twenty years of my life.

No, I can't. I get that.

But people arrive at a different place in their life, at different points in our life.

And no, but I'm at a different place in my life. Okay.

It doesn't mean that everybody else needs to be in a place where I am.

All right, I got to ask the hard questions. I was talking to the students today and it was about that.

It was about like, how I'm like, I'm sixty now, so I don't listen to the same music that I did.

When I was thirty, and I definitely would listen to it in the same way.

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.

It doesn't mean that you hate them, you just just move away from it.

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?

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

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 it was back then.

Oh you got to tell me, do right.

This is a whole different kind of thing.

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

I am the person least likely that listens to listen to seventies classic R and B radio.

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.

And go, Man, I love that, but I'm not going to actively put that on.

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 what I mean. I could have been yesterday, you know what I mean.

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 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

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 that I just ain't I ain't really rocking with.

Well, for me, the musicians have to sound like they're interacting with one another for me to like it. I can kind of tell when.

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 human beings in a room.

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.

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.

You have to grow to like it. And we don't usually give music that much time. You know.

It's not like it's like it's not like, yeah, this shit sucks, I'm gonna put it on tomorrow.

It's like, no, it is over.

Yeah, I mean, but sometimes I mean I might, I might get fomo. There will be something like I I'll give you an example, when the Chronic came out. I hated the Chronic, right, and I said, Yo, this shit sucks, man, you hate this ship. And but I had fomo because everyone else had this whole fifty million Elvis fans can't 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 to really open up and accept that. 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.

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

So what the question we start with as far as like your musical discovery? Do you remember the first album you ever purchased?

Yeah? I remember the first two albums, ever, what is it?

The Elton Ghen record called Honky Chateau and a record Chawn called the Big.

Bamboo Smoky shat told. Is that the one with Mona Lisa's and Manhatters on it?

No, maybe it did, ba Bay, that's the one with a Honky Cat on Okay, okay, wait, maybe.

Mona Lisa's is on that record. Maybe Mona Lisa's is on that records.

Well, okay, you'll cover that. That was the first time I ever heard that song.

I saw, great, it's like one of them things.

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 a long time ago. I don't I know the songs,

On that side too, yeah, side too of that.

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.

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. At least, that was the kind of perception that most of us have had.

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.

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.

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

You know.

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

That was that was his.

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.

You know. 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 of his his arrival party, and that moment was such a profound That was one of the worst moments of my life in eighty four and my dad will say that was the most profound moment of his life because that's when he was like, all right, you're now going to come straight home after school and start practicing four to five

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

Man, don't tell me that I freaking sacrificed my damn wife off of an urban legend.

Yep. Fuck it worked out well for you. Don't worry about getting hurt. Man.

This is this is this is worse than finding out the Sugarfoot Love roller coaster scream wasn't a real thing.

It wasn't real.

I went up to him like, hey, wasn't a really stone boy. That wasn't a real thing. Yeah y'all heard that.

Oh yeah, it's actually it was actually fop that was a girl getting murdered.

No, I'm telling you. People think it's love roller coaster.

At the end of Fop on on side to was that murderous scream.

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

I did a nostalgia run for my kids because they't never heard none of that stuff.

They never heard it.

Okay, okay, So your career is based off of a Winton Marcells live.

So there you go.

I could go regulated regulation. No.

Winton was very self motivated. He practiced three hours a day on his own, and he did just three I was five.

Well, Winton was. He was an interesting specimen.

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. We practicing a half an hour between lunch. Then we would go to the music school. Because we had this

I was impressed, and I'm glad it wasn't me, but I was impressed.

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

So I promised them, like when.

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.

You know, the Love I Lost, Wake Up Everybody?

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

Let him do it. So after about a year of doing that, it was hard at first.

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.

That's part of the appeal.

So you just start writing the chord charts right there.

They didn't read.

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

The guitar part. We put the forty five on.

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.

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.

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.

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

Great musicians in town, you know, a lot of great musicians.

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.

To La Body.

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?

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.

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

So about as the musicians musicians and for what with my outsider interpretation of Philly musicians don't really.

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.

Okayheas in New York it's very territorial and I kind of laughed at them, but you know, New Orleans was just great that way.

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?

Son nineteen seventy two? 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?

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.

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.

How's definitely not taking it seriously.

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

My head was, you know.

