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Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Hi, this is Sugar Steve from Quest Love Supreme.

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This March, we're celebrating women's history at QLs,

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something that we've done for years. Back in

0:13

March of twenty twenty two, we spoke to

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Terry Lynn Carrington about her years as a jazz

0:17

prodigy, some of the prejudice she faced

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as a young female drummer playing with elder males,

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and how she kicks down the doors for others as

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founder and artistic director of the Berkeley

0:26

Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice

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as a jazz guy. I really enjoyed

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this episode. Whether you heard it when it was first

0:32

released or this is your first time, we hope

0:34

you enjoyed.

0:44

Ladies and gentlemen, another episode of

0:46

Quest Loves Supreme. I'm your host Quests Love.

0:48

We got Team Supreme in the hit

0:50

House Fontigolo. Wow

0:53

new If Bill Sherman were here,

0:55

he would notice that you're in yet another

0:58

room in the house.

0:59

Yeah, this is my studio. It's just easier

1:02

for me here. I normally recording my living room,

1:04

but my.

1:04

Son was going to school out uhstairs,

1:07

so I just bring it upstairs to the studio.

1:08

And do it here.

1:09

Wait, virtual school is still going on or

1:11

is it optional them as well?

1:13

We yeah, it's option. We did it.

1:16

Yeah, he'll be going

1:18

back to classroom for the junior year, but for this

1:20

year it was just the numbers around here were crazy, so

1:22

we put him in virtual Smart.

1:24

We gotta be smart man. Uh, Steve,

1:27

where are you at right now? I'm

1:29

where you are?

1:30

In the sixty seven degrees at

1:32

thirty rock.

1:33

We're freezing in thirty rock right now.

1:35

And yeah, keep that covid out.

1:37

It's cold. I know, Yeah, I freeze the

1:39

COVID out definitely. Uh. Where

1:41

are you at with black part behind you?

1:44

Lamert all day?

1:45

That's where I yoh, yeah, I.

1:47

Forgot to tell you you was here.

1:49

I took my first visit to Lahmurt Park.

1:51

You know why I can't stand.

1:55

I only had only had like thirty

1:57

five minutes to run the Juneteenth.

2:00

He was at the June teen festival.

2:02

I think I was in a legit episode of

2:04

Insecure. Yo.

2:05

Somebody told me they saw black thought I thought they was

2:08

lying.

2:08

It was awesome. Yeah. I went to uh juneteen

2:11

for half a second. Then I went to.

2:12

Uh the Body Rule

2:14

party like in another

2:17

side of l a like Saturday.

2:19

Man, it was.

2:20

It was one of the nicest, blackest experiences

2:22

I've ever had in Los Angeles.

2:24

People don't know about that. I'm glad you said that.

2:26

I forgot. Yeah, you're you're a Lamert Parker.

2:29

Did you enjoy it?

2:30

I loved it? This was an amazing Juneteenth

2:32

weekend. I mean, thank god we came through.

2:34

It was looking sketchy for a minute because of Walmart and

2:36

then but it came through nicely.

2:38

Damn ice cream.

2:43

You know, Bill, you know Billy Higgins had the World stage

2:46

there, so you probably if

2:48

this is kind of a Lamert Park yeah,

2:50

then you never experienced that. But that was really

2:53

dope back in the day.

2:55

I'm learning.

2:56

I'm learning, well, you know, if we if

2:58

we bring the festival back to Los

3:01

Angeles, I think we're going to travel with it, so we're

3:03

looking at like Texas and other spots.

3:05

But I definitely want to do another

3:07

student team. Oh god,

3:10

yeah.

3:10

Yes, yes, did you did it?

3:12

You did well?

3:12

There's nothing exclusive about one in the spread the June

3:15

teenth Love a Round anyway, y'all. As

3:17

I was saying, you know, I would say

3:19

that this year for me has

3:22

been an awesome year

3:24

for bucket listing, and I'm checking.

3:28

I guess I could say I'm checking a lot.

3:30

Of my musical heroes,

3:32

bringing them on the show and neuro

3:35

and out on them. And our

3:37

guest today is absolutely no exception.

3:39

I'll say that she's probably

3:43

the first young person

3:45

male or female, the first young person that

3:48

I ever saw on a

3:50

drum set. And I guess at the time when

3:52

I first I forget the name of the show

3:55

was like on PPS, like Rebop or something

3:57

like that. I forget what it was, but it's

4:00

definitely one of those like local Boston shows

4:03

or whatever. And to

4:05

see a young kid on

4:08

a drum set definitely made an

4:11

impression on me when

4:13

I was a kid. I forget what year it was, like, I

4:15

was like six or seven when I first saw you. I think

4:17

you were like twelve, thirteen or whatever.

4:20

But she's literally done it all.

4:22

Grammy's college professor, two

4:25

time late night bandleader,

4:28

activist, producer, collaborated

4:31

with such luminaries

4:33

like the great Clark, Terry, Wayne

4:35

Shorter, Herbie Hancock. I know that

4:37

you have to be in the meditation if you if

4:40

you have if

4:42

you collaborate with those two.

4:45

But I'm a bad Buddhist.

4:47

Yeah, that's Ron's Spalding the whole mosaic

4:49

project with you

4:51

know, Diana Crawl and and and

4:53

the likes al Ji Rostan Gets Clark,

4:55

Terry Wood he Shaw.

4:56

I can go on and on and on. This

4:59

has been a long time coming.

5:01

Thank you for your patience, because this

5:03

is one of these episodes where, you

5:05

know, because of the courses

5:08

and the events of my life in the last month

5:10

or so, I've had to put this off the least three or four times.

5:12

You've been very patient.

5:13

Finally I can say, ladies and gentlemen,

5:16

welcome to Quest of Supreme Terry Lynn

5:18

Carrington.

5:18

Thank you, Yes, I appreciate it.

5:21

Thank you. How are you today?

5:24

I'm great. This is my pleasure talking to you.

5:26

I'm a big fan and I love everything

5:28

that you do. So the aberration

5:30

is mutual.

5:31

We've never had an in depth,

5:34

heart to heart like conversation. So whenever

5:37

I hear through other people like oh, you know, Terry

5:40

Sis, what's up or whatever, you know it Occasionally you've come

5:42

by, like I've seen you play

5:44

a few gigs or whatever, and I'm still mind

5:46

blowing, Like there's there's

5:48

always this thing where you know, jazz

5:50

musicians are so not

5:53

above the fray, but just like above

5:55

whatever is below

5:57

them as far as pop music concern is concerned

6:00

or whatever, like it's all

6:02

one thing.

6:02

It's all black music, you know,

6:05

Like I mean, it's all comes from the blues.

6:07

So there was something something would be wrong

6:09

with me if I didn't appreciate what you did, you

6:12

know, that would

6:14

be like if any you know, if I had a jazz friend,

6:18

you know, didn't appreciate you, I would

6:20

be looking at them sideways.

6:22

Well, I thank you for that. I appreciate.

6:25

Where are you talking to this right now from

6:27

you have a very interesting background. It

6:29

looks like a mall in a prison. At the same

6:32

time, I

6:34

have.

6:34

A few backgrounds. I'm

6:37

at home, but that's

6:39

just my Berkeley background. Here's another Berkeley

6:41

background. Yes, here's an

6:43

animated one with I don't

6:45

know who's that, Chicak Yoh's red and

6:47

Alice Coltrane. Just

6:50

when I just want to see Obama drop the mic

6:54

when I'm missing my grandmother. Okay,

6:58

there's our slogan. You can't really

7:00

see it, but it's jazz without patriarchy.

