Black Music Month QLS Classic: James Mtume Part 1

In part 1 of 2 from Questlove Supreme's 2017 interview with late, legendary musician and songwriter James Mtume reminisces about his historical relationships with legendary Jazz musicians like Miles Davis, walks team supreme through the songwriting process and explains the origins of "Mtume."

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic
episode was produced by the team at Pandora.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
What up, y'all is Laiyah from Team Supreme. Okay, So
it's June, and you know it is Black Music Monk
now this month and its cause was started by my godmother,
Dianna Williams, the legendary Kenny Gamble, and the great ed
right back in nineteen seventy nine after being invited to
the White House along with the Black Music Association. Now,
the Black Music Association was a group of black folks

(00:31):
that were the best of the best of the music industry.
I'm talking record execs, I'm talking radio people, I'm talking artists.
I'm talking to everybody from Clarence Avon and Frankie Crocker
to Percy Sutton, everybody in the middle right. So they
all get invited to this big party on the White
House lawn June seventh, nineteen seventy nine. And before the
performances started, President Carter said many things addressing and reminding

(00:52):
people of the importance of Black Music Monk. And one
of the things he said was end quote in many ways,
the feelings of our own black citizens throughout the history
of our country has been accurately expressed in the music,
and it presents a kind of history of our nation
when you go back and see the evolution of black
music word. So we've spoken a lot about Black Music

(01:14):
Month on Questloves Supreme, and this June we are running
a different episode from the QLs archives every single day
in the name, spirit and cause of Black Music Month.
Next up, we are honoring a legend who has transitioned
and so we continue to honor him, the amazing James

(01:34):
M Two men.

Speaker 3 (01:41):
Suprema Supremo, Role called Suprema Supremo.

Speaker 4 (01:48):
Roll call Suprema su Supremo. Role call Suprema Supremo.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
Yeah, that's not surprising.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
My sign is artichoke.

Speaker 5 (02:02):
Yeah, with the sparagus rise Supremo.

Speaker 6 (02:07):
Roll Suprema Son Supremo.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
Roll my name is Fante. Yeah, and I can't stop,
won't stop. You are the key to my love life.

Speaker 3 (02:21):
Supremo Suprema Supremo, roll call, I Love Air toe Yeah.

Speaker 7 (02:30):
And Deodato Yeah, put this guy here. Yeah he played
with Gotto.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
Suprema Son Son Supremo, roll call Suprema Son soun Supremo.

Speaker 6 (02:43):
Roll called I'm unpaid Bill. Yeah, you know who you are.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
Yeah, don't let it hold you down.

Speaker 6 (02:50):
Reach fold.

Speaker 3 (02:54):
Supremo, roll, Suprema Son Supremo role, don't be concerned.

Speaker 6 (03:01):
Yeah, Boss Bill's return. Yeah, vacation was great.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah, time off well earned. Suprema. I haven't been on
the train for like a month.

Speaker 6 (03:17):
You yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
Yeah, yeah, we don't.

Speaker 6 (03:26):
Supreme.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
That was like turn Supreme roll.

Speaker 8 (03:32):
My name is Willie Yeah, oh really yeah. My sign
is all the choke. Yeah with a green pea vison.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
Supreme roll, Suprema, Supremo, Role, Supremo, Supremo, Role Supremo So sore.

Speaker 5 (03:58):
Wow, gentlemen, welcome to another episode of Course Love Supreme.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
Let's welcome back our boss, Boss Bill.

Speaker 4 (04:09):
They're always calling the shots from Europe.

Speaker 5 (04:11):
Okay, but so long you also realized that we was,
you know, taunting you while you was away.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
It was definitely while cats away. You really think I cared?
I think I was thinking about this show.

Speaker 6 (04:25):
How was Amsterdam? Bill?

Speaker 4 (04:27):
I don't remember?

Speaker 6 (04:28):
Good answer was good answer?

Speaker 1 (04:30):
Good answer?

Speaker 5 (04:32):
Yeah, welcome to another episode of Quest Love Supreme. We
got the team Supreme here, we got Boss Bill, unpaid Bill,
uh fan.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
Ticolo and it's light Yah.

Speaker 5 (04:45):
Yeah we we we decided to commit on a name
that's consistent, and this is the second week in row
that like calling you. It's like, yeah, our distinguished guests. Oh,
I'm sorry, and we got Steve.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
Don't take it personal. I'm sorry man. You know we're
best friends.

Speaker 6 (05:05):
Man, I mean looking right at me, that was well played.

Speaker 9 (05:12):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
I just think what yesterday, ladies and gentlemen.

Speaker 5 (05:15):
Uh has has achieved a lot, and in the world
of jazz, in the world of pop music and soul
music and R and B and uh, I guess inadvertently
hip hop as well. You know, absolutely he has had
his his his histories is just a who's who of

(05:40):
of history.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
Maybe maybe I went to Amsterdam.

Speaker 6 (05:46):
It sounds like it sounds like, yes, ladies and gentleman.

Speaker 5 (05:50):
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome, uh the incomparable James m
too maate to question.

Speaker 8 (05:56):
Yes, thank you very very much. Thank you want to
be here, man, Thank you so much.

Speaker 4 (06:01):
Thank you.

Speaker 5 (06:02):
We we know you have stories in history. We are
live in electric lyad the studios right now. You're about
to tell us you you've been here a few times.

Speaker 8 (06:09):
Man, that's the I think the first time I was
in here was like seventy four. Wow, I remember been here,
like I can't remember. You know, jazz. A lot of
jazz records were done here in the seventh I think
the last time I was here was.

Speaker 10 (06:29):
Would be Loud Yeah, yeah, yeah, with my son fire.

Speaker 8 (06:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
It's something about this studio that makes artists forget who
they were.

Speaker 6 (06:37):
That's the same question.

Speaker 8 (06:38):
He was like, I'm here, like my man just quoted
I come in here, I look up there, gotto him.

Speaker 10 (06:43):
Yeah that was my Yeah, that was my mayor.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
So are you you know?

Speaker 5 (06:48):
Not many people know that you are a Philadelphia something?

Speaker 1 (06:53):
Does phil you know that you're a Philadelphia? You know what?

Speaker 8 (06:57):
That's a great question. Most people don't know that, although
I've always made that clear. Brother was born and raised
in South Philly. I left when I was eighteen.

Speaker 10 (07:06):
To go to college in Pasadena. But South Philly.

Speaker 1 (07:10):
Man, Yeah, but are you? Are you even in the.

Speaker 8 (07:14):
Nothing, I never got any wreckord. No, No, I will.

Speaker 5 (07:20):
It's crazy, I will probably I'm not playing Devil's advocate
because you know, if you're if you're on a border
committee like that, I would hope to think that you
would do your thorough research.

Speaker 1 (07:35):
But I don't.

Speaker 5 (07:36):
I mean, based only that you don't do that much
press or no, a lot of press, and I'm pretty
much a sponge for this type of information. I truly
didn't know that until maybe, you know, three four five
minutes ago.

Speaker 8 (07:57):
You know what's deep about that? Brother? That's why into
y'all when I heard that y'all was from Philly the roots.

Speaker 10 (08:03):
Really, yes, sir, it.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
Makes sense now. Yeah, so you're born in South Philly where.

Speaker 8 (08:07):
Uh fifteen twenty six Warton Street, right across the street
from Barrett Junior High. I went to Overbrook High Overbrook.

Speaker 10 (08:13):
Yes, sir, Wait, year did you go to Overbrook? Damn
you getting deep?

Speaker 8 (08:20):
I went. I graduated in sixty six, so I think
was that sixty two? Because remember back then high school
started in tenth grade. Okay, you know you had Junior
High right and then high. So yeah, and I went
to Overbrook because I went to school. I was a
swimmer and over in the South and Southern didn't have

(08:40):
a swimming team. And my uncle lived in the right
around the corner from Overbrook, so I used this address
and commuted every day.

Speaker 5 (08:47):
It's weird you say Southern, because my era of Southern
was like Joe Clark's lean on me southern right rights.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
Matter of fact, West Philly High School is the same way.

Speaker 10 (08:57):
Like you know back in back in those day.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
But was it cool to go to southern if you
wanted to?

Speaker 8 (09:03):
Well, you know, it wasn't that many bloods really, you know,
it was a whole You gotta remember, South Philly wasn't
what it was.

Speaker 10 (09:09):
I mean back then.

Speaker 8 (09:10):
I think my family when we moved there, we were
probably about the second family black family that was in
that area.

Speaker 4 (09:18):
What did your folks do?

Speaker 8 (09:20):
Uh?

Speaker 10 (09:20):
Well, let me let me get this this great question.

Speaker 8 (09:24):
Uh. My biological father is is a Jimmy Heath, Great Jimmy,
yes sir, and.

Speaker 10 (09:31):
Of the of the Heath brothers, my uncles Percy my uh,
of the uncle's two dy uh Coomber.

Speaker 8 (09:38):
The father that raised me was was was a great
pianist named James heng Gates foreman.

Speaker 4 (09:45):
Uh.

Speaker 8 (09:45):
He played with Bird, he played with Dizzy, he played
with Lester Young, you know. And as a matter of fact,
Bill when he was Billy Billy Holliday paid for my parents'
wedding with my mother and yes, sir, down in Washington
is my sister's god mother. My sister's passed, but Dona
who are we gonna go there? Brother, I'm seventy years old,

(10:09):
but I've been in this thing. Man, when I was
ten or eleven. I just briefly say this. I remember
sometimes be at the table dinner. There's dizzey beless people. Wow,
there's still lonely this monk, there's cold Trane. I'm not
gonna say I knew how hip that was, but I
knew I was in some special shit.