And then went got to Clifford Brown and classical music, and I thought it was great.

I played classical music when I was younger. I played clarinet in the youth orchestra. 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 play saxophone. I said, I was thirteen years old and I saw these girls and it was like the first time that I saw girls.

Damn they fun.

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 that's you know. And then Christmas I got in saxophone. I was already in the band playing piano. I didn't

Don't play the vienna. Join the vienna player.

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.

Trumpet, and we have this three piece horn section. It'd be great. I don't know, bro, I don't know.

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

Why don't you go get a better bax What the hell?

Wow?

He was right. I mean we were going to the fire him if he didn't do that anyway, and.

He saw it.

So he became the manager of the band and we got the Hamilton Brothers the drummer got mad at me and just quit Bertrane and said, you know, who do you.

Think you are?

Man?

You know your little punk? I mean, I'm a grown ass man. I quit. 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.

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

Guitar, Gavin Bell was the singer, Kermit was the keyboard player.

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.

World, and everybody wants to believe it. I don't know why they want to believe it, but it's fine.

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?

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

Dead stands over us and says no, let's do it.

That's great.

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. Okay, you're right, he doesn't know it.

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

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 we would otherwise think that I didn't have to stick to any guns. Went and stuck to his guns.

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 you know, he didn't play it like you know, he.

Didn't kill it. He just played it.

And he was a great trumpet player. I mean John Roche, who was a more natural funk player, was like, bruh.

I ain't even heard of fucking trumpet? Sound like that? What's wrong with him?

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

Boy.

Okay, what is your what's your preferred weapon of choice

No, not really, Coltrane wasn't really what I would call a good soprano player.

What John did was he ran out a room on.

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

Tenor wasn't the right sound. But biche, I can play you recordings of.

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

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 that's totally well.

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.

Instruments, and you call them.

Send them whatever was six hundred dollars or whatever, and they would send you.

A soprano in the mill. So I got it, and I was excited, but I'm like, well, why the hell am I gonna play it?

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 on the soprano.

They don't even listen to these other guys.

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.

Sound than a bright piercing sound, that.

Kind of set me in a place whereas the already in my colleagues were going straight from the train thing.

So their soprano sound was real thin, kind of bright. I had the exact opposite sound.

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.

I was just talking to that guy about that had never heard from his body is incredible, like the way he sounds on the instrument.

But he is completely out of cold traning school. As a matter of fact, he was playing with Johnny when he got so his whole thing is he comes out of cold traning school.

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 Pharaoh played that solo and as 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.

Created as a massive plan.

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.

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 a cuche. But anyways, Wayne comes out of cold. Wayne know I got that. I know that Wayne soprano sound is molded in a different it's much rounder sound, the sound that I prefer.

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.

Sound more like just one of the listeners. We're talking about Wayne Shorter. Just to be clear, that's the all.

About about Wayne Newton.

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 even in his top five.

Bass player Ron Carter.

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.

And I didn't go to the bass.

I didn't realize that that was a popular like what what other.

Bass is the anchor of the band and not to be solo. The purpose of the bass.

You can solo if you want, but the purpose of the bass is to anchor the band in any style of music.

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

The bass player's job is like you know, Okay, it's really nice if you have a seven foot guy who can dribble the ball like a point guard. But we don't need you to play point We need you to dump there in the paint and get your assat and take them bits. I need bass players that can play the bass. And whoever your guy is, all that is is just like you know, the bassis. You know, it's like just regular people hearing jazz. One of the reasons they hate.

Jaz because they say it all sounds the same.

And one reason it all sounds the same is because everybody's playing the same ship now, So the bass players are playing the same.

Shit that the saxophone players play. If you listen to a record.

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

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 not even I'm like, what does that mean for Ray Brown's or Mingus legacy or mingas?

Mingas didn't do a lot when he did, and when he did solo, he sounded like a bass player when he's.

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

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

I'm like, man, can you please not do that ship?

Because he hears a Pastorius head or like was he a jack ohead?

Or like no, no way. He plays acoustics, so it's hard to play like you can't play that on acoustic bass. You just can't.

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

I said, I would appreciate it. If you wouldn't do it, You're like, man, you know, I got to express myself.

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, 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 going d D D D. The only only instrument on the stage that can do that. So when you do that, the audience has never heard

It's gonna sound just like them.

There's no change in color everything, no change in anything. It's all these same licks regurgitated over and over and over again.