7:03

Oh and this one you might recognize. This is from

7:05

soul because you know, I was a consultant on soul.

7:07

Yeah, I know, I

7:10

know, like they went above

7:12

and beyond the call of duty to ask every

7:15

wow jazz Luminaria for their

7:17

for their advice.

7:19

Yeah, it was fun doing that, was

7:22

doing some meetings. The first one Herbie was that I

7:25

was probably the only one in the room that you know, might

7:27

have a difference in opinion, you know, with Herbie

7:30

and be able to actually say it right, you

7:32

know what I mean, because everybody gets scared. So

7:36

yeah, wow, here's my

7:39

biggest mentor. Yeah.

7:42

So anyway, we.

7:43

Just had him on the show shorter.

7:46

Oh yeah cool.

7:48

I'm going to say I was shocked

7:50

at the amount of feedback we got for that particular

7:53

episode, like a lot

7:55

of heavy jazz heads hit

7:57

us because kind of thank you

8:00

just for asking questions that we nor

8:02

like aren't normally asked, you know, and

8:05

other.

8:06

Yeah, just letting him talk, That's what

8:08

we did.

8:08

We let him talk exactly.

8:10

That's the right thing.

8:11

So I'm gonna start with you, Terry, the way I always start

8:14

the episode. Can you tell me what your first

8:17

musical memory was?

8:19

Wow, you know, they happened so long ago

8:22

that it's kind of like a movie

8:24

that I'm a part of that I

8:27

watched and it feels real because I watched

8:29

it. But was I really there,

8:31

you know what I mean? Like I played tambourine

8:34

when I was five years old on stage

8:36

with Ross and Roland Kirk, and that was probably the first

8:38

time I was on stage.

8:40

How many saxophones did he play?

8:43

Always at least three until

8:45

he had a stroke, and then I'll see him after that, and

8:47

then he played with one hand, one of the saxophone,

8:50

but he might have even worked too with the one hand,

8:52

right, No, any.

8:55

Of that's surreal to you. I mean, I'm

8:59

with the movie.

9:00

Those kids that I see, especially kids that

9:02

are I guess you could say progeny

9:04

of like other I know that your

9:06

father and your grandfather were

9:09

musicians as well, so oftentimes

9:12

you know, at least there's a realization

9:15

moment of what you're really into, but that

9:17

usually comes in your teens. But in the beginning, it's

9:19

just like, Hey, this dad and

9:21

this granddad and here's some musicians around

9:23

the house. Like, but anything

9:26

strike you odd about

9:29

this? You know this this guy

9:31

with dread or I don't know if he had dread locks

9:33

back then, but playing three saxophones

9:35

at the same time, Like, nothing seemed odd

9:38

about that to you.

9:39

Yeah, but you know, when you're young, you don't really

9:41

pay attention to all that, like you're just

9:44

doing you And I was having fun so

9:46

and I was getting attention, So I knew I was

9:48

different from the other, you know, elementary

9:50

school kids that I was hanging out with, because Ebony

9:53

came to school to take pictures of me.

9:55

You know, I was a flex.

10:01

After that.

10:03

Yeah, well, I mean from

10:05

the black kids. You know, there might have been I

10:07

don't know, six or seven in

10:09

my class, so of course they knew what was happening.

10:12

The other kids, I'm not sure they knew what evan it

10:14

was.

10:15

But where did you grow up? Where were you

10:17

born?

10:17

In Medford, Massachusetts?

10:20

How far is that from Boston

10:23

to anyone outside of New England, like

10:25

Massachusetts, just like Boston, and

10:28

then a bunch of suburbs

10:30

areas.

10:31

Where New Addition is from.

10:32

Yeah, Roxbury, whoa,

10:35

Oh damn, you grew up in Roxburgh.

10:37

Oh hell no, okay,

10:41

you go to Roxburgh and my dad would remind

10:43

me, you know, you're from West Medford, but our

10:48

area of town, West Medford was the most heavily

10:51

settled black area outside

10:53

of Boston. So

10:57

like, for instance, in my high school's four

10:59

thousand people in high school,

11:02

close to four thousand, and at a time when I was in high

11:04

school, there were three hundred and sixty five black kids,

11:07

which is not quite even ten percent.

11:09

But when we had lunch,

11:12

you know, I'm sitting with two hundred

11:14

black kids, So it felt like it was, you know,

11:16

it was a black environment.

11:18

You know, for our circle, it

11:21

was Boston, the south

11:23

of the North.

11:24

Again, like I'm so triggered by anything

11:27

to do with Massachusetts, I just naturally

11:29

think that Massachusetts is

11:31

just one of these states that escaped

11:34

you know, the Confederate

11:37

you know, just based on what

11:39

we've learned about it. But like in your childhood,

11:42

was it like that at all?

11:43

Or I mean I came like

11:46

right after the busing situation, and

11:48

there was like a bit of a riot

11:50

at my high school about you

11:52

know, surrounded by some kind of race or

11:55

about some kind of racial incident. But

11:57

I haven't right before I got to high

11:59

school, and

12:02

I mean, you know, I was going into Boston

12:05

weekly. At least. I got a scholarship to

12:07

Berkeley when I was eleven, and

12:10

I was going weekly.

12:12

I got to say, you went to Berkeley

12:15

while still in in junior

12:18

high school?

12:18

Correct, So I.

12:20

Was elementary when I started, but

12:25

that I went once a week. So

12:27

it wasn't like that big deal. You know, I

12:29

went after school once a week and took private

12:32

lessons and ensemble deal

12:35

special. But what I mean

12:37

is it wasn't like stressful.

12:39

Berkeley reject that's a big deal.

12:41

Well that's their loss, right.

12:44

Damn right. I'm not bitter at all.

12:48

But what I'm gonna say though, is, you

12:51

know, Boston is, in a weird way, is

12:53

kind of the most liberal

12:55

and conservative places you'll ever be. It's

12:57

a total, you know, dichotomy of these

13:00

things. And everybody hates

13:02

the Celtics and all that, but you know, nobody ever

13:04

talks about how we

13:06

had the first black coach and one of the first

13:09

black players. Hmm.

13:11

I never thought that about the Celtics for real.

13:14

Yeah. Yeah.

13:17

So I'm just saying, like, there's a

13:19

lot of things wrong racially with what's

13:21

happened here, but you know, there's

13:23

it's it's not all bad. And there

13:26

were, you know, places like where

13:28

I grew up, I had heavily populated

13:30

black areas, and it was very you know, rich

13:32

in culture.

13:34

All right, So if ever

13:36

the Patriots or the Celtics went again,

13:39

I'll add you to my new edition file. Like, Okay,

13:41

well, at least

13:43

you seven are happy.

13:44

So universal

13:47

health care? Mayor Massachusetts did that first

13:49

too? Remember free health care?

13:51

Yeah?

13:51

Yep.

13:52

I mean, you know, if you're from a place, there's

13:54

got to be some love, you know, Like I used to. I

13:57

used to hate to go to Philadelphia, but

14:00

you know, I got happier

14:02

as I went, you know, so as

14:05

I learn more about the city. Really, you know,

14:07

I used to not like Chicago, you know whatever.

14:09

I'm like, you have these experiences, and it's just

14:11

as you grow you have the other experiences

14:13

that can make a place. I

14:16

have some nostalgia at the very least

14:18

you.