Speaker 6 (10:28):
What was the dinner conversation like with those kind of people?

Speaker 8 (10:31):
Nine man, I just knew it was like wow, you know,
And as I got older, the deep part is that
I ended up playing with some of these people.

Speaker 1 (10:41):
When did you appreciate it?

Speaker 10 (10:43):
The intellect and the humor.

Speaker 8 (10:45):
One of the funniest people in the world was Miles
Dats and a lot of people don't because you know.

Speaker 4 (10:51):
You see him as just the serious sky.

Speaker 8 (10:53):
Man, funniest cat in the world. All jazz cats are funny.
I think Dave Chappelle, uh you cats were played on it.
I think when he had that block party and I
saw him sit down and he started playing around midnight,
I said, Lord, and he was talking about the humor of.

Speaker 10 (11:09):
Monk and timing, you know, man, it was.

Speaker 8 (11:12):
It was very special. Uh, Sonny violence, I played with
all these cats. Well, I'm sorry, I was going to
add this. Well, I'm like, I'm old, so I get them.

Speaker 6 (11:22):
You already take it out.

Speaker 8 (11:24):
My father, Jimmy Heath and and myself are the only
father's son historically that ever played with Myles.

Speaker 10 (11:33):
Father played, and the son played with Mars.

Speaker 4 (11:36):
And when you when you were with Myles, what were
you playing?

Speaker 8 (11:38):
Percussion?

Speaker 4 (11:38):
Placussion?

Speaker 8 (11:39):
But I was.

Speaker 10 (11:39):
I also played.

Speaker 8 (11:40):
You know, obviously I didn't write songs or scored, but
I'm a keyboardst Okay.

Speaker 5 (11:45):
So can I ask, well, first of all for the
Heath brother's question, yes, sir, because they mean a lot
to us.

Speaker 1 (11:52):
For another reason, who was playing?

Speaker 6 (11:54):
Who's playing?

Speaker 8 (11:55):
Uh?

Speaker 5 (11:56):
Colimba on Danny Cow that wash?

Speaker 1 (12:02):
Yeah? Okay, so that even makes more sense keyboards.

Speaker 9 (12:07):
Do you care to elaborate for the people that that
don't listen to Nas.

Speaker 6 (12:12):
I don't care to welcome back?

Speaker 5 (12:19):
Okay, okay, So basically for hip hop heads that care
about the artist sampling? Uh A well loved Heath Brothers
song called Smiling Billy was sampled by Nas. Uh q
Tip sampled it on NAS's One Love and so, and
the beating that's also sampled, of course, yes, the beating
on style.

Speaker 1 (12:39):
But silely cow. I didn't, Yes, I that's that one.
I didn't know.

Speaker 5 (12:43):
I didn't know that he was in the crew, and
I didn't know they were from Philly. But I was
saying that when these luminaries are like coming to your
house and and just hang with you, no one, yeah,
no one appreciates it when they're young.

Speaker 10 (12:57):
I did, well.

Speaker 5 (12:59):
I was saying, like, so you instantly knew and appreciated it.

Speaker 8 (13:04):
Like I said, I'd be lying to say that young,
I just knew it was something special.

Speaker 10 (13:10):
I knew it was something special.

Speaker 8 (13:12):
And sometimes the cats would stay with it, like if
they were working Philly, like Sonny Stick would live with
us for that week. And I remember one day waking
up he was in the backyard practicing playing afato. Barry Harris,
a great jazz pianist, stayed with us. He's with Cannonball
back then, and they come and play. I was going
in the clubs when I was fourteen and fifteen. I

(13:34):
couldn't buy no drink, but I you know cats, you
know said, you know, get a little little punk a
coke us up you know, but I used to go
there and hear yousef PEPs and the show.

Speaker 10 (13:44):
But oh yeah, man, so.

Speaker 6 (13:46):
What was the okay?

Speaker 5 (13:47):
So described the Philly cabaret music scene, like, what was it?
Where could you where could you go see? What was
the typical lineup like? And to see these shows?

Speaker 10 (14:03):
Well, you know there were especially in Field.

Speaker 8 (14:06):
Well back in them days, every city had a ton
of jazz clubs and that's where them you know, obviously
you notice, you know as as well as I do.

Speaker 10 (14:14):
That's where you went to hear the music.

Speaker 8 (14:16):
It wasn't until Miles came along that jazz started breaking
on the concert. You know, you go pay money and
sit in the in the in the you know, Lincoln Center,
you know, and in places like that. But the clubs, man,
you know, that's where it was, and it was the
crowds were so hip. The bebop audience was as hip
as the cats on stage. Cause you had to know,

(14:39):
you know, you wasn't you wasn't hip if you didn't
have the new cold train, you know I'm talking about.

Speaker 10 (14:44):
I'm in junior high school, man, I.

Speaker 8 (14:45):
Couldn't wait when you know, Milestone and cond of Blue
came out and I used to study every solo and
I would hum them.

Speaker 10 (14:54):
That was my introduction to this music.

Speaker 11 (14:56):
So at your at your time, when you were coming up,
jazz was like the pop music of your time, the
real hip hop.

Speaker 8 (15:03):
Dig it was that. And I'm also growing up with
Frankie Lyman and the teenagers Why the Fools fall in love?
So it's the birth of black R and B. And
this whole youth, you know, was w D as Georgie
woods Man with the Goods. You know, every night I'm
listening to that. Now, this is a funny story. And

(15:25):
if I'm talking too much, y'all come.

Speaker 6 (15:27):
That's what we want. So normally we talk. Please talk
more than me.

Speaker 8 (15:34):
See one thing you gotta remember back then, growing up
in a jazz household was almost like and listening to
R and B was almost sacrilegious, you dig uh, It's
like you know people who grow up in the church
and they go into funk and armby. Oh wait a minute,
you know. So I used to have to listen to
my stuff real low, you know, at night. But I

(15:54):
have then that we had transistor radios. I have it
under the pillow, and I used to hear all these cats. Man,
you know, Georgie Woods and back then, you know, it
wasn't this like if he dug a record and Kenny
Gamble told me this. He said, sometimes him and the
Huff would cut a record and run right up to
the station and dropped on him and he played four
times in a row, because that's how you broke records

(16:16):
back then.

Speaker 10 (16:17):
Wow. So you know, so I'm growing up with jazz
and the birth of R and B.

Speaker 5 (16:25):
Slight slight confession time, Yes, sir, And it's kind of weird.

Speaker 1 (16:31):
I'm I'm your story in reverse.

Speaker 5 (16:34):
So for all the Prince for Glory stories I've ever
told about being on punishment for Prince and parents, yeah,
being all that.

Speaker 1 (16:42):
Actually Prince wasn't first. I mean, Prince was prevalent. But
the very first time that my parents pulled an intervention
on a mirror listening to secular, salacious pop music was
I had flim flammed, and you know, I asked my mom, like, YO,

(17:02):
buy me the juicy food. Oh god, you know, I
was like to I was in California asking my mom, like,
give me juicy food forty five. She was like, no,
that's that's a lollipop everywhere. Noah.

Speaker 5 (17:16):
And then I tried to do it on dad like that,
and then they did that, Wait didn't you already ask
your mother?

Speaker 6 (17:21):
And asked me so.

Speaker 5 (17:23):
Before they issued the your un punishment joint. Then I
kind of snuck. I had an older cousin that was
sort of like an aunt, and we were just in
together in the mom you know. She she brought me
like two forty eight. She brought me a New York
New York by Grandma's and plasts and furies five and
then just in passing, like I decrabbed the juicy food

(17:45):
forty five and brought it and thought I was cool.

Speaker 1 (17:47):
Then I got caught with it. My punishment.

Speaker 4 (17:53):
With jazz.

Speaker 6 (17:54):
Wow, Like this is where.

Speaker 5 (17:58):
I don't know my dad's version of extra sizing it
out of there, but this is where she made like
I could listen to nothing but Coltrane for like a week.

Speaker 10 (18:06):
What a punishment, you know?

Speaker 5 (18:10):
And I was mad, you really, It really wasn't until
I went to high school and got it right. So
all the knowledge that I had to impress Chris McBride
and all those cats, it was based on all the
jazz thanks to him to me. And I'm a jazz artist, right,
So it's like in reverse. But I mean where you're.

Speaker 1 (18:30):
I know that the from the Motown angle. I know,
like a lot of the Funk Brothers.

Speaker 5 (18:37):
Kind of looked down right jazz cats that look down
on pop music and all right, let's just make this
check real quick and you know, get out the way.

Speaker 1 (18:45):
But this is really not an art That's what I think.

Speaker 10 (18:47):
That was real.

Speaker 1 (18:48):
But I mean where you're like to sneak to listen
to it? Was it just like.

Speaker 5 (18:55):
They just thought it wasn't an art form or it
was just like well like how they view James.

Speaker 8 (19:02):
Look, James was God everywhere. I mean even in a
jazz in a jazz setting, it was something about James
the funk. It's it's that wasn't about the music. That
was about you know, your DNA. But I wanted you
brought up Juicy Fruit. Can I give you a quick story?

(19:23):
Everything got a story, tell me Juicy Fruit. When I
brought it to the record company Epic, they didn't want
to release it. I had to argue, well, you know
you can lick me everywhere. Now, that's now, that's like
that's tanging stuff.

Speaker 12 (19:40):
I hear now.

Speaker 10 (19:42):
But they didn't want to release it.