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.

So maybe what I figure saying is the way that I sort of feel about gospel chop.

Patty started. Man, that's just got nothing to do with it.

Go in, go in, go in.

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. Really adventurous, highly technical, high and skilled musicians playing for other musicians. And you know, gospel chops dot com is musicians playing for musicians. I mean, if I was able to get a band and they had some band full of young gospel cats and they all playing, and I

Feeling the spirit I win.

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

Being a great musician.

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?

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? 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. You playing a horn section, what does that mean? That means you in

Philip Bailey was. They didn't know what the horn section was.

But that's the thing 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 the attention, even though the nature of what it is, I wind up being the center of attention. But when I would play, people would say, why do you always walk to the back of the stage when you ain't soloing, I said, because if I stand there, people are gonna look.

At me, and I want them to look at whoever else is solo.

So if I walk to the back of the stage behind the piano and I've become a shadow, They're going to look around and deduce.

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 once a year, and they would always have run team. And he caused me, He says, I need some help. I need a horn section. We're gonna do Stack to Night and I said, all right,

In the Saturday Night Live band. 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, mae. You know we don't have any of these step off performances. I said, Man, I grew up in a horn section. I don't need a step up performance. I just want to be in the horn section. I have never played these tunes. I love these tunes. Just leave me alone, let me do my thing.

You know, I'm not.

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

Oh wow, screaming hawkins.

From me. I used that once in the beat. That was great anyway, I know y'all know.

So, and then it came for the solo and I'm playing the solo, and Steve Cropper turns around and.

Says, God, damn somewhere you're from New Orleans. Yeah, figures when we got back to say.

With me, wait, that's the first time you met Steve Croppers the first time you met me? Ah yeah, I was about to say you were brand from Marcellus.

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.

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 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, Bran, will you work with me? At what

Because I'm asking this because myself, 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 father never said that, but uh okay, I did.

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 an mbase trying to do their thing.

Like what what was the environment?

Was it a civil war environment of people wrestling trying to figure out?

I guess it may have been a civil war for those who gave a fuck, But I wasn't one of them, so I don't know civil war for me.

No, I love it.

I love it.

Well, then's my question, like, what was it in that environment?

Like you just didn't care about jazz critics and jazz critics please, it was.

A simple environment. There's a simple question for me, right, that's the young man in nineteen fifty seven. You got all these dudes that can play all these sixteenth notes, they can't play a fucking eighth notes solo. You can't play a lesser young solo with the right tone in the right style. And that included me. So my thinking is is that if we're moving jazz forward, how come we can't play none of this other shit m Because like, I have a friend who's a physicist, right, Physicists are

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.

That was cool back in this day. He would say, yeah, no problem, I'm a physicists.

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

Man, when you listen to that old shit fuck, do your think? Do your think y'all? You know the critics say, what do the critics play?

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.

I'll listen to sometimes.

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. How much credence can I take in that? Seriously? Facts?

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

You can read poetry, it don't matter. You ain't got to sing a song. Yeah, the ten minutes are yours.

And he received the universal condemnation 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. And that's how I feel. And it ain't like I'm because like people would say, you know, man, critics are really killing you.

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.

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.

Dude.

There's so many of those, but I think the easiest one is playing balance. Most modern players don't know how to play.

But I tell you what I told y'all.

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.

So they're like, I want to do that.

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

So it was a two Ben Webster records, one with the Oscar pedis.

And trio and the other one strings. I listened to these shits every.

Day for a year and a half. Now I was playing with things, I was rocking out, but every day at least once a day, sometimes I'm playing twice a day.

I would listen to both of these.

Cassettes, and a year and a half later, I could play like Ben web without.

Even trying to play. It just came out the horn.

I'm like, damn, that works, okay, great, And that was just the beginning.

But in the break in the middle of it, 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.

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

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

He's his son.

The only way to get better is to keep sounding like ship till it don't sound like shit no more.

There ain't no shortcuts. And I said, okay, cool.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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 Face, The Three Sided Dream.

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

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 good, you know, then I.

Promise you I got it, I got it down.

You'd be like, oh, I get it?

Was there was your tenure? Was your tenure with Blakie your first time in a professional like established jazz unit. And was that also in the studio or just on the road?

Well, we did it was all It was mostly on the road.

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

John Vadakovich was on drums.