14:18

Didn't like traveling in general or just.

14:22

Yeah, I mean, well I liked

14:24

it. Now I don't particularly care for

14:26

it. I have a love hate relationship because

14:29

I am happiest sometimes when I'm just in a

14:31

hotel room and can close

14:33

the shades and no block everybody

14:36

out. I

14:38

know, because I'm not dealing with Oh, I got

14:40

to fix this in my house. You

14:42

know, I come home and I get stressed. I'm like, oh

14:44

my god, I got that paint the house, I need a new roof,

14:47

you know, all those things start kicking in. But

14:49

when I'm away, I can just I

14:52

can just focus on whatever it is I'm doing.

14:54

Can I ask a question, because I just want to

14:56

know, you say, from the jump, jazz was in

14:58

your life in the sense that like no other

15:01

you weren't even as a kid in school, because

15:04

I mean you said Berkeley when you were eleven.

15:06

So I'm like, did anything.

15:07

Else ever get into the household, er into your ears

15:10

outside of the lot?

15:11

Okay, yeah, I mean I was. I mean

15:13

I listened to the radio, and I listened to you

15:15

know, like my father started me off listening

15:18

to what he would consume more rhythm and

15:20

blues, which at the time we were

15:22

talking about the early seventies. But

15:24

for him, like he played in horn sections with

15:27

James Brown and Ruth Brown and

15:29

people like that when he was in college, and

15:33

so that's the kind of music he started

15:35

me off listening to because he thought

15:37

I would be able to relate to that, you know, more

15:39

than John Coletrain and Miles Davis.

15:42

So I was listening to lots of Oregon.

15:45

You know lots of blues Jack McDuff,

15:47

Jimy McGriff, and you know some rhythmic

15:49

blues of course, James Brown, Ray Charles

15:52

Raytha Franklin. And those are the records,

15:55

you know, a lot of the records that I remember, you

15:57

know, as a kid.

15:58

Can you tell me the first out that you purchased

16:00

with your own money? Not

16:03

just that around the house, like oh, let me see what

16:05

dad's James Brown's altmore into but like, yeah.

16:09

You know, like I don't know if I purchased

16:11

it, but I think I must have asked my parents

16:14

to get get it for me, because I'm not sure

16:16

they would have. For whatever reason,

16:18

I was obsessed. And I remember I

16:20

had one of those kids it

16:23

was green too, one of those kids, uh phonograph

16:26

players that had a little speaker built in.

16:28

Right post

16:31

preschool or whatever, Fisher Price record

16:34

players. Yeah, I feel like I know what

16:36

this record or what was the record?

16:37

Oh no, it was the Fifth Dimension.

16:41

It was. I was obsessed

16:43

with Aquarius.

16:45

H yeah, for some reason,

16:49

the age of the Aquarius, Like are you

16:51

one? No no,

16:53

no, I'm a leo. Okay,

16:57

I forget it for

17:00

that being the record.

17:01

No, no, no, no, no, no, I'm just saying, no, it's

17:04

for being a leo.

17:06

Get extra points if you're in a query for

17:09

drumming.

17:09

Though, you know, I know that

17:11

there's a sect of people whose

17:13

opinions are like, you know, at least for ginger

17:16

pairing, Like there

17:18

are instruments that

17:20

it probably deemed

17:24

that men should use only as far as

17:26

masculine or feminine whatever, like the

17:29

women on drums really, in

17:31

my opinion, like an adjustment pre

17:34

nineteen eighties. But at

17:36

all, did anyone ever discourage you, like, well, why don't

17:38

you try the piano or maybe

17:41

a guitar, violin, yeah,

17:44

clarinet, Yeah.

17:46

I don't you know, I don't know

17:48

if anybody really ever discouraged me. And

17:52

I was, you know, I was

17:54

confident at a young age, so

17:58

like, I think what tells us story

18:00

about that? For me, the best is when I

18:02

met Buddy Rich for the first time. I was ten.

18:04

I was a guest with Clark Terry nice

18:07

to you. Well, that was the thing. Everybody

18:09

said, stay away from him, he's in a really bad

18:12

mood. And I didn't care, and I went up to him

18:14

anyway, And

18:16

so then somebody stepped in and said, well, let me introduce

18:18

you to young Terry. She's a guest with Clark Terry.

18:21

And he said, oh, yeah, you better not be any good.

18:23

And I just looked at him and said, well, who's going to stop

18:25

me?

18:25

Oh?

18:29

And then he said he kind of took a

18:31

step back, and then he said, you want to come play

18:33

with my band? Oh? You

18:36

see what I mean? Flax

18:39

flax? No, but it well, it wasn't that it

18:41

was beautiful flax. Well yeah, because

18:44

I think it's how you're raised and I

18:47

was raised that this is my music.

18:49

Where did that confidence come from? Terry? Like, do

18:51

you remember, like did your parents something

18:53

say to you? Like the impetus of that, Like,

18:56

I think.

18:56

It's who you are. And that's why I do so much gender

18:59

equity work now because every woman shouldn't

19:01

have to be like me. I would go ahead to head

19:04

with any man, you know what I mean. And

19:06

I'm not intimidated by anyone.

19:10

I can be I can be shy,

19:12

and I can be insecure. Of course,

19:14

we're all insecure. If I was playing a gig

19:17

next to you, I would be insecure,

19:19

especially if I had to play groove, I'd be like, oh

19:21

man, he's sitting next to me.

19:23

Damn, you're

19:27

talking about sugar Steve and his engineering skills.

19:34

What I'm just saying, No, I'm serious, And

19:36

so I'm just saying that doesn't mean I think you

19:38

can be confident and that be a part

19:40

of your personality, which doesn't mean there's

19:43

these other things that you know aren't there

19:45

as well. But you shouldn't have

19:47

to be like me to

19:49

make it, you know, and you shouldn't

19:51

have to have that kind of personality as a woman

19:54

to to have the opportunity or the access

19:57

or mentorship or apprenticeships.

20:00

And so that's you know, when I realized that. That's

20:02

when I because I had been looking at women

20:04

saying, well, what do you mean just do it? You know, like,

20:06

what do you mean just later for them?

20:08

You know, like something discourage you, that should

20:10

give you more impetus to you know, And

20:12

then I realized, you know, they have a

20:14

nervous breakdowns and shit, you know, like, so

20:17

I had to look at it differently.

20:19

Because everybody doesn't have a foundation.

20:21

Because you still had some type of foundation

20:24

to let you know that that is the way to think,

20:26

and these women didn't have that.

20:28

So and they don't need to. That's

20:31

the whole thing. We're all different, you know, we don't have

20:33

to be. I was nothing around nothing

20:35

but men playing, you know, for a long time,

20:38

and so I ended up kind of acting

20:40

like them, you know, and not be you know, having

20:42

a problem being around man

20:44

all the time. So I think

20:46

that, you know, we should

20:48

celebrate our differences. And

20:51

what does a woman's aesthetic sound

20:53

like in the music? You

20:55

know, I think that's the question we should start

20:57

to ask.

21:02

I don't think I've ever went public on

21:06

record with In

21:08

high school, I once had a

21:11

masterclass kind

21:13

of session with a

21:16

well known patriarch

21:19

of jazz music.

21:20

I guess you could say he was a total

21:24

dick.