Speaker 8 (19:44):
They were afraid of the lyric that one line, which
ironically became the line everybody waded to sing along with.
But they did not release it for daytime radio. They
only released it for the midnight shows. After one week,
they were getting so many calls. And this is one

(20:04):
thing that I wanted to say when I wrote that
the beat wasn't the main thing to me. Ah, it
was what I was trying to do with the chords
and the colors and the melody and the inversions. So
I'm tripping on Oh yeah, I think we stumbled on something.
And the only thing I felt about that, and that

(20:25):
was the last song I cut on that record. I
was finished with the album and some and I walked
in and we finished that night, and there was the
drum machine there, the the lindrum, and I told that,
you know, I told the enginet man put that up.
So I went tic cat, doom tick kick, goom cat.

(20:47):
I said, wow, I like that, and he said, hey,
let's quantitize it. I said no, I said, I want
to humanize technology, not the technology makes it, because when
something's exact, that's that's dragged me. And especially as as
as a drummer, I wanted to lean a little bit.
So if you listen to that beat, it's slightly off

(21:08):
on purpose because it feels human. But wow, they didn't
want to release it, but they were forced to release it.

Speaker 5 (21:17):
I can't recall this. Someone told me a story. Someone
very prominent is on Juicy Fruit. And they told me
the story, like how many musicians were on Juicy Fruit.

Speaker 6 (21:30):
Uh.

Speaker 8 (21:30):
Someone I know the rhythm section. Uh oh wait a minute,
waitit waite, Well, rhythm section obviously was myself, Philip Field,
Raymond Jackson. Philip Field keyboards, I'm keyboards Raymond's bass, and
it's a drum machine, so ain't no drummer. Uh. And
of course to Wafa's lead on that record on Juicy Fruit,

(21:52):
Freddie Jackson, he's part of the court. You know juicy Yeah, Freddy?

Speaker 10 (21:57):
What to Watha brought Freddie to sing?

Speaker 8 (22:00):
I think he's on two songs the first time I
met him, he's on Juicy Food, and that might be
the story. I'm thinking, oh women, and and and and
when I did overdubs, Okay, you're making me go back
of the system.

Speaker 6 (22:16):
Brought David Frank.

Speaker 8 (22:17):
David Frank, I had him double the guitar. No, no,
he's not Bernie's on the Juicy Food album not not
not on Yeah, yeah, Bernie, Me and Bernie, you know,
went way back. I us Bernie's on Stephanie I first
got me and Bernie first hooked up. You know. Everybody

(22:38):
was all p funk, you know. And uh, I used
Bernie on the Stephanie Mills album and we were so
we were very tight. But yeah, David, do do do.
It's a guitar playing it, and I wanted him to
double it with a synth sound, and Mick is playing
on the bridge do do do don do?

Speaker 5 (23:02):
That's really oh man, it was like that All Star
so okay, So with the system that was a group.
So with your jazz lineage, yes, sir, and you making
your entry uh on professional records, can you describe what

(23:28):
what the atmosphere was like, especially to make your entry
on On the Corner, which which all right.

Speaker 8 (23:38):
Why y'all hitting the loaded belt?

Speaker 6 (23:41):
But see, okay, yeah, let me let me explain.

Speaker 10 (23:43):
We'll go there.

Speaker 5 (23:43):
See critically speaking, On the Corner is one of those
records that at the time, when released by Miles Davis,
it caused a major similar to the Civil War that
hip hop had.

Speaker 6 (24:00):
No, I mean hip hop.

Speaker 5 (24:01):
Hip hop heads have had civil wars over particular albums
by their favorites, in which you know, traditionalists like, no,
you got to stick with the tradition.

Speaker 8 (24:10):
And that was the star wars brother, you know.

Speaker 5 (24:14):
But what happened is that time goes on. That time
goes on, and you know, for all those critics that
said this is the whatever, the worst piece of shit
that Miles ever released, down beats review of it was horrible,
then suddenly in thirty forty years another generation of critics
come along and they proclaimed this.

Speaker 6 (24:36):
The best thing ever. So I want you to do
for me.

Speaker 5 (24:43):
What was your family's feelings of what Miles was getting
into and bringing you into, and jazz heads around your
way they're like, oh, that's not real jazz, Like, what
was the feeling?

Speaker 6 (24:57):
What was going on?

Speaker 8 (24:59):
Well, first of all, let me let me give you
quickly just quick backdrop how I joined myles. Uh I
came to New York and uh I was living in Nork.
Uh Imamu Baraka asked me to come back and help
on the Ken Gibson campaign that was the first black
mayor of Newark in nineteen seventy one.

Speaker 10 (25:22):
While I was here, I was here for two weeks
and I got.

Speaker 8 (25:24):
A call from McCoy. Tyner asked me to record. That
was my first I did about six albums with McCoy.
But then I was with Freddi Hubbard and Miles came
to hear me. We were playing the Village Vanguard and uh.

Speaker 4 (25:39):
You're playing percussion with yeah.

Speaker 8 (25:41):
I mean, I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:47):
I was just trying to know what instrument I didn't
because you played yeah.

Speaker 6 (25:49):
Yeah yeah.

Speaker 8 (25:49):
But because that's that's where where I cut my bones
in the jazz. Well, you know, got to all that, man.
But I'm probably on about sixty albums. But I just
I came at the right moment. Pharaoh Sonders and all
these cats we were working. So when I joined Miles,
he calls me for the first session.

Speaker 10 (26:08):
It's on the.

Speaker 8 (26:08):
Corner now, I was. I had already done an album
called two one called Cowboy Eating, which was my uncle album,
my uncle's album, but I wrote all them. He asked
me to write all the music, and I did my
own record called ol Cable Line, Land of the Blacks,
all avant garde acoustic music. I walk in with Myles.

(26:31):
I was infatuated, the world hated it. You're right. They
said it was the worst piece of shit, and one
of the reasons was Myles was so far ahead. Here's
a cat playing wild wild on the trumpet. I'm talking
about nineteen seventy two. Man, And everywhere we played there

(26:53):
was two vibes. The audience which was like, I never
heard nothing like this, and jazz as critics, who I
had a debate on it's on YouTube with one of
the jazz critics.

Speaker 1 (27:11):
Yeah, and stilly knock you out crossed.

Speaker 8 (27:14):
Yeah, yes, sometimes you get knocked out, you know, yes,
but uh, they had never been challenged. And I was
coming from that band had been through so much, and
we all had this because if you didn't have that
with Miles, every night, you going somewhere where you don't know. Now,
sometimes you're going for another planet you might miss, but

(27:36):
when you hit you might be playing two hours. Man.
But in that two hours, just like maybe fifteen fifteen
minutes that you.

Speaker 10 (27:47):
You on another planet.

Speaker 8 (27:48):
Man. Literally, this was like, and I know I'm getting
like misty with this, but we there. This cat Man
is the greatest that we ever produced. And when he died, Man,
I cried like a baby. Man, and I still miss him.
I miss him more today for the wisdom that he
dropped on me. I remember when I was with we

(28:09):
were The first tour I was with him in seventy
one was in Europe. Keith Jared on piano, keyboards of me, uh,
Gary bots On altoe uh In Dual Chancellor on on
on drums. Michael Henderson, Yes, sir, and.

Speaker 10 (28:28):
I did a solo I used to close the show.

Speaker 8 (28:30):
And man, you know when you play it and you
rocked it or standing old and I'm walking off, you
know I'm pissing vinegar. Yeah, and his voice walks up,
that wasn't shit balloon cit and Miles said, man, look man,
stop playing what you know. Start playing what you don't know. Now,

(28:50):
First of all, how do I even navigate that?

Speaker 10 (28:53):
What do you mean?

Speaker 8 (28:54):
Then? I figured it out. Stop using that same street
to go where you're going. Use another avenue. There's different
ways to go to that same destination. And cliches are
death traps. Musicians know you know that like a singer,
let me hit this high note. I never go, oh no,
don't do that. So I had to learn to approach

(29:16):
everything backwards. Don't do what you did. He also told
me things like Silence is sound. He said, space is everything.
He said. We had many talks because you know, it
was a father son thing too. He said, if you
got ten possible notes for a melody, he said, you

(29:37):
have to learn how to abbreviate. He said, take the
one note that implies the other nine. Now all this
stuff I apply years later. Wow, you know.

Speaker 10 (29:48):
Implies the other nine.

Speaker 8 (29:49):
You don't have to use that. He said. Abbreviation is
the secret to the music.

Speaker 10 (29:53):
He said.

Speaker 8 (29:54):
People talk in paragraphs, they play in paragraphs. He said, No,
learn how to play in quotations. Ah, you know. Yeah.

Speaker 11 (30:07):
One thing I was always curious because you're the first
person I've ever met that actually played with Miles. Yes,
What was it about him that he seemed to me
he was the greatest because he seemed like he made
band leaders like everyone that came out of his crew
went on to do their own thing and start their
own crew and become legends in their own right. What
was it about him that you think that it was

(30:27):
able to shape people in that way.

Speaker 10 (30:30):
He was at cat.

Speaker 8 (30:33):
Sometimes there's no verbal explanation. Some people are this, that's
that dude all over the world.

Speaker 5 (30:38):
I was gonna ask, does he did he communicate a lot.
Because the way that when I watch those old Manto
Jazz festival videos and stuff, the way that he's sort
of walking amongst you guys, I feel like there's a
communication going on that isn't words.

Speaker 8 (30:57):
And see that's a great point. Now. The other thing
that he did, if you see any of those clips
on YouTube, and thank god for YouTube, because the new
generation would have never had a chance to see what
the bullshit the critics were writing. YouTube really brought that
music to the forefront for younger people. He took me

(31:20):
usually you know, percussions, the hand drummers in the back,
maybe next to the drummer. If you notice all them videos,
I'm standing next to him, and our communication was nonverbal.