David Torkanowski was the pianist's dad was the conductor of Louisiana Philharmony of the New Orleans and uh and uh.

Jim Singleton on base.

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

Tunes with these cats, and you know, went was.

Firing and I was just playing a pentatonic scale on everything because that you know.

But it was great. 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.

Did you ever do anything anytime New Orleans ever do anything with Alan Tucson?

No? No, he didn't. They didn't. You know, they got to call me. It's not like I'm because you know it's female.

But that's what I was thinking. Did he ever call you? 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.

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.

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

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 me and went and Dead with some new with James Black and uh Charles Family, Yo Homie on base.

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. 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 Mad Madira from this from this guy in New Orleans. It was it was cool and I played a little corny ass so with I guess that debut record, whose idea was.

It to use the classic H.

Davis Quintet as the background at least with Us Shorter and your brother's moles.

But Ron Carter and.

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 and called me and said, hey, man, you're doing the record, Fly to Tokyo.

I flew to Tokyo.

I see just growing up listening to your records, I have to personally say that, you know, I got your The first album I've got of yours was Scenes in the City, and the thing that struck me, Like I was thirteen when it came out, So the one thing that struck me about that record was the title cut and the fact that you kind of predated Doctor Dre Prince Paul as far as like you know the way that you crafted that song as a or as more like I don't know how to describe it like Stevie

I forget that album on Blue Note.

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. If you passed the prolog that was a mingus mingus did it? If I heard it in the city, Yeah, that would be great to do that. And I used my homeboy. Wendell Pearce was the narrator on it.

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

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, 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.

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

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.

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 Mingus tune called scenes in the City.

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

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 right and uh.

Yeah, you know Early Atlantic, Yeah yeah, early well yeah, when he was playing with.

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 played with Jeff and there were a couple of musicians.

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

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.

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

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.

Can they airtain play? That's what they think he's doing. They think he's just playing whatever he wants.

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

I mean, you know, his logic, his brain was is unbelievable.

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.

From him the most.

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.

But no studio is the same. Like what you hear, what you hear, make it better, all right?

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 when they would let filmmakers do these shorts, and I guess, Spike Lee, yeah, spikey.

Yeah, warned plenty.

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.

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 Spike.

He says, hey, you know, hey man Brandon winning is My name is Spike Lee. I'm a filmmaker.

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.

He never brought it up. He never brought it up. He says, you know, my dad's a musician. I said, really, what's his name? Bill Lee went and is the bass player? Yeah, how you know that? He says, Man, we heard your dad when he was we were little kids. He had this band with like a folk band. And I said, oh, ship the descendant of Mike in Phoebe. And he goes, oh my god, y'all know that. Yeah, my dad. We didn't want to go, but my dad said, your going

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.

And he's playing explaining what it was, and I'm like, yeah, I'll stand on the corner in Brooklyn and play.

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

Branford needing to rustle up some money for for you know, diapers and a formula.

You child and the great And I walked outside. I'm a musician, what do you want me to do?

Go be a man?

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

You damn, I forgot about.

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.

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?

Anyway? Please please? Because you know what someone asked me. 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.

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.

It's good, it's not really, it's mundane really, but still it ain't gonna come from me on record.

All good, I get it.

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.

In school days. He told you you didn't see it wasn't it wasn't. Okay, Well.

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 at the tape, you insta he drinks water, went to he's sipping tea right now. He's literally I wish I was sipping bourbon. Then I tell you the story.

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.

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 won another one.

I don't remember that at all. Maybe some people felt that way, 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 do our step We're gonna do our step show, you know, oh daddy.

So we're coming onto the stage.

Oh yeah, off of that stage. I don't really remember, and TJ. Campbell's character said something to me, so I said something to her. I ain't gonna tell you. I don't even remember what I said, but it wasn't con whatever it was. And gian Carlo says, don't you talk to my woman like that? So I slapped him upside his head and said, shut up, blankety blank, and then he bum rushed me, and then everybody just bum rushes and then it starts and it's on.

So like with Spike Yell's cut, are y'all cool after that? Or how does it? How does it go?

What is going on? That's all it does all And Fishburn is absolutely furious because he says fight scenes need to be choreographed this is how people get hurt.

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

How long did it take to alleviate that situation?

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.

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? It had to be because they had to choreographed it.

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 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

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

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.

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.