21:25

And you know, that's actually where I was leaning

21:27

towards it. Like especially, there's a there's

21:30

a generation of

21:32

cats who were sort

21:34

of in the game in the fifties and the sixties

21:37

and the seventies, who you know,

21:39

don't mince words at all, they don't

21:41

suffer any fools. They're very blatant and honest

21:43

or whatever. And this guy just tore

21:45

me up, man like everything. I didn't even

21:47

get on the set, and he just looked at the loud

21:50

shirt I was wearing, look at my hair. It's

21:52

like, oh, see, I wouldn't

21:54

hire you because your hair is just like a girl's right now,

21:57

you know, with that with them snakes in your hair or

21:59

whatever.

21:59

And like he was just going in and.

22:01

I remember like after

22:05

that day, that day,

22:07

I like distinctively remember like

22:11

I'm not going the young lion route because you

22:13

know, I went to school with Christian McBride and

22:15

Joey at Performing Arts

22:17

High School, and so I

22:19

was on that that sort of track every

22:22

day trying to keep up with those two and become

22:24

a young lion, like, you know, because all

22:27

those cats in Philly were just like even

22:30

in high school, like doing sessions and what I

22:33

you know, I had the opposite reaction.

22:35

I actually that kind of

22:37

like just got in my.

22:38

Head and you know, maybe

22:40

like a year later, that's when I

22:42

decided, Okay, I'm gonna go to the roots route because

22:45

you know, he told me that I

22:48

don't look like a serious jazz cat, and

22:51

you know it's I'm I'm

22:54

I'm glad you can buy him, right.

22:59

I love to say, where was you? No?

23:02

No this this?

23:03

You know, this guy's a legacy

23:06

god in the world of jazz right now, you

23:08

know, no longer with us.

23:10

But you don't want to you don't want to name

23:12

his name.

23:13

You know, hey, dog Ellis

23:16

Marcellus, I'll just let it out.

23:21

Well, I just mean, you

23:23

know, he was, you know, very kind

23:26

to me. Actually he coached

23:28

us once.

23:28

But I feel like you're a disarming person.

23:30

I feel like at the age of ten, you were very disarming

23:34

with anyone that you met, you know,

23:36

that would encourage you.

23:37

Yeah, And I think that that's helped, you know,

23:40

with the gender equity work now, because I'll get a lot

23:42

of older musicians calling me saying,

23:44

you know, I guess I've been an old fart or

23:46

you know, thanks for pointing this out.

23:49

But you know, the bottom

23:51

line is he shouldn't have to be that, and

23:53

people should recognize what they're doing. And there

23:55

are a lot of older musicians that

23:58

basically bought into this, you know, patriarchy

24:01

and brought brought into the hyper masculinity.

24:04

And what I'm finding is there's a lot of young

24:06

musicians from teaching at Berkeley,

24:09

a lot of young male musicians that aren't

24:11

digging the hyper masculinity. So

24:13

they actually come to our institute because some

24:15

people get it twisted and think that our

24:17

institute is for women musicians or

24:20

non binary musicians. It's a space

24:22

that they can come and make mistakes

24:24

and learn the music without having

24:27

their guard up. But we have

24:30

about fifty percent young

24:32

men in our institute as well because they're

24:34

rejecting the hyper masculinity

24:36

in jazz as well. And I think that

24:38

we're really seeing a turning point right

24:41

now. It's starting to really shift, and

24:44

I think that the music needs that for

24:46

it to live up to its full potential.

24:48

So let me ask you as a professor, then this is

24:50

about the patriarchy, because how

24:53

do you since it was an

24:56

art form built on that, doesn't

24:58

it come to a certain point where you're at an impact ask

25:00

and explaining and

25:03

you know, because I feel like we're in this point too of sometimes

25:05

either that's what it was and we're trying to change

25:07

it, or how do we make

25:10

that still legendary even though that

25:12

was a problem, Like how do we

25:14

keep that?

25:16

You know, the patriarchy was patriarchy

25:18

was never good. It wasn't good for anybody, right,

25:20

It's white, white male patriarchy to

25:22

be specific. But you

25:24

know, I think that

25:27

the oppressed learned how

25:29

to oppress without trying. It's

25:31

just you know, that's what happens, and

25:34

I felt I feel like this was you know, this is just

25:36

you know, my opinion, but I feel like jazz

25:39

was a space for black men to uh,

25:42

you know, really feel freedom, right black

25:44

men exactly, you know, because

25:47

I mean, well, you go back. You know, I've talked to Angela

25:49

Davis about this and different

25:52

people, because when slavery

25:54

ended, you know, black people couldn't travel, right,

25:57

they you couldn't go anywhere. And

25:59

then when slavery ended and there was

26:01

a little bit of freedom, the first one I think that

26:03

people took advantage of was being able

26:05

to move, you know, being able to

26:08

to go to another town and

26:11

you know, whether you're playing on the street or in a juke joint

26:13

or wherever you could bring your guitar and

26:15

you could. But it wasn't safe still for women

26:18

to do that, okay,

26:20

okay, okay, And these

26:22

places were not places respectable

26:25

women should women should be in.

26:27

But they were there enjoying the music

26:30

though they.

26:31

Yeah, but not all women, you

26:34

know, brothels

26:37

and the music was in these places.

26:40

So yeah, so it was that's what the

26:42

music kind of where it

26:45

was birthed, right, So

26:47

it wasn't it wasn't it wasn't spaces necessarily

26:50

for women to discover

26:53

their artistic uh you

26:55

know, the discover that they could actually

26:57

do this. So they were always

26:59

off to the side in the house, in the church

27:02

wherever, you know, and of course playing piano.

27:04

And that's why I think that's so acceptable. You know, women

27:07

always play piano in the house in the church.

27:09

Right.

27:10

So then when women started traveling

27:13

and getting into you know, music and the blues, a

27:16

lot of it was as singers, right, as

27:18

vocalist. Then you have like you know, Bessie

27:21

Smith and Mamie

27:23

Smith and you know, some of the first blues

27:26

women my Rainy, but

27:29

they became also like

27:33

sexualized, and they

27:35

had you know, they were entertainers. You

27:38

know, it wasn't necessarily as considered

27:40

serious work. Musicians were

27:43

doing the serious. You know. It was

27:45

like, let's commodify this. We

27:47

can commodify this, you know, woman standing

27:50

up front singing the blues more than we can

27:52

commodify the dude with the guitar kind

27:55

of singing the blues. So those blues singers,

27:57

the women, they sold more records, you

28:00

know, but Bessie Smith was selling

28:02

Yeah. So my point is it

28:04

started off like that and you

28:07

know. Then later, of course, in the forties, when the war

28:09

happened, all the women emerged

28:11

playing because so many men

28:14

were gone. What blows

28:16

my mind is that when they came back

28:19

from the war, it seemed

28:21

like the women disappeared, you

28:23

know, it came back to the you know, those practices,

28:26

and none of this really, you know, surprises

28:29

me. Like when I look up, I

28:31

was ignorant to the story of Liberia

28:34

and I just kind of found out about

28:36

that the return. Yeah

28:39

yeah. And like when I saw

28:41

some footage of

28:43

all the black people with the top

28:46

hats and looking trying to look British and

28:49

then colonizing basically the Africans,

28:52

I'm like, well, why would I expect anything different

28:54

in jazz? I mean, you know what

28:56

I mean, it's kind of we're in music. You

28:58

know, it's like you're oppressed. You

29:01

just like that, you take that nature,

29:03

Yeah, exactly, without even knowing it's wrong

29:06

sometimes.

29:08

So do you feel like the

29:10

age.