Speaker 10 (31:30):
I could finish the phrase. I knew where he would go.

Speaker 8 (31:34):
And I remember one time we played somewhere and one
of the reviews that Miles was playing some jungle voodoo music. Well,
I was into, Yeah, he's right for the wrong reason,
this is voodoo. But Miles just always knew, like sometimes
you get into that music and you get lost. I

(31:56):
remember one time we played We're in Colorado and we had.

Speaker 10 (32:02):
A set with the whole the club was in the
basement of the hotel.

Speaker 8 (32:07):
We played a three hour set and this is the
honest to god truth. I experienced this. I felt levitation
on the stage. The thing became so organic. All we
did was look at each other, everybody, and when we finished,
we got on the elevator. Nobody said a word. Miles

(32:28):
laid down on the floor. We all got off on
different floors. Nobody said good night.

Speaker 6 (32:33):
No, we got.

Speaker 10 (32:36):
That's the kind of that's the kind of stuff.

Speaker 6 (32:38):
Man, How would you.

Speaker 10 (32:40):
I don't know if this makes sense, but.

Speaker 6 (32:44):
I mean to me, he was.

Speaker 13 (32:45):
He's notoriously known as the greatest town scout in jazz history.
You know, like he could see.

Speaker 10 (32:53):
He knew, he knew what he knew.

Speaker 1 (32:55):
The other dude, he gave you and then.

Speaker 10 (32:56):
It's a deep thing.

Speaker 8 (32:57):
He gave you the canvas, but he let you paint.

Speaker 2 (33:02):
Was that the first and the last time you had
that feeling?

Speaker 8 (33:08):
Only time?

Speaker 2 (33:13):
So? Do you there were the musicians that are still
alive within that collective when y'all see each other, or
is it still that connection because y'all had that that
moment that probably nobody ever had.

Speaker 10 (33:25):
Okay, confession.

Speaker 8 (33:29):
On behalf of the group, Reggie Lucas who was my partner,
Michael Henderson, the baddest motherfucker that most people never understood.
Pete Cosey on the guitar, our foster monster drummer. I said, Michael,
Dave Leaveman. We had a couple of sacks, but Dave

(33:51):
was great. But before David was a catnamed Carlos Garnet. Okay,
he's on the alive at the Philharmonic. Miles never told
any of us what to play, but he also I
remember when I ran into to Herbie and Herbie was
telling me, here, said Miles, and he said, and he said, tunes.

(34:14):
Let me ask you a question, how did your rehearse?

Speaker 1 (34:17):
And I said that's why I was just going to ask.

Speaker 8 (34:18):
No, baby, I can't count a few. And I was
a stickler, you know. I was that young cat man,
we need to rehearse more. I remember I stepped on him.
He gave me that look. He said, motherfucker, I pay
you the rehearsal on stage every night. And I tell you.

Speaker 2 (34:40):
So from a civilian because I'm not a musician standpoint.
I really got to understand. So you get on stage,
he starts playing then what.

Speaker 8 (34:47):
No, no, no, We knew We had just what I
call thematic fibers. There were themes and we knew like
black Satin d deep. He would just start these fibers
and we just go okay. And what he meant by
I paid you, I paid you to rehearse every night,
he said, I never want to overcook the meal.

Speaker 11 (35:08):
And you start getting you don't want to get it
too perfect again.

Speaker 8 (35:13):
You start working out little things that you know work.

Speaker 10 (35:15):
No, no, I don't want that. He didn't want that.

Speaker 6 (35:17):
I never reheard, Steve.

Speaker 5 (35:22):
There's no comeback for that I gave you.

Speaker 6 (35:27):
But okay.

Speaker 5 (35:28):
So the the sessions that wound up being on the
Corner album, which kind of bled into three or four albums,
certainly or surely, there were a or b moments you
guys would remember and repeat those phrases or like how

(35:52):
would you know to start a song and end the song?

Speaker 1 (35:55):
And that sort of.

Speaker 8 (35:58):
He would play a phrase after a while, like I said,
when something becomes so organic, it's just a collective orgasm.
He would play something and we knew where it was
supposed to go, and it was time to end it.
He would step in and play something to lead into
the next thematic fiber. We knew the themes where that

(36:22):
thing went. That was that was the journey.

Speaker 5 (36:28):
I also found it, not ironic, but almost full circle
that the core of the musicians that made on the corner,
you know, making the most envelope pushing radical jazz music
ever turned around and wound up writing the most lush

(36:53):
pop music, the most digestible, easy listening pop. Like was
it almost therapeutic that the pendula have to come on
the other side of things?

Speaker 1 (37:02):
And that's great.

Speaker 8 (37:02):
I never thought of it that way.

Speaker 5 (37:04):
Was it all of you, including Lenny White, Herbie Hancock? Ye,
all Miles's greatest decision.

Speaker 10 (37:09):
But you know that was also that period.

Speaker 8 (37:11):
Don't forget George Duke, don't forget Stanley Carr. We were
all playing jazz. It was a it was a generational shift. Now,
the one thing I always tell people, if you change
because you're trying to just be with the times, that's adaptation.

(37:32):
If you changed because emotionally you're committed to the change,
that's metamorphosis. So it was all metamorphosis for us, But
maybe it was a little therapeutic.

Speaker 10 (37:42):
We couldn't go no further out.

Speaker 8 (37:44):
I guess you had to come. But I remember, for
me it started with the closes I get to you,
you know, and and I was going that way, and
then I my bridge was was Eddie Henderson, a great
jazz trumpeter. And actually people think about I always always laugh.

(38:09):
I say, ma, juicy food is one of the grandparents
of hip hop, you know, man, But Eddie Henderson.

Speaker 10 (38:15):
My first sample was actually jay Z on the.

Speaker 8 (38:19):
Inside You, which was on a reasonable doubt coming of age.

(38:50):
I got the shorty on my block, always clucking my rocks.
He likes to said the profile. I think he wanted
the month. He likes to wait. Yet wood he see
my money to getting up?

Speaker 1 (38:59):
Getting up?

Speaker 8 (39:02):
Eddie Henderson was my my I would I would do
albums with him, and he always asked me for two songs.
And that's why I developed what I call one thing
I tell songwriters the first thing you need to make
sure you tap into is what is your rhythm. Some
people write great ballads, some people write up temple. Find
your temple first, because when you find your temple, you

(39:24):
don't have to write the other ship. You know what
you're good at. That eliminates experimenting. And I knew, oh man, y'all,
that's beautiful.

Speaker 5 (39:38):
Yeah, but it's it's for for that particular project.

Speaker 1 (39:45):
Who who was the who were the musicians that.

Speaker 10 (39:48):
Were which which project?

Speaker 1 (39:49):
Or for the for the Eddie Henderson stuff.

Speaker 8 (39:52):
Okay, inside you that's me and Patrice Russian playing keyboards.
I think she's I'm playing the Roads, she's playing Road.
Of course, I'm playing Acoustie. Uh uh oh my god.
Herbie Hancock's bass player. That's Jackson is Less.

Speaker 1 (40:11):
Paul Jackson, Paul Jackson, Paul Jackson.

Speaker 8 (40:14):
It was Herbie's drummer. I forgot his name.

Speaker 5 (40:18):
Damn, I should know this, right, Yeah, and that.

Speaker 8 (40:22):
Was that the drummer he's on the Headhunters.

Speaker 10 (40:25):
The Headhunters.

Speaker 8 (40:25):
Yeah, yeah, and and I think that was it because
it was it was just two keyboards and we just overdubbed,
you know, the strings and the horns. Uh it's Eddie.
I forgot who's on trombone.

Speaker 1 (40:45):
Billy Higgins too, also drummer with you guys, right, Billy Higgins.

Speaker 10 (40:50):
No, I played with Billy with my father, but.

Speaker 5 (40:54):
Well I know that he played with Uh no, no, no, no,
I'm thinking of Eddie.

Speaker 1 (41:00):
Interesting, I'm thinking about your art former projects.

Speaker 10 (41:02):
Sorry damn, yeah.

Speaker 6 (41:07):
Yeah, we're just going to be sorry. So how did you.
I mean, was.

Speaker 5 (41:18):
What I'm trying to get to. Is what I'm trying
to get to, was that was there? Because the thing,
the thing that coincides with you guys transitioning to pop
music was that from a monetary standpoint, it was also
very lucrative. And that's that's one of the myths I
wanted to spell because I know that a lot of

(41:39):
the downbeat critics were saying that, oh, Miles playing with
the Grateful Dead and do all this stuff like he's
just trying to make some money, like forget the art.
But if you listen to music, there's really nothing that
just about it. It's just about it. So you know,
was it a thing of like, Okay, well it's time
for us to get paid. And did you produced the

(42:00):
entire Blue Lights in the Basement album.

Speaker 1 (42:02):
No, it's not that one song.

Speaker 8 (42:04):
I say, it's the story behind every every one of
the songs. Yeah, we're doing that album. Quite frankly, I
was like, you know, we had a dinner break. I
have been working on these these changes dean ble b
d b boo b blea bbe, So we take this
break and so Reggie's there, I said, Reggie, like, so

(42:27):
we I played for him and then we put the
B section. He puts the B section over and over.
I'm recording it when the Cats come back.

Speaker 10 (42:36):
I just want to.

Speaker 8 (42:37):
Make a cassette. I had no name for the song
or nothing.

Speaker 1 (42:42):
We played it.

Speaker 8 (42:44):
I'm making a cassette. Roberto walks in and said, what's that.
I said, close, I get to you. That was just
off the dome.

Speaker 6 (42:54):
Nothing.

Speaker 8 (42:54):
This is straight up the truth.