And the most important part is that when there's no sound on the on the recording, your fingers should never ever be moving.

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.

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

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

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 sure that I think it's to their detriment.

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

To play an instrot, you just need to understand the answering physically.

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.

Had already seen them, so I knew what all of the problems were like.

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.

Miles Davis is two years old. You can't light like Miles in nineteen twenty nine.

Go get some YouTube videos and watch Louis Armstrong play cornett, not trumpet, but watching There are a couple of videos.

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.

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

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

You have to know.

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, 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.

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.

He played the BASSA made me say, all right, you go away. And then Colman playing trombone.

It was great.

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.

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.

And uh, where would you record? We recorded in New Orleans? Oh, okay.

New Orleans musicians are perfect because they're the only musicians left in They.

That had outside voices, I mean, speaking generically, but more often than not, I see.

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?

Buddy Bolden is kind of considered to be the father of traditional jazz, trump Be playing in New Orleans. Everybody that heard him says he had the biggest sound they ever heard in their lives. There are no recordings of him, and there's only one picture of him. He had some sort of breakdown, so he didn't you know, sometime in his thirties. But Louis armstrong and got swear by man, you should have hear everybody sure it's actually a good subjectau then you can mythologize all of it.

No one knows anything.

Yeah, he was like the jazz or manigo.

Everybody talks to. All the old guys used to talk about him. Okay, the fun dunk god.

People waited fucking ship Premiere Bucks, all the funk go.

Come on, man, No, no, you're good. You're it's your show. You're the you're the co leader, dude, I just wanted this movie and scoring quexielm welcome here you.

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

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.

Correct got it.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

No, I didn't even know you guys played jazz. I went to Berkeley and Smittie Smith put on.

A never t d record, he says, I said, Man, who the hell is that? He goes Man, that's the great Mom's nags with Wayne Short, I said, Wayne Shorter.

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.

And I'm a musician, So no, I mean that. That's like, I don't even know why musicians embark on that line that they always come back to their base. If you feel like doing some shit, do it. If you ain't no good at it, maybe you learn how to be better at it. But I was always good at it. I was good at it as a kid, so it wasn't so traumatic for me. I was just going home. So when the Machines started in the seventies late seventies, that whole sound was so milk toast to me.

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.

Post sexual healing. Yes, I know. So I was like, I'm like, the shit's over, It's over.

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.

Swag, you know. And and that was the thing that I liked about it the most.

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.

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. Jazz cats Wing come to you. I know Premiere must have because half the stuff that he sampled Premiere is different.

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.

PROMI you would actually listen to the records. Premiere is different.

I mean, you know, you can't use him as a metaphor for everybody else. But like most people who are good at the.

Thing, that's the thing, they're interesting.

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.

Or whatever it was. I think it was Top and all these musicians and they stuck me in.

And the hip hop guys picked ten hip hop CDs, the rock and roll guys picked ten rock and roll CDs.

I had all kinds of shit there. That's just me.

So my thing is is that, all right, I'm already weird, Like I listened to all these different styles of music. I just think that a lot of people that gave went and shit for not like in pop music. But nobody gives pop musicians ship for not liking anything other than pop music. I've never heard an interview where they say, oh, you know, that she's cooler. Do you sing opera but a jazz guy, well, do you play anything contemporary? Do you play anything pop? Why does he have to do that?

Prince?

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.

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 that she was insult.

So like mad House, I mean, the first eight was cool. I mean, the song was that A one.

Was kind of sad. But those guys the song the song was.

But I'm I wouldn't.

Eric Leeds is my boy. It ain't got nothing to do with jazz.

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 like this.

People have this weird relationship with jazz. But the thing is is that they don't know this shit. They have these opinions about the music.

That they have barely heard or barely listened to.

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.

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. 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

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.

I don't care.

I like it. You know, well, I like you when you play with the dead Great. I like that shit too. This thing was great, Yes, he was great.

I like that too.

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

I've in so I'm ti collaborated with the late Great Rob Washerman with the We have Bruce Hornsby on the show a few weeks ago.

I forgot to ask him about this. A song called White Wheeled Limousine nice for on an album called Trios and no one's ever heard of this album.

Like, like Nobe, people don't care whatever, But do you have any recollections of that session or of playing with Rob Washington.