29:12

Of the abusive,

29:14

like and where we are now, like

29:18

hip hop is is changing

29:21

where you know, there's a

29:25

sort of like a slow seed change

29:29

of a lot of toxic attitudes

29:32

that were long associated

29:34

with hip hop. You know, we're

29:36

now just starting to see the seeds of it growing, and

29:38

you know, I will will assume that if it's

29:40

still a thing in the fifties

29:42

and sixties, twenty fifties, twenty sixty, that

29:46

we'll see a total turnaround. But like kind

29:49

of the the age of the abusive

29:52

actor and Whiplash.

29:54

Oh whipla J K.

29:55

Simmons, How

29:58

abusive he was?

30:00

Whiplash? When you see Matt it was?

30:03

Was that to you? Was it

30:05

triggering?

30:06

Yeah? I didn't see Whiplash, you know what.

30:09

Everyone when Whiplash came out, Literally

30:12

everyone asked me about it.

30:14

People one about the drummer

30:16

too, right, the one that was lost his hearing. I didn't

30:18

see that

30:21

was the one with your boy.

30:23

Uh about to say Freddie

30:25

Mercury.

30:25

Uh, yeah, but I saw that.

30:29

The sound of metal that's the name of that

30:31

movie, is amazing. That is great.

30:32

Yeah. I have so many thoughts, you know about

30:35

that, But the first one that just

30:37

came to my mind is, damn,

30:40

how do I say this politically

30:42

correct? I just mean, like, you know, I'm

30:45

not so attracted to uh,

30:49

you know, white dude suffering

30:51

from some drum lessons. It just feels

30:54

a little like.

30:55

This god damn

30:57

from the book of.

31:01

Trauma by Trauma. I just mean, like,

31:03

yeah, you know, so like for me, like

31:06

there's a lot more suffering that I'm gonna focus

31:08

on if I spend any part of my days

31:11

dealing with that. I'm glad they made

31:13

a movie and the drums are in it and

31:15

that people liked it. But you

31:18

know, he could walk away probably a

31:20

lot easier than you know, somebody

31:22

else. And he actually, if you know, historically

31:25

he has all the tools to you

31:28

know, fight back a little more than some of us. So

31:31

I don't know, but anyway,

31:33

uh, just as far as

31:36

that whole method of teaching,

31:39

I mean, yeah, this this of course, like

31:41

I had like a well known drummer who's

31:44

passed away and who was my teacher, and he

31:46

threw a book at me once. But he

31:49

said, you know, he was frustrated

31:51

with his career and he quit teaching

31:54

right after that. He was teaching at Berkeley, and

31:56

he said, you're playing my ship. You're not supposed to play

31:58

my ship.

31:58

And then he that, yeah,

32:01

you know, because I was just

32:03

thinking that's got to be something for.

32:04

All these Yeah,

32:09

I mean it's okay because I saw

32:11

him and we you know, I had a beautiful time hanging

32:14

out before, you know, shortly before he passed

32:16

and he was living in Europe and it was Keith Copeland.

32:19

Uh you know, so it's like I

32:22

didn't even I loved

32:24

him, and I felt like he loved me, and I

32:27

never I think my parents were a little more upset about

32:29

it than me, you know, because I just I

32:32

shrugged it off, you know, that was I think that's

32:34

been my way. And that's another

32:36

thing I just wanted to point out, since we're talking about

32:39

it, everything that's happened,

32:41

like anything negative, I've had

32:44

to shrug it off. For me, I had to just act

32:46

like it didn't happen, to keep moving and

32:48

you know, beating in my brain double that's not gonna stop

32:50

me, you know what I mean. Like, and so

32:53

then you look back and it's hard, you know, you start

32:55

thinking, like when I started playing with Esperanza

32:58

and Jerry Allen, they started

33:00

talking about, oh, this feels good,

33:02

like this is a space where man, I can

33:04

let my hair down. I don't have you know, I'm

33:07

not what's the word. Uh, you

33:10

know, there's a like a protective layer face

33:13

armor. Well, I was trying

33:15

to think of how es Browns will put it, and she just started

33:17

talking about an armor that she was able

33:19

to let go of, and then Jerry was agreeing,

33:22

and I was only once sitting there saying hmmm,

33:24

like really, oh okay, cool, Well, whatever

33:26

works for you. It took me years

33:29

after that to understand, oh,

33:32

I have those issues too,

33:34

but I just sweep him under the

33:37

rug so well that I

33:39

don't deal with it because it's just it's not useful

33:41

to me.

33:42

I thought you were like the most free individual I ever

33:44

met.

33:45

Yeah, I was about to say, this is very unusual.

33:47

Yeah, what do you mean.

33:49

No, I'm just saying, so many people plant

33:51

seeds, and you know,

33:54

they plant seeds of doubt in your head and you live

33:56

with it. And I just love the fact that

33:58

that wasn't even like you just duct

34:01

it like a boxer.

34:02

But it goes somewhere, exactly,

34:04

It goes somewhere. And that's what she's saying. That's why I know.

34:06

That's why I take back what I said, because I'm like, oh,

34:09

she puts it somewhere.

34:10

It ain't.

34:10

Yeah, well, I mean I wasn't conscious

34:12

of it though, because you know, you know what I'm saying,

34:14

and so that's just a layer. That is

34:17

the way I see it. It's just hard enough to learn

34:19

how to play music, any kind of music,

34:21

but jazz. I mean, it's really fucking

34:23

hard, right, So who

34:26

wants that extra burden? Who

34:28

wants that extra layer

34:31

of Oh? And I have to deal with this,

34:33

you know, like somebody hit on you know, I don't. I don't get

34:35

hit on a whole lot, you know, without wanting

34:38

to. But you know, if

34:40

a band leader hit on me in

34:42

the middle of a rehearsal or you know, I

34:45

would just be like, oh man, really, well,

34:47

you know, fantasies are good, Let's go back to

34:50

playing, you know whatever. And I

34:52

never thought for one minute

34:55

I'm thinking of somebody, and I'll say it, it

34:57

was Stan Getz. And I never thought

35:00

for a minute that it meant

35:02

that I would lose the gig. And then

35:04

when I start talking to these young people, all

35:07

of that is going through their brain.

35:09

Yes, yes, all

35:11

of us going through their brain. And they're not standing

35:13

for it.

35:14

Well no, but now, but I'm talking

35:16

about five ten years ago.

35:18

You know, we just had to suck it out.

35:19

You just suck you just yeah, you just they were wondering,

35:21

well, what do I do like you know,

35:24

am I going to lose the gig or you know how?

35:27

And they start thinking I realized, Wow, that

35:29

never crossed my mind. I told him, you know how

35:31

to let's go with rehearse, you know, and

35:34

it never crossed my mind that he would hold it against

35:36

me.

35:37

So that means technically, you've never been disappointed

35:40

by your heroes in that way.

35:42

Oh maybe not in that way, you know,

35:44

not. I

35:47

mean, you know, I'm

35:49

sorry, I just had a flashback. But

35:51

even that, you know, like if somebody, you know, you you

35:54

know, somebody's over your house, you come out and they're like

35:56

sitting there naked or something, you know, even

35:59

that would make me laugh, you know.

36:01

I know, it

36:06

depends on the legend. It could be real sad though

36:08

Terry. It could be like, damn, come

36:10

on man.