Speaker 10 (42:55):
And I'm like and she says, can I record that?
I'm like yes, she said, can I.

Speaker 8 (43:01):
Change the key? Yes? Any key you want.

Speaker 4 (43:04):
Wow.

Speaker 8 (43:04):
We cut it that night. Originally she did it, and
then after thinking about it, her and Donnie hadn't done
anything in years.

Speaker 10 (43:15):
Donnie comes in and it's like, wow, but I want to.

Speaker 8 (43:21):
Get to that point. You're talking about the bread. Like
I said, if you do something because you just want
to adapt for that, that's not real. You ain't. That's
not from here. I was avant garde acoustic because it
was from here. It was metamorphosis. That's where I wanted
to go, and it was not looked positively from the

(43:42):
jazz cats. I had one cat walk up to me.
I'm not gonna mention his name. Famous bass player and said, man,
you ought to be ashamed of yourself. You're playing this music,
you know, and you know, man, I said, but you know,
one thing, like I said, one thing that you learned

(44:03):
with Myles is courage, because if you didn't have courage
in that band, you'd have been snuffed on it with
the stuff they were writing about us. And one another
lesson I learned from Myles, when you cross the bridge,
burn it so you can't even go back.

Speaker 6 (44:21):
Damn, It's like.

Speaker 5 (44:26):
I'm interviewing you, but then I gotta absorb what you're saying,
like you're right.

Speaker 10 (44:35):
Because look, you can always look back.

Speaker 8 (44:37):
If you don't even allow yourself to have a rear
view mirror, you only can go forward. Yeah, think.

Speaker 7 (44:48):
Kind of think about that?

Speaker 6 (44:49):
Well you think about that?

Speaker 14 (44:50):
Can we talk about the songwriting process and changes from
being a jazz musician to a pop musician because I
feel like to me, I was raised on jazz two
and there's a complexity to it harmonica or otherwise, and
then you go into popping, people assume that it's less.
So what's the transition, what's the metamorphois?

Speaker 6 (45:07):
Is there?

Speaker 8 (45:08):
Jazz? How I approached it, learning how to master complexity
what's the secret to pop music mastering simplicity?

Speaker 10 (45:18):
You put it together, it's simplexity, thank you.

Speaker 12 (45:29):
Now, you just make it up words. That's what we did, right,
all right? So I'm really glad you're here spell checked
in like that one. Go ahead, I'm glad you're.

Speaker 1 (45:40):
Here because the thing is is that I still believe
that simplicity is the hard How do you We talk
about that all the time, But who taught you that?

Speaker 5 (45:53):
Because even now, like, okay, so the cats that I
deal with and work with, now, who are your jazz cats?
I can't beat them over the head enough and tell
them like yo, that's too much, like tone it down
a little bit. And you know, part of it is
they're they're pride if you will of like you know,

(46:15):
I don't want to appear to be too simple or
too pop. It's and it's like, yeah, okay, we we
now live at the age of the gospel chops era.
You got to show off your musicianship to let people
know that you're serious. But like, who is there to
teach you? These are this is the basic fiber of nobody.

(46:39):
That's a hard thing to do. Like you just you
can't go from on the corner to the closer I
get to your well.

Speaker 10 (46:47):
Yes you can, but you know what getting back because
I did not address what you said. And this is
don It's truth.

Speaker 8 (46:57):
Man.

Speaker 10 (46:58):
We never thought about money. Now that sounds oh yeah, yeah,
bright bullshit.

Speaker 8 (47:03):
I believe you're trying to master and art form, and
especially with jazz cats we started, you started out. There
wasn't a lot of respect for R and B. Now
remember now, I saw Tony Williams, I studied Elvin Jones,

(47:27):
So all this stuff out here now, man, look are
you kidding? I heard that live. I actually sat right
next to Tony Williams when he was with Miles. I
was in the I was in the audience, and it
was like first time I went to hear Elvin Jones.
All this stuff for me is regurgitation. And drummers especially.

Speaker 10 (47:48):
Did not respect the two and the four. They dismissed it.

Speaker 8 (47:53):
That's the hardest thing in the world, man, How do
I keep that interesting thing to you for four or
five minutes? You can look, you can always rely on,
like I said, technique because it's sometimes just masturbation. Man,
I'm gonna show you all this and I'm gonna do
why again Miles, stop talking and playing in paragraphs?

Speaker 10 (48:17):
What's your what's your quotation?

Speaker 8 (48:19):
What am I taking from it?

Speaker 5 (48:22):
Like I wish if that was if there was one
thing that people learned from me or whatever, like you know,
and cats are always asking me. I try to put
that out there and like it's harder to resist to day,
like you know there, I've been on a few gospel
chop sites where they're like man quest love said a bit,

(48:45):
why you always hat an old time that sort of thing,
you know, But yeah, I wish that people could learn
that lesson that you can get even further by playing
less than I think that.

Speaker 9 (48:57):
Comes with the age, though, yes I'm on, but that's
saying like when you're young, you know, well you're young,
you're insecure, so you're doing all that ship because you're
not really securing what you have.

Speaker 4 (49:08):
But the older you get, you realize you got it,
so you don't got to flound it. It makes sense.
How was your so how long were you with Miles from.

Speaker 11 (49:16):
On the corner to what about four and a half
years something like that, and then from that point was
that when you went into uh.

Speaker 8 (49:22):
Well when I left Miles, well, Miles stopped. We were
playing the gig, and and and this actually I didn't
finish the statement. I said that it's one of the
things that we in that the cast in the band
we always lament. Herbie had head Hunters came out. There
was like a tour, national tour set up with Miles

(49:42):
and Herbie who We played two gigs.

Speaker 10 (49:47):
Miles got sick.

Speaker 8 (49:48):
We played Upstate New York and we played Saint Louis.
Miles got sick, and that was the night that he stopped.
As it turned out, it was going to be for
five years. Me and Reggie broke, not broke, but you know,
Miles ain't playing. We went on and said, okay, let's
let's really do this. Michael Henderson had established his solo career.

Speaker 5 (50:12):
Well, let's throw you off a little bit. Woll he
was such a velvety singer. Well wait, he went to
Stevie for a second, right.

Speaker 8 (50:18):
Michael Henderson was with Stevie. He was playing on all
that motown stuff when he was fourteen.

Speaker 1 (50:23):
Man, he was with Stevie first. Then he went yeah, okay, but.

Speaker 8 (50:26):
He was he was heir apparent to James Jamison.

Speaker 6 (50:32):
Yes he was.

Speaker 8 (50:33):
See people don't know that Michael Henderson is playing on
some of the tracks that came out later on Oh man, damn,
I hate this old old Heimers No No, no, no, no,
one of the greatest albums ever.

Speaker 10 (50:53):
Oh this is crazy, Stevie, No no, No, what's going on?

Speaker 4 (50:58):
Okay?

Speaker 10 (51:00):
Michael played on some of the tracks that weren't released
on the original album.

Speaker 1 (51:04):
Okay, came out years later on the reissues.

Speaker 10 (51:07):
Yeah, man, Michael Henderson was that listen listen.

Speaker 5 (51:10):
To uh for those that are able to listen to, uh,
what's what's the Stevie Live? And there's a version of
I Was Made the Lover in which I feel like
that's Michael Henderson's greatest James Jamerson Michael, There's there's a
live version of I Was Made to Lover top of
the Talk of the Yeah, if you listen to Stevie

(51:33):
Wonder Talk of the Town live album, which came out
like sixty seven, there's a version of I.

Speaker 1 (51:40):
Was Made to Lover that is like, it's it's me
to me.

Speaker 5 (51:45):
It's the best live display of Jamerson Esque one finger
playing ever.

Speaker 2 (51:52):
So.

Speaker 1 (51:52):
But did you know that he had that voice on him?

Speaker 10 (51:54):
Or no, but no, no, no, that's bullshit. Yeah, I did.

Speaker 1 (52:00):
You know?

Speaker 10 (52:01):
I remember Michael came to my room.

Speaker 8 (52:05):
We were in Japan, and uh, Santana was there and
me and Santana was talking and Michael came in and.

Speaker 10 (52:16):
Yes, Santana.

Speaker 8 (52:17):
Uh, it's crazy, man, it's crazy. You know.

Speaker 10 (52:22):
Santana was like to this day, when Carlos and I see.

Speaker 8 (52:27):
Each other, it's almost we get teary. Santana loved Miles
and so the story Michael said, may Mary tunes. When
you finished coming up, I wanna play something for you.
So I go up to his room and he get
pulls out his base.

Speaker 10 (52:44):
Doom Doom, Doom, Doom, Doom Doom.

Speaker 8 (52:49):
Singing yes you are, I said, God, we were in
Japan when he wrote that. It was with Myles. Obviously,
years later it comes out with the Norman Connor's and
that's what launched Michael's career as a solo artist.

Speaker 5 (53:05):
What was just as a Philadelphian and me not ever
seeing any clip of Norman Connor's whatsoever on YouTube or anything.

Speaker 1 (53:15):
What was Norman's.

Speaker 5 (53:20):
Thatcher as a drummer? I mean I know he was
a drummer. I heard him solo once. The thing was
a song called so in Love. It was like the
middle side too on that album. But where did he
stand in the eyes of drummers? You can tell the truth,
I know you.

Speaker 10 (53:36):
Know what, Sometimes silence is more truthful.

Speaker 1 (53:41):
Wait, I kind of skipped something.

Speaker 6 (53:43):
Why did you never? Why did you.

Speaker 5 (53:47):
Choose traditional percussion as opposed to a trap drum set
to play?

Speaker 10 (53:55):
It's what touched me. I say this.