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

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

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. But the thing is is that Rob's bass playing was greatful the music he was doing. Yeah, I mean, I mean, I like the way he plays bass in the stuff that he was doing. Like if he was trying to play a Love Supreme, it probably wouldn't have worked. Yeah, y, he was playing upright, but it was more like a stick base, you know. It wasn't like an acoustic upright base. It was like this.

Chapman stick, that Chapman stick.

Okay, cool, Yeah, he was playing the Chapmain stick.

Is that the only time you recorded with with with Bruce Hornsby?

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?

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 you if I asked me to do it and I was on the road, you know, really funny thing is is dead, you know, digital audio workstations around, and I would have done it, but I just said.

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.

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.

What was that?

Like?

His premiere is a whole dude.

Ain't that wow? Crew Son?

Well, first of all, we were we were doing spite wanting me to work with them on that jazz thing something.

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.

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.

And it wound up being six months. What was that last it was?

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.

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.

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

That's what's up Disney Channel shows.

Okay. I always loved that song man that that.

Was one of them things where it's like, you know, I used to you know, I grew up listening to telphonics.

Man I always wanted to write something like it.

It was a really great thing too, because I said, you know, I'm never gonna do another record like this, so I'm just gonna put all kinds of shit.

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?

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?

Come play?

You know.

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

And we was just like we would make ten minute tracks. Every song was ten minutes long. And they said, well, when we figueret what the hell it is, then we can whittle it down.

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

Whoa Claire Frisher read the strings?

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.

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

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

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

It was great.

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.

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 it's not right, it's not. It's just like not what you're trying to make it. And even on Colombia.

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.

Think, So we got our street team out there. I'm like, you're a street team? Are you fucking crazy? This is not a street team record.

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.

But they didn't have a plan B for a black person that wasn't making a jazz record.

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.

And I'm like, who aren't gonna play it? And they're like and they just but they didn't. They couldn't conceptualize the idea that they couldn't put it into the box that they put all the arts.

Was it a little better for the second album of Music Evolution?

Did they get it? But by then I was like, Okay, I already know what this shit is. Yeah, you know what I mean.

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.

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.

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.

Doing it, I don't. I don't even want to do this.

And were you doing Tonight Show as well around the time.

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

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.

I can dig it.

Did you just enjoy that more than doing being on TV?

I think that, which is what I told you.

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

And the answer was no.

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.

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.

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.

Ah got you.

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.

Don't really care because all I would I got was like two hundred and fifty bucks.

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.

We're playing a gig at this jazz club, Caesar's East in Memoryville, and Narady.

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.

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?

So we went over the bridge to Marine County where his crib was, and he said, this is her rough track.

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.

He said wow.

He said, uh yeah, man.

I'm gonna get it to say blue brand for good. I said, please don't do it, because okay, I won't.

It comes out. I'm like, no, I knew it was. I knew everywhere I went I was gonna hear.

That frestmas bell Air.

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.

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 you to do something and you weren't able to do it because of scheduling reasons.

They were never they were never. No, Okay, I don't think that man. Yo.

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

We did that in Rolly.

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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 get in where you fit in, or like how does that work? And I do? Then I go in to play and they just they call that something like unlike a lot of men.

Those guys used to just call the songs on the stage. They didn't have a set list.

I would always kind of you lay back. In the first course, I wouldn't.

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

And if I can, I just won't play.

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

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.

And that's perfect for me because when you go to those regular music schools, so many musicians are ambitious.

You know. Like we had a situation where one of our students had some problems.

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.

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?

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

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 not I'm trying to get on press Branford.

Yeah, it's different. It's a different thing because it's not a master class.

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.

So it takes them almost a whole year to figure out that I was just fucking with him. You know.

The upper classmen know what it is because they went through I don't say nothing, and the kids were scared down, egg shells and all of it, you know, and then.

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

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 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.

And talk for an hour and a half.

Wow, gotcha, you know.

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

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.

See, I'm waiting for a black version of Whiplash to come out in the movies.

Had an experience like the experience in Whip. I said, no, I'd beat it if he touched me, Like the writer was like, he was like, really, trust me, trust.

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

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. 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.

I'm not.

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.

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. Thanks for inviting me to speak to me.

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.

Can't imagine being nowhere else. It's awesome. Well on behalf of it. I'm paid Bill Sugar Steve uh earned in bi bigelow.

This questlove with the Great Brandon Marcellus or West Love Supreme and we will see you one of.

The next ground.

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

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