36:12

Yeah, but you know, there's a lot of love and

36:15

I think that black women have

36:18

historically taken

36:20

in consideration all

36:22

these things. And I'm like,

36:25

as long as I don't feel like, you

36:28

know, you're about to physically harm me, then

36:31

I'm not really worried about it, you know. But

36:34

what I'm what I keep trying to say

36:36

is you shouldn't have to be that way. She

36:39

shouldn't have to go through the extra burden, and

36:41

that's what I will then take somebody down

36:43

for. So I have to talk myself off a ledge

36:46

now all the time. But that's for other

36:48

people. For some of my students, I'm like, they say

36:50

what and I'm like, trying to go to

36:52

the runt of the school and beat somebody down. I'm

36:54

like, Okay, we can't do that, right, you

36:57

know, I got to, like, now try to intelligently

36:59

talk to this person or use

37:03

language.

37:04

Yeah, you know, Terry,

37:06

I always wanted to know, simply

37:09

because I'm I'm I'm so drenched in hip

37:11

hop.

37:12

I have to be a shape shifter.

37:15

In other words, any

37:18

track I hear, my first question I'm

37:20

asking is how

37:22

would DJ Premier program this, or

37:25

how would see FERRONI drum on this?

37:28

Or how would

37:30

Tony Williams play this or whatever?

37:33

So oftentimes, you know, I'm

37:35

shape shifting kind of in the name

37:38

of being a human sampler. But

37:40

when you're starting to drum, who

37:44

is the who's the drummer?

37:46

Who sound that you were most attracted

37:48

to when you first

37:50

started based on you

37:53

know, you left Arcinio a thing in eighty

37:55

nine, so based on your simple

37:57

work. Always thought that Tony Williams might have been

38:00

in your North Star. But you

38:02

know, for you, who were your

38:05

three gods of drumming that you had

38:08

in your mind when you were drumming.

38:10

Well, at the end of the day,

38:12

it became well,

38:15

let me see, when I was eighteen seventeen,

38:18

it was Jack de Jeannette and he became my biggest

38:21

mentor. I purposely

38:23

stayed away from trying

38:25

to mimic Tony Williams

38:29

and Elsen Jones to a degree too, because

38:31

their styles are so individual

38:34

that if I hear somebody playing like

38:36

them, it sounds like a caricature of

38:38

them more than anybody else,

38:40

I think, because their styles are so strong.

38:42

So even when you're playing with Herbie

38:45

or Wayne or Combo, it's

38:47

the temptation to not.

38:50

Go there doesn't hit you at all, no.

38:53

It Unfortunately, when

38:56

I played with Herbie, especially in the earlier years,

38:58

well see the thing is, you know I played in six or

39:00

seven different bands of Herbie's, so

39:03

you know he's supporting, yeah, exactly.

39:05

So it was the first, the first

39:08

long, you know, term gig I had

39:10

with him. We were supporting this is the drum, and

39:12

then I had to play these grooves like with

39:14

uh, with computers, you

39:16

know, which I had never done. Uh, and

39:19

then uh, you know, Trio Quartet

39:22

and then Gersha was well just

39:24

those were more acoustic. But then the

39:28

The Future of the Future, which you know,

39:31

was more It had

39:33

you know, some hybrid hip hop stuff in there as

39:35

well, but it was all, you know, mostly grooves. So

39:38

when I was playing straight ahead in the beginning,

39:41

yeah, Tony Williams would creep out because

39:44

I realized whenever I heard Herbie from all

39:46

the records, it was mostly Tony playing

39:48

with him. So that is the sound, you

39:50

know, my spirit related to

39:53

Hervey, which was interesting because he

39:55

told me that Jack Deson it was his favorite drummer

39:58

and that's like my guy,

40:01

yeah yeah, back then, yeah, and that's

40:03

my guys.

40:03

So Tony.

40:05

So Jackie's net was Tony's sort of north

40:07

starts as far as.

40:08

No, no, no, I'm saying, Herbie told me. Herbie

40:11

said that that Jack was his favorite dramma overt.

40:15

Yeah, that's what he told me. Wow, okay

40:18

to play with this is you know, after you

40:20

know, many years after that, plastic

40:22

Miles David Quintest so he if you

40:24

notice, I mean, he hired Jack on you know, some

40:27

of his records. But anyway, so

40:29

I thought, oh, this that's my guy. So I'm

40:31

good. You know, that's great, that's who.

40:33

That's my north star. But then

40:36

once I started playing all this, Tony

40:38

snuck in, you know, which is

40:40

interesting just because having heard him

40:42

with Herbie all those years.

40:44

What is because a lot of the Jack stuff

40:46

that I heard was more like fusing,

40:49

like his seventies fusion work or whatever. How

40:53

like for me, Tony is so

40:56

heavy on symbol work that

40:59

you automatically and his ability to stop

41:01

time and just you know, for listeners

41:03

today that you know, I guess

41:06

you can say that sort of the way that Chris

41:08

Dave's relationship with time, where you

41:11

know, it doesn't exist in his world

41:14

but it exists, but it doesn't exist.

41:17

Tony was sort of you know that way straight ahead.

41:19

But what do you think that Jack's

41:22

trademark.

41:22

Was, Well, I think I

41:25

disagree a little bit about Tony in the time

41:27

existing and not existing because I

41:29

feel like, you

41:32

know, Tony's beat

41:34

was pretty, it was beautiful.

41:37

It was so beautiful his

41:39

time feel.

41:41

Oh no, he would say on rhythm, but

41:43

do all these counter rhythms that.

41:45

Yeah, But that's to me mathematics, you

41:48

know what I mean, Like the counter rhythms, it's polyrhythms.

41:50

There's things that work within

41:52

the structure of a beat. And

41:55

so what attracted me to Jack was

41:58

the opposite of that, you know, of the

42:01

time being elastic and

42:04

like hear him on this all it's slinky

42:06

like a snake. You know, it's in

42:09

his touch. You know, I can tell Jack within

42:12

a second of hearing him, you know,

42:14

on any recording, because it's his

42:16

touch. Any great drummer, you're right,

42:18

it's the rise symbol. You know, any great jazz

42:21

drummer, their their identity

42:23

lives in their rise symbol. Now,

42:26

some people like Tony, like a

42:28

lot of great drummers like Tony, like Art

42:31

Blakey, Max Rusch. Also

42:34

part of their identity is what

42:37

they've you know, developed

42:39

soloing, so their their licks. There are things

42:41

that are signature, right, So there are signature

42:44

licks that you can say that Art

42:46

Blakey, or Tony Williams or Philly Joe

42:48

Jones. But with Jack it's

42:50

not really signature licks. There's no licks. It's

42:52

like it's all more organic and

42:54

the same thing. All my favorite drummers, Roy Haynes.

42:57

It all begins and ends with Roy Haynes. He's the hippos. Jaz

43:00

I was, I was so glad.

43:01

She said that, Oh God, my dad would be so glad.

43:03

She said that, I just want to say this real quick.

43:05

I'm sorry, I mean to interrupt y'all, but for some of

43:07

us, eighty nine is when you ended our Senio.

43:10

It's a whole generation of other folks that go from

43:12

my father who go little Terry that was

43:14

Rory Haynes's protag and all that. So it

43:16

was just for me, I'm continue

43:18

on Terry Ipoplois.

43:19

Yeah, no, it's beautiful, you know,

43:22

just a sidebar. His son sent me a video

43:24

last night of his granddaughter

43:27

daughter, which would be Roy's great

43:29

granddaughter. They had been asking

43:31

if she had been asking for sticks, and he finally about this

43:33

little kid. She's three little kids

43:35

set and sticks and

43:37

it was the first time you ever held a pair of sticks.