Speaker 8 (54:00):
The three elements for the creative process is intuition, intellect,
and technique. Intuition is first, you don't know why you
love the draft. You don't know why you want to sing.
You don't know why you want to paint. You don't
know why you want to write poetry. It's intuitive.

Speaker 10 (54:17):
Intellect.

Speaker 8 (54:18):
Once you get into this and you start getting your
you know, a better understanding. Now you know why you're
drawing to it. Technique is where you sharpen your tools.
Time served, how much time you putting in. I don't
care what I'm hearing if I can't play it for you.
So intuition, intellect, and technique.

Speaker 5 (54:36):
Okay, my last sort of serious jazz question before we
go into your your your your your second phase of
your pop stuff. I always wanted to know, Okay, So
since Miles was pushing me envelope and what envelope There
was no envelope, but you know when he stopped playing

(54:58):
in nineteen seventy five, there's there's always been this debate.
And you know, because you brought up Stanley Crouch, and
I know that a lot of jazz snob snobs kind
of kind of scoffed at Stanley for endorsing Winton and
the hole let's go back to nineteen forty six bebop

(55:20):
sort of thing. What were your feelings on like the
you know, like the the David Murray's, the m base,
the kind of the first generation tree posts, miles of
pushing that envelope, because I know that those cats felt
like damn like it was our turn to get the

(55:41):
baton next. And then Crouch comes in and you know,
they put Winton in a suit and then suddenly he puffies.

Speaker 1 (55:51):
Us back to.

Speaker 5 (55:54):
Back to nineteen fifty would bebop like not taking him forward.
And I know that you know, well, all due respect,
stand that Winton is a traditionalist. And I do believe
that there should be whatever torch bearers for whatever people
feel that are passionate about their era. Like I'd be
lying to you if I said that, you know, my
era of eighty eight to ninety nine era hip hop

(56:17):
wasn't my you know what, I'll champion the most right,
But I mean, what was your feeling as far as
the pushing the envelope era of jazz sort of got
white or washed or white washed away into.

Speaker 6 (56:34):
Where Winton took it in the eighties.

Speaker 10 (56:36):
And here's here's what I felt. It's a great question.
It was tracing paper. You know, you have really you
just put the tracing paper over something and you just
what's new about it?

Speaker 8 (56:55):
What was the main thing in jazz? Cold?

Speaker 10 (56:58):
Everybody pushing that little.

Speaker 8 (57:02):
You just playing put And I'm not just dogging wit
and I'm just saying a whole generation, let's play like
we in nineteen sixty four. And this is hip that's
not hip to me.

Speaker 4 (57:12):
Because it's been done already.

Speaker 8 (57:13):
I don't care that you can play train solo on
giant steps. Who the fuck are you that's trained?

Speaker 5 (57:22):
This is one of the heavily in the jazz world, Like,
this is one of the most heavily debated arguments. And
the thing is is that I feel like I'm in
the middle because because of my age. Do you remember
the year that Michael Jackson won all those Grammys in
like eighty three, eighty four. Well, subsequently Winton was also
pulling that feet. He won like five Grammys yea two

(57:44):
for classical, three for jazz. And there was a point
where I think in eighty four, my dad was going
to ease up on the whole you gotta rehearse five
hours a day thing, like, Okay, he's getting older, he
wants to play video games, talk to girls, to hanging
the ball. He was gonna start laxing a little bit
it And then went and got on stage and says, look, Dad,

(58:05):
I really just want to thank you for making me
practice eight to ten hours every night.

Speaker 1 (58:10):
And that heard that shit and he doubled my verse.
How would you do seven hours in that basement?

Speaker 5 (58:16):
Like? But the thing was is that you know to
off the Yeah, I member, But to a thirteen year
old na not knowing better, it's you know, I mean,
there wasn't a jazz snob in my life until Rich
came along when he was when I was like twenty three.
It's like, man, fuck Winton, Like he took it backwards

(58:38):
and he wasn't pressing the envelope.

Speaker 1 (58:39):
So I think, but isn't it also important for people.

Speaker 5 (58:43):
To know, absolutely, because without winning, I wouldn't have known
about King Oliver and Louis.

Speaker 8 (58:48):
And but that's when jazz started coming out of colleges. Brother,
that was the beginning of I gotta go. I'm going
to study jazz at the university and play man. Why
do we still listen to kind of blue? Miles went
to Juilliard in the forties and he said, I might

(59:10):
have went a couple of months. I'm hanging out on
fifty second Street with Bird and Dizzey. When jazz started
coming out of the universities, that's when the ship was.
Everybody could play the same study this solo, play every
note this, where was it? That's not creative to me?

Speaker 2 (59:32):
No, it's different, right, he was like that Ian that
way like stuff.

Speaker 8 (59:36):
And I'm not against studying. I'm I'm self totally self taught.
I don't recommend that you know everybody? Yeah, well yeah,
I was very fortunate, Uh, because I could. I went
from playing to writing, putting the band together, then scoring
film and television New York Undercover.

Speaker 10 (59:56):
No, I'm I'm at But what are you bringing to it?

Speaker 8 (01:00:04):
If you're not bringing again? And I'm not castigating the
Catcher came out of colleges. But just because you come
out of college. And then the colleges started hiring. My
father's taught at Queen's College, man for twenty years.

Speaker 6 (01:00:20):
The same thing is happening.

Speaker 8 (01:00:21):
They started hiring all the jazz case.

Speaker 6 (01:00:23):
Wait a minute, to teach.

Speaker 1 (01:00:29):
You, Yes, I teach college. Wow, I'm sorry you teach
with me.

Speaker 2 (01:00:34):
I was.

Speaker 8 (01:00:36):
About so winning was the beginning of that. And I'm
not dogging, but I'm just saying, stop saying that you
are the torch bearer. I'm not interested in the torch.
I've already burned that bridge.

Speaker 2 (01:00:51):
There you go, man, wait before you get into the pop,
I gotta ask. I'm just curious about.

Speaker 1 (01:00:57):
Are you about to skip the line.

Speaker 2 (01:00:58):
I'm not going to skip the line.

Speaker 1 (01:00:59):
I'm going back, Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:01:00):
I was going to go back real quick because James
to May was not always jams him to So I
just wanted to know what happened in your life and
to cause this change, and because I know it's an
activist side of you as well, it's a whole spiritual.

Speaker 8 (01:01:14):
No I'm not.

Speaker 2 (01:01:14):
I'm an atheist all right, oh okay, but always since
I was eighteen, since she was eighteen.

Speaker 5 (01:01:20):
So then the part, oh, well wait, since you said that,
how can you describe in such.

Speaker 8 (01:01:29):
A vivid.

Speaker 6 (01:01:33):
Terms of of of.

Speaker 1 (01:01:37):
Of that organ, that music orgasm that you had with
my such a spiritual experience and.

Speaker 6 (01:01:42):
Be an atheist.

Speaker 1 (01:01:43):
I'm just curious as to like none of that was
spiritual to you or atheists can't.

Speaker 8 (01:01:48):
Be spirit I was just thinking to myself, can you
I don't know if.

Speaker 14 (01:01:52):
Atheists can be spiritual? Is an atheist no religion but spiritual?
This is a whole other, separate thing.

Speaker 1 (01:01:57):
I didn't realize that just devoid of spirit.

Speaker 10 (01:02:06):
Here's where I started. You know, I was in neophyte
when I was eighteen.

Speaker 8 (01:02:09):
You know, man, religion. One day I woke up when
I was older and I said, wait a minute. You
can't dog religion, and you claim you're an atheist. I said,
they can't prove that God exists to me, but I
can't prove that it doesn't. And I learned to disrespect religion.

(01:02:32):
Whatever you need to get through this thing, man, So
I don't you it's not I respect the word spiritual
and all that. I'm just, but I need to be
intellectually honest. I'm stuff coming out of my mouth. You
might think I'm religious, but I'm saying, no, no, it's not.
So I don't know what you would call it. I
just know what I know, and I know what I've

(01:02:54):
the feelings, whatever that, whatever that is.

Speaker 7 (01:03:02):
I have a question before we leave the jazz world. Goto.

Speaker 6 (01:03:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 13 (01:03:09):
I mean, we've been talking a lot about Miles and
I recently sort of realized that what Goto brought and
can you just speak a little bit about that, because
I don't think a lot of people know about him.

Speaker 8 (01:03:21):
All right, So I meant sitting at the crib and
Herb Alpert called me, and Herb said, Tunes, I want
you to come in and make the session with Gotto.
I'd heard of Gotto, I'd heard some of the stuff,
but I kind of equated and he came out. He
was coming out of Pharaoh Sondas, and I had already
played with Pharaoh. But I remember that when I went

(01:03:42):
to the session. When I walked in, these were the
R and B Cats. It was pretty pretty pretty I
think every Gale and Cornell Duprie and I walked in
because at that time, Ralph McDonald was the percussions. You know,
in all the sessions. I'm like I'm coming out of jazz.

(01:04:06):
So I walked in and it was like, who's this,
you know, and I got like a little cold. I
didn't mind. I'm setting up. So when I walk in
and everybody's be like, well, who's this guy? And then
herb walks out from the control hoof tooms and uh
we hugged and then you know, obviously everything loosened up,
and uh it was a session for Gotto. Right after
the session, Got told his wife she was more like

(01:04:28):
the business man. She came to me, she said, Goto
wanted to know, you know, would you if you have
some time, would you make you know this tour? And
I said sure, And so I ended up doing about
two or three albums with Gottow and uh toured with
him and we were really cool, really cool.

Speaker 10 (01:04:46):
That was herb outfort though.