43:39

And she was like and she ended

43:42

and flipped the sticks and put him under her arm.

43:44

He was like, you're the first person I'm

43:46

sending.

43:47

This to for our listeners that don't

43:49

know. Roy Haynes is probably.

43:53

The the elder

43:55

statesman. I think between him

43:58

Roy is ninety seven or ninety eight, still

44:00

playing, still playing like forty

44:03

something. Yes, that's crazy,

44:06

like it's nothing, you know, and

44:10

you know and and with and his son

44:12

Graham and and whatever like literally.

44:16

Yes, just mentioned he

44:18

taught my dad too. That's why he's so important

44:20

to him to geniuses.

44:23

Who's your dad?

44:24

His name is Ron Saint Clair. But my dad had

44:26

a nephew that he taught named Dennis Davis.

44:28

So we're just a fan. Yes,

44:31

yeah, dunnis to play with Stevie.

44:33

Yes self slaying me.

44:41

Were you part of the in bass circle?

44:42

Yeah? I was there when Steve named

44:44

it, like he said, I came up with this thing, you know, macro

44:47

dash basic array of structural extis.

44:51

I was like, good luck, let's see if that's going anyway.

44:54

I did I know BASE was an

44:56

acronym.

44:57

What is it for macro

45:00

ah Basic array of structural

45:02

extemporizations deep?

45:08

But yeah, we have a We did a record which

45:11

I think was really the beginning of M BASE

45:13

that never came out. It was

45:15

for Gramma Vision. It

45:18

was Graham, the horn section was

45:20

Graham, greg osby Steve

45:22

and h Whoman

45:24

missed and it was four Robin You Banks

45:27

and then the rhythm section was Vernon

45:29

Reed, Jerry Allen, Me and

45:32

Kevin Harris. Yeah.

45:34

Oh man, you just opened up a door because

45:37

I had a manager who was

45:39

one of the top jazz DJs

45:42

at Temple RTI

45:44

in Philadelphia, and you

45:47

know, in his mind, like

45:50

m base was the future, which is the reason

45:52

why like a lot of MBASE, including like Cassandra

45:55

and everybody like was on our first view

45:57

records. Did you at the time

45:59

when you're in this movement, did you feel as

46:01

though, like, Okay, we are the

46:03

new generation, we're the native tongues. We're gonna

46:06

you know, push forward. How much pushback

46:08

at the time from like jazz traditionalists

46:11

were you getting?

46:13

H Well, you know when that started,

46:15

Like I moved shortly thereafter

46:18

to La to do the Arsenial Hall. So actually

46:21

I was moving anyway, and

46:23

then I got the show, and that just made my move have

46:26

to happen. In a week, I was out there looking for

46:28

apartments. I was staying with Patris Russian.

46:30

And what was the aficial process, Like,

46:33

you just dropped a lot in that one sentence.

46:35

You sure did. He has another former guest of Quest

46:37

left Spree.

46:40

Yes, yeah, yeah, So I

46:42

was playing with Wayne Shorter at the time, so,

46:45

and Diane Reeves was my best friend. She lived

46:47

in LA. I met her at that same time

46:49

when I clarke Terry. So she was nineteen

46:51

and I was ten. We were both guessed with

46:53

Clark that time when I told you about the Buddy Rich store.

46:56

So when I went to LA and

46:58

you know, with hers with Wayne we went to Japan,

47:00

I would just stop in LA and stay for a while

47:03

and stay with Diane and then in Patrise

47:06

and Patrise she was on

47:08

joy Rider, you know, with us. So it was around that time,

47:11

and so the three of them convinced

47:13

me to move to LA. So this

47:16

was the end of eighty eight. So

47:18

I went right around Thanksgiving

47:21

to LA and looked for an apartment.

47:24

And then somehow it was Nary, Michael Walden

47:27

and Patrise maybe one other

47:29

person that recommended me for the Arsenio

47:31

Hall show. And so I went in

47:33

and I just played a couple of tunes with them

47:36

and I got the gig. But they were like, you got

47:38

to be back here next week we start taping, you

47:40

know, we start next week the day after New Year's

47:43

Uh. So I had a week to go home and pack

47:45

up in Fort Green

47:47

and it was to Glendale, California.

47:50

But yeah, I stayed

47:52

with Patrise while I was looking. So

47:55

the audition process wasn't very I don't

47:57

even know how many drummers they had they

48:00

had audition.

48:01

Uh Sanders, okay, keep play funk,

48:04

play jazz.

48:05

Yeah, and you know, Michael Wolf

48:07

was there. It wasn't it wasn't any heavy

48:09

funk, you know what I mean. It wasn't any Yeah,

48:12

but it was a good, great experience, you know, and I

48:14

feel like it set me up, you know, more for doing

48:16

the Vibe TV show with

48:19

great filling games, and that was you

48:21

know more more

48:24

of of a band that could play with

48:26

anybody. So like we played with James Brown,

48:28

we played with Aliyah, we played with Destiny's

48:31

Child, we played with uh,

48:34

I don't know, Rick, James, we played

48:37

with you know, just a lot of It was an amazing experience

48:39

playing with all those people, whereas the first one

48:41

we didn't really play with that many people that

48:44

came on. But you were saying something

48:46

else I fell down.

48:49

Uh. So what happened was

48:52

they were moving on. And when I look

48:55

back and like when that record we made, everybody

48:57

had to bring in a song, and Steve had

49:00

made this like kind of criteria

49:02

for the music of it not being

49:05

straight ahead and having you know, rhythms

49:08

or grooves kind of from more

49:11

modern because he was into James Brown, but

49:14

you know, more modern grooves but with harmony

49:17

and stuff moving like jazz

49:19

but not necessarily in the traditional kind of two five

49:22

to one way, and

49:24

things that weren't in that kind of form,

49:27

like no aaba forms and that kind

49:29

of thing. Right, So what I wrote

49:31

was more poppish,

49:34

so to say, and if you if you would

49:36

listen to it, like my song was

49:38

the outlier on the record because I

49:40

listened to everything he said, and I did everything

49:43

literally in these little sections

49:45

odd time signatures or whatever.

49:49

But it really pointed to something more

49:51

commercial, so to say, than they're

49:54

writing and you know, I know so

49:56

many it was like a potpourria music, which

49:58

was probably good that the record never came out.

50:00

But so I didn't feel so connected.

50:03

I feel like I was there in the beginning, but

50:06

I wasn't super connected, and I was

50:08

playing with Wayne and I was really just

50:10

trying to do that gig because I

50:12

hadn't really played a fusion

50:14

gig, like when I auditioned for Wayne. It was fourteen

50:17

drummers, and you know,

50:19

I got the gig somehow, and

50:21

that was my first real foray into

50:23

just you know, playing group stuff. But I had been listening,

50:26

of course, to Weather Report and

50:28

all of that, and you know, coming up, I

50:30

mean Arsen when the Fire was my favorite band.

50:33

You had asked earlier if I was listening to all

50:35

this other music. I mean, I remember

50:37

the first place I was when I heard

50:39

Go Go at a party.

50:41

Excuse me, where'd you hear Go Go? At a party

50:43

in West Medford?

50:45

In Medford?

50:46

Well, I said there was a black community. See

50:48

it's not, but it's so go Go is so localized.

50:50

That's why I'm like it made it up there.

50:52

Okay, yeah, of course, yeah chuck frown.

50:54

And then I remember the first time, you know, I was at

50:56

another one of those parties. You know, I heard rappers

50:58

delight. You know, it was my first introduction

51:01

to hip hop. I didn't know what was happening before

51:03

that, but yeah,

51:06

you know, so like I was listening to all of

51:08

that stuff coming up, and

51:10

you know, just as a sidebar, I

51:14

was in B Street, so I feel like I was.

51:16

Actually stop,

51:18

stop, come

51:20

back.

51:21

You did know that no, yeah.

51:24

I'll say to a little clip. It was just like a

51:27

quick cameo.

51:28

But wait when they were doing the ballet

51:30

thing on stage. Yep.

51:33

Yeah, but I was brought in from Medford,

51:36

Massachusetts by Harry Belafonto to

51:38

play like this little drum fill.

51:40

I'm sorry these sentences are so compound

51:42

that you give.

51:45

My hair.

51:45

Belafonte for the Beach Street

51:48

came.

51:49

Because, yeah, because he was the producer

51:51

of Beach Street and

51:54

was playing in his band.

51:57

So I had made an album that's actually gonna come

51:59

out forty years now with

52:01

Kenny Baron, Bussell Williams and George Coleman,

52:04

and I was I was sixteen

52:06

at a time, so we had just done it. So at

52:08

this point now I'm seventeen and

52:11

uh, Diane came to Boston

52:13

with Harry. So I hadn't seen

52:15

her since this Witchita vessel when I

52:17

was ten. So we had a big reunion and

52:20

she I gave her this tape of my

52:22

album. It was a green cassette

52:25

tap and she gave it to Harry

52:27

and then out of the blue, he just called and

52:30

we thought it was a joke. You know, there's

52:32

a couple of people that called. We thought it was a joke. Benny Goodman

52:34

call once too. We definitely thought that was a joker.

52:37

It was, and them like

52:40

yeah with Harry though.

52:41

Yeah, we were coming from you

52:44

are making the wrong movies around the wrong

52:46

people.

52:46

I'm like, when is this movie?

52:49

Literally I'm literally okay,

52:51

I'm watching the scene right now.

52:54

I'm sorry, I had to pull it up with my monitor.

52:56

Yeah.

52:57

No, I was talking about

52:59

Terry lynk care into movie about her

53:01

life because it's r never

53:03

in my whole there's never been, never never.

53:06

It's just it's funny.

53:09

It's yeah. Yeah, So I feel like,

53:11

you know, like some weird in some weird

53:14

way, that was you know,

53:16

that was the word I'm looking for it. I was kind of predicting.

53:18

You know, I've always felt connected to

53:21

all the genres. You I've

53:23

always been a bit of a bridge, you know, with

53:26

all the genres because I mean, I'm a jazz

53:28

head, of course, but I mean I went through many years when

53:30

I lived in La saying, don't call me a jazz

53:32

musician. You know, I'm just a musician. Then

53:35

you know, I had to come back, you know, like my dad was

53:37

like, you can't run away from who you are.

53:40

And also you stay collaborating

53:42

with folks.

53:43

So I'm like, I know you still got your ear to the streets because

53:45

you know, you still got folks like Rhapsody on Records

53:47

and whatnot.

53:48

So yeah, I'm doing an R now for

53:51

a Candid which is an old label

53:53

that John Burke and the team that

53:56

he's with, Acceleration

53:58

Music. They're by labels. They bought Alligator

54:01

Records. They about Candidate about a hip hop label

54:04

too. So I'm doing it, you know. So it's a dream that

54:06

I always wanted. I always wanted to do. I read hit

54:08

Man back in the day and I wanted to do an R.

54:11

And one day I was walking and I said, well

54:13

that's.

54:13

When you know you've read hip Man and

54:15

then still wanted to be in the industry.

54:17

Oh yeah, that was what I wanted to do.

54:21

Light to be like, nah, don't don't

54:23

come here.

54:26

I wanted to you know, I wanted to

54:28

be Clive Davis. I wanted to be you

54:30

know, like and so I felt like, you know, there

54:33

was only two black women you know

54:35

that we're doing. We're doing that right, Suzanda Pass

54:37

and Sylvia Rome. Yeah,

54:39

so when people ask me about glass ceilings, that's

54:42

what I say as a producer, as

54:44

an R person, those are the places

54:46

I felt more of a glass ceiling and

54:49

playing the drums.

54:50

Necessarily, like

54:54

you ain't got the ears?

54:57

Yeah, like like I've mean or like

54:59

I'm in some little jazz box

55:01

over here that you know, because

55:04

I'm like all of those people were

55:06

attorneys. They don't have no years on me.

55:09

So what are you an r and for right now? Specifically?

55:12

Like what do you what?

55:13

You Well, the idea with Candida,

55:15

and it's all relatively new, but is to try

55:17

to find people that are

55:19

really merging jazz

55:22

with hip hop.

55:23

And that's fun assignment, yeah.

55:26

Exactly, but just it's a catalog

55:28

label too, and we're not

55:30

going to say no to certain cool records. So the

55:33

first record that I got done

55:35

happened to be a live record with

55:37

Wayne Shorter, Esperanza and myself,

55:40

and so that's gonna be coming out

55:42

in September, I think. And

55:45

then I have a new record that would be coming out on

55:47

it too. And then the

55:49

other person I signed was Morgan Garn who's

55:52

been playing in my band. But

55:54

he's like a program, dude. It's not

55:56

necessarily hip hop, but it's like

55:59

I don't know, it's kind of like if you took Wayne

56:01

Shorter and had him like

56:04

today and programming and using you

56:06

know, all of the right things

56:08

that are available today.

56:09

You know, So I have so

56:11

many questions. But since we're just going all

56:14

over the place as a professor,

56:16

coming full circle now back to Berkeley.

56:19

Do you find yourself in a position?

56:20

So the year that I left

56:23

NYU, I did n YU for like four

56:25

or five years, and my last year

56:28

I kind of had an O ship moment when I realized

56:31

that my students knew more than I did.

56:34

You know, we were talking about I think my last

56:36

class, I believe we taught about Thriller,

56:39

and they had a lot of synth

56:42

questions like synth choice questions

56:44

that I had to do extra homework, and I

56:46

realized, like, yo, these kids are smarter

56:49

and shit like, they know more than I do as

56:51

a professor, especially with where

56:54

music is going. And now I don't

56:56

know specifically the class that you're

56:58

teaching at Berkeley, but you

57:01

know, there's so many levels of musicianship

57:03

as far as like gospel chop musicians

57:05

and broken beat musicians.

57:08

I guess now there's lo fi kind

57:11

of that genre of music or whatever in

57:13

your mind, not do you feel as

57:16

if you have something to contribute, but do

57:18

you sometimes feel like a stranger in a strange

57:20

land With the way that musicianship

57:23

is approached now. For instance,

57:26

I have a member in my group

57:28

right now who we don't know exactly

57:30

how to describe what Stroe Elliott does

57:33

where he plays a drum

57:36

machine as if he is Taikowski,

57:38

or like a piano player where

57:40

he's playing samples and whatnot. So

57:43

with this whole new generation of musicians

57:45

there, like what is

57:48

teaching a student at Berkeley

57:51

in twenty twenty two henceforth, when

57:53

it seems that now is the time when the rules

57:56

are being just washed away

57:58

and new rules are coming in.

58:00

Well, I mean that's really interesting because that taps

58:02

on a few things for me. I