Speaker 13 (01:04:47):
Yeah, but that was that was a later album maybe
than these other these other ones like these, uh Flying Dutchman,
Bob Thiel. Oh, so like you know, I mean, I
I know that that was like a time in La
Puma thing. You're talking about the one of the first
record I played herbs producing.

Speaker 10 (01:05:04):
Now you talking about Flying Dutchman. I got please allow
me I gotta say it right, like I said, while
it's right here.

Speaker 8 (01:05:11):
I actually recorded with Duke Ellington, Wow damn flying on
a flying Dutchment Flying. When I met Duke nineteen seventy one.
On that first tour I was talking about with Miles
it was it was Miles Davis. It was George Wien
Tour for you, Miles Davis, Rasian Rowland, Kirk, Joe Henderson

(01:05:32):
and Freddy Hubbert and BB King.

Speaker 6 (01:05:38):
Jesus.

Speaker 10 (01:05:40):
I remember one night, Oh, okay, God, this y'all taking me,
this is deed.

Speaker 1 (01:05:45):
Take us back. Man.

Speaker 8 (01:05:47):
I get to the I get to the concert early
one night. So I'm sitting in the room, you know,
big dress room. The door flies open. Look it's Duke Ellington.

Speaker 10 (01:06:00):
I'm like, you know, oh my god.

Speaker 8 (01:06:03):
And uh, you know, I didn't you know, I didn't
know what to say other than mister Ellington, you know.
He said, yeah, son, I like, you know, I like
what you're doing.

Speaker 5 (01:06:12):
You know.

Speaker 8 (01:06:12):
I heard you one another night and I remember I
was so awestruck. I just said, man, mister Ellington, tell
me what types of music is?

Speaker 10 (01:06:24):
Uh?

Speaker 8 (01:06:24):
You know, it is the best, he said.

Speaker 10 (01:06:26):
He said, good.

Speaker 8 (01:06:28):
He says, only two types of music, good and bad,
not genre. Now here's a funny story. One night, I
missed the bus going back to the hotel, so I
catch a ride with the Duke Ellington band because their
bus left, you.

Speaker 10 (01:06:45):
Know later, so I caught.

Speaker 8 (01:06:47):
So I'm sitting on this bus and all these cats man,
you know, Harry Corney, Paul Gonzalez and uh. I think.

Speaker 10 (01:06:55):
We was a couple of months into the tour and
I was fried. But then one night is man.

Speaker 8 (01:06:59):
So I was sitting next to Paul gonsalads and he said,
he said, yeah, son, ye know, you know, I said.
He said, you look a little tired. I said, Man,
I'm going out. He said, man, how long you know?

Speaker 10 (01:07:10):
I said, Man, We've been out there almost two months.

Speaker 8 (01:07:14):
He said, man, he said, yo, look this is a
little punk motherfucker. I said.

Speaker 10 (01:07:21):
We worked three hundred and forty days.

Speaker 8 (01:07:23):
A year for the last forty years.

Speaker 6 (01:07:27):
God.

Speaker 8 (01:07:28):
I got a ride back to the hotel with that,
and they just fell out laughing like.

Speaker 1 (01:07:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (01:07:34):
Now, while I'm thinking I gotta tell you this, I'm
with my I'm over Miles's house CAVN. Remember I was
telling you the story coming over. That's my nephew Kevin
I'm over Miles's house one night, man, I mean one
day the mail comes.

Speaker 10 (01:07:53):
I'm in in one.

Speaker 8 (01:07:54):
I see Miles one thing. Miles was a great cook,
so sometimes he just called, man, come on over and
I'm gonna fix you know, I mean, hell of the
cook cook. So I'm there.

Speaker 10 (01:08:05):
He gets the mail and I'm not looking at him.

Speaker 8 (01:08:07):
I'm a little over the side of the room.

Speaker 10 (01:08:09):
And he says, oh ship, And I thought something happened.

Speaker 8 (01:08:14):
So I said, what what's up?

Speaker 10 (01:08:15):
Brother?

Speaker 8 (01:08:16):
He just hands me the mail. It was a Christmas card.

Speaker 10 (01:08:21):
From Duke Ellington.

Speaker 8 (01:08:22):
Wow, but it was in the spring. Miles said, is
this the hippie ship you've ever seen? He said, he said,
Duke is dying. Duke sent all his cats Christmas cards
when he was dying. Oh, brother, I can't. I can't
make this up.

Speaker 10 (01:08:41):
Brother, I can't make that up. And that's one of
the things about jazz cats just wear.

Speaker 8 (01:08:48):
That Christmas card. I'm splitting.

Speaker 10 (01:08:51):
Request, man, here's a quands of card.

Speaker 4 (01:09:00):
Don't get fun.

Speaker 2 (01:09:01):
And I want to thank you.

Speaker 10 (01:09:07):
I said, I'm old man, And if I keep running.

Speaker 1 (01:09:09):
It's like having a mirror on the show without a mirror.

Speaker 10 (01:09:13):
So I told you I was I went out to
California to go to school.

Speaker 4 (01:09:19):
Yeah, it was swimmer. How did you get into that?

Speaker 8 (01:09:22):
My father? You know, one day he came and told me,
you know, I'm into I know, I'm going to NBA.
You know, he said, man, you ain't will never be
tall my whole you know. Okay, So he got me,
my brother and myself swimming, and I swam for both
Vestment Boat Club.

Speaker 2 (01:09:42):
Okay, that's the Pride Boys, the movie that the movie.

Speaker 8 (01:09:47):
Listen, that's b s.

Speaker 10 (01:09:51):
Yeah, that's recreation park swimming. I was au. That's those
are two different things.

Speaker 8 (01:09:58):
You're saying that league was no, no, and what and what?

Speaker 2 (01:10:00):
I did?

Speaker 3 (01:10:01):
Not?

Speaker 8 (01:10:01):
Like they had cats in the movie that couldn't even swim.
It's like you watching a movie on basketball and the
cats in the.

Speaker 1 (01:10:09):
Spike moment, remember said that. Oh yeah, So I go
out this is sixty six.

Speaker 8 (01:10:18):
This is like, you know the world was changing young
young whites, young blacks, young Latinos, and uh, this is
a year. I go out there the year after the
Watch Revolt. So that summer they're having the Watch Summer
Festival and I go to the WATS Cafe and it

(01:10:40):
was excuse me, stokely Carmichael back then Ron Karranger, Marlona Karenger,
and a couple of other you know, just I never
heard that language. Well I did hear that language when
I was fourteen. My father took me and my brother
to hear Malcolm open up for Elijah Muhammad wo Wow

(01:11:05):
nineteen sixty two.

Speaker 10 (01:11:07):
I think I was fourteen and I had never.

Speaker 8 (01:11:11):
I mean, I was you know, we came home from
church and he said, don't you know cause my thing
is after church, this is coming off. I'm going across
the street and play Paul. He said, no, keep your
suits on. And I was like, oh man, we probably
gotta go to my aunt's, you know, have Sunday dinner.
I was drug and we're driving and I looked over
said tonight. I don't know Elijah Mohammad Minister Malcolm X.

(01:11:38):
I saw both of them that night.

Speaker 10 (01:11:40):
That was the beginning of my wow. I'm sorry, go
back sixty six, right, I know, no, no, no, it's
all the part of Yeah.

Speaker 8 (01:11:48):
So I joined US organization, which was my Lina Cranker,
and you know, we changed our name. But you know,
that was like the first kind of wave going. There
was Arabic names, but we started talking about African names
Swahili and uh. He asked what what you felt your

(01:12:10):
quality was? That's what your that's what your name is
based on. So I said, I think I'm supposed to
bring something and he said, and you feel like a message?
Well I said, not literally, you know. He said, no
too may and that's what that's what it means messenger
ah okay, which I interpreted through the music.

Speaker 1 (01:12:32):
M wowe.

Speaker 10 (01:12:35):
Well we're going through this.

Speaker 7 (01:12:38):
I wish we were recording this.

Speaker 8 (01:12:43):
Let me ask.

Speaker 2 (01:12:45):
Because like, well, forty years later, you know the story
of Karinga has changed, and people, you know, look at
it differently. I mean the story we argued in this
room about the story of kwans.

Speaker 6 (01:12:56):
And you want to hear.

Speaker 8 (01:13:03):
All right.

Speaker 10 (01:13:05):
I think the first Kwanza, I think was celebrated in
sixty six.

Speaker 8 (01:13:09):
I wasn't there. It was just a few people. The
organization began to kick in because it started to bring
we were all college students coming in. So my first
Quansa is the next year, sixty seven. It's about maybe
thirty of us up in somebody's apartment and everybody's like them,
niggas are crazy, they're trying, they're trying to replace Christmas.

Speaker 10 (01:13:33):
And now, look, let me make this clear. Kwanza had
nothing to do with religion.

Speaker 8 (01:13:38):
Talk about it.

Speaker 10 (01:13:39):
It was a cultural holiday.

Speaker 8 (01:13:41):
Now let me deal with what's happened to it. People
who don't even know what about Kwanza, they want to
destroy it. We didn't ask for Quansa.

Speaker 6 (01:13:49):
We made it.

Speaker 8 (01:13:51):
And that's one of the differences between that and like
Martin Luther King, I don't why you got to ask people.
Jews don't ask him. We have roster Shana. Chinese don't
say can I have Chinese New Year? Do it self determination?
But they try to rewrite it now and then you
krangle went to prison. Well, who created Christmas? Oh, I

(01:14:13):
don't know who cares. It was the establishment of a
black holiday that's open for anybody. You can be jew
you can be a Catholic, it don't matter. And that's
what people didn't know. And then people started writing what
they thought it was. That's the danger of thought.

Speaker 7 (01:14:34):
That's crazy.

Speaker 8 (01:14:37):
This is the.

Speaker 6 (01:14:45):
It's because.

Speaker 5 (01:14:52):
When we have the Drunken Christmas episode, remind all of
us to shut up.

Speaker 1 (01:15:04):
Okay, look, can we get to epic records?

Speaker 11 (01:15:06):
How did your your solo stuff like Theater of Mind,
and uh, that's what Rainbow Secrets was.

Speaker 8 (01:15:14):
That was that's what about.

Speaker 1 (01:15:17):
Oh I don't know.

Speaker 6 (01:15:17):
I thought, Okay, I want you to remember this moment. Happy.
How did we wait?

Speaker 5 (01:15:24):
Okay, I'm lying because you dropped Pharaoh Sandrew's name is
twice and I'm like, yo, if you're on Creator has
a massive.

Speaker 8 (01:15:32):
I'm not on that. That's when I first saw Pharaoh. Okay,
but I played with Lonnie Listen. Okay, I went to
see Pharroh. First time I saw him was at the
Village Vanguard. It was Pharh Jibali, Billy Hart on drums,
Lonnie Listen, Cecil mcb.

Speaker 1 (01:15:50):
On bass, what Thomas saying with him?

Speaker 8 (01:15:54):
That was my last and Leon Thomas. I sat, damn man,
I'd never heard nothing like that in my life. And
The Creator as a master Plan had just come out.
Imama Broka turned me onto it and I found out
they were playing at the Vanguard. I shot over there.
I sat there all night, mesmerized.

Speaker 1 (01:16:14):
Man.

Speaker 10 (01:16:14):
I never heard nothing like that, and that was the
beginning of that period of the jazz thing.

Speaker 8 (01:16:21):
Now. I was into McCoy from the first time I
heard Train McCay, so I played like I said on
about six albums with McCoy, Man, I don't I don't
want to keep repeating that. I'm sorry.

Speaker 7 (01:16:37):
These are McCoy albums, like on Milestone, like in the
early seventies.

Speaker 10 (01:16:41):
Man, it was the.

Speaker 8 (01:16:42):
Label, man, I mean it's a it's on you you know,
if you type it up, it's on YouTube.

Speaker 10 (01:16:49):
I can't remember the label man that he was No, no, no,
no no, I was on Strata.

Speaker 7 (01:16:55):
McCoy's was was Milestone around around that time.

Speaker 10 (01:16:58):
I don't know if it was Milestone.

Speaker 6 (01:17:01):
The song for My Lady album.

Speaker 7 (01:17:02):
Yeah, that album is a song for My Lady.

Speaker 1 (01:17:05):
You're on that, brother, I can't if you say so,
I can't.

Speaker 10 (01:17:11):
I can't remember them.

Speaker 6 (01:17:12):
You are do.

Speaker 1 (01:17:14):
But now let's get see it right, big big records.

Speaker 6 (01:17:21):
No more ask questions. But you know we're gonna go
back to it.

Speaker 1 (01:17:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:17:25):
So what brought you to was it was Lark and
Arnold there at the time, or who brought you to
the two Sony or back then the CBS?

Speaker 10 (01:17:37):
Okay, well with Reggie and I ready Lucas and I
have with partners and.

Speaker 5 (01:17:43):
And why did y'all stay together? Why'd you guys decide
let's partner up and be a success.

Speaker 10 (01:17:49):
Okay, yeah, I mean you know, I don't mean monetarial.

Speaker 4 (01:17:52):
I mean.

Speaker 10 (01:17:54):
You we were nourishing, you know, the music. We were
very proud of the music we were doing.

Speaker 4 (01:17:59):
What was the division of labor between you two in
terms of writing.

Speaker 8 (01:18:02):
And those who know don't say those say don't know,
I don't do that because that gets into well, no.

Speaker 1 (01:18:09):
No, no, we met like who did the music, who
did the lyrics? Oh really, I'm not going there. It's
that song about we're actually asking.

Speaker 8 (01:18:19):
First of all, said I already said closer. I said
I was working on these courts, so we shared.

Speaker 6 (01:18:27):
You know, it depends on the song.

Speaker 8 (01:18:29):
Yeah, well.

Speaker 11 (01:18:32):
We were partners, so it's always like two Hearts by
Stiffing Me like, which is one of my favorite songs.

Speaker 8 (01:18:37):
Well, actually we co wrote that with Twa Okay, and
you know what, damn listen because me and Twafa we
was just talking about this the other day. For those
who don't know, Tawatha ag was our lead singer, you know,
in the two May band, both versions, and I don't
remember how it became a duet.

Speaker 10 (01:19:00):
We didn't write it as a duet.

Speaker 8 (01:19:01):
I don't even know.

Speaker 6 (01:19:02):
Shep Gordon probably his clients.

Speaker 8 (01:19:06):
No, no, no, no, wait a minute, Okay, there's a
story here. So Shep is managing Stephanie men step me
and she gets cool, You're probably right. I think that's
how I came.

Speaker 9 (01:19:26):
Well.

Speaker 8 (01:19:27):
So we're recording two Hearts.

Speaker 10 (01:19:32):
Teddy comes in up Sigma in New York. That's what
record it.

Speaker 8 (01:19:37):
So I'm putting on do Dude do because I always
liked little melodic hooks in the in our songs, you know,
uh like juicy do do do just little things, you know,
and say that something about you know how to love me?

Speaker 10 (01:20:00):
Yeah, and so Teddy said, man, I'm man Tombs.

Speaker 8 (01:20:04):
You know I love I want to work with you man.

Speaker 10 (01:20:06):
So you know, we're just kicking it. I get a
call from Kenny Gamble.

Speaker 8 (01:20:15):
And Shep. Shep said, man, look can you invest come down.
We want to have a meeting in Philly with with
U he said, me and Leon Huff and Shep.

Speaker 10 (01:20:24):
So we you know, we set a date. We rolled down.

Speaker 8 (01:20:28):
So Kenny says, look, man, I want you to do
half the next. Teddy Pentagras out said be gambling Huff
on one side A and too made Lucas side B.
I'm like ship this is I mean, because just and
this is after what period? It is?

Speaker 2 (01:20:45):
What was the last Teddy album before.

Speaker 6 (01:20:48):
Before the crash?

Speaker 8 (01:20:49):
I guess.

Speaker 1 (01:20:50):
Anyone wants exactly before the crash?

Speaker 8 (01:20:54):
This is after obviously it's a silver album cover, it's
after after, it's after too arts whatever. So I'm like, oh, man,
Teddy has the accident maybe about three weeks later. So
it's just something that never never happened. But really, where was.

Speaker 10 (01:21:14):
I going with that?

Speaker 8 (01:21:16):
Yeah, that was going to the next album was going
to be and oh, I want to say something like
Gamble and Huff was one of my inspirations. Kenny Kenny
is one of my best friends in the music. I
first met Kenny on the phone in nineteen sixty eight.

(01:21:36):
I was heading up getting the entertainment together for the
Watch Summer Festival. I'm calling all over everybody multime, you know,
try to get somebody to donate some artists. I said, Man,
was this cat in Philly?

Speaker 1 (01:21:48):
Man?

Speaker 8 (01:21:49):
I called Philly International.

Speaker 10 (01:21:52):
I'm in La. I said, can I speak to Kenny Gamble?

Speaker 8 (01:21:55):
I mean, I'm and she said, well who, I said, Well,
my name is in too May. I went for the
Watch Something festival. We're trying to get the talent. She said,
hold on.

Speaker 10 (01:22:07):
About thirty seconds later, Kenny picks up.

Speaker 8 (01:22:11):
I'm like, oh, it was that easy. We talked. He
sent out the intruders, I think it was Howl, Melvin
and somebody else to La to perform at to watch
some offessal for nothing. Well, we paid for the transportation,
but the services free. So that's when he and I

(01:22:31):
first woke. I wasn't even writing music then.

Speaker 2 (01:22:34):
And you didn't even know her from Philly.

Speaker 8 (01:22:36):
No, no, no, I didn't know it. He's from South Philly.

Speaker 10 (01:22:40):
No, I didn't know it.

Speaker 8 (01:22:41):
So we have in this meeting and I'll never forget. Look,
Leon Huff is the most so Kenny saying it was beautiful.
He said this way, when we're working, you can lean
on us and we can lean on you. Huff has
not said nothing for like an hour and a half,
and then he does this quest. He says, no, he said,

(01:23:03):
no leaning, and I went back to the studio and
wrote that on the wall. That was one of the rules,
no leaning. He said, one thing in an hour and
a half.

Speaker 10 (01:23:12):
But it was so.

Speaker 6 (01:23:15):
Impactful.

Speaker 1 (01:23:16):
Oh god, now I'm breaking to break my own rule.

Speaker 4 (01:23:18):
Going back to jails.

Speaker 5 (01:23:20):
No, because the thing is like, what's the chances of
us actually having someone that was like actively in in
there for the wats riots like too, I got it
a year after Oh you came out to us. Yeah,
we just skipped that, all right, y'all. That wraps up

(01:23:43):
part one of our interview with the Great James Too.
May come back next weekend. We will talk to James
about his work with seventy Mills and Phyllis Hyman just
starts on sampling scoring the ninety said TV drama New
York under Cover and the late Great Donnie Hathaway.

Speaker 1 (01:23:57):
Until then, check out Mixed Supremium for sampling.

Speaker 5 (01:23:59):
Of James's work with artists like Marles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Ojys, ROBERTA.
Flack Bloud, Mary J. Blige, plus some recent hits that
have sampled his songs. So stay tuned for next week's episode.
Thanks for tuning in. This is Quest Love Supreme only
on Pandora. Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.

(01:24:26):
This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
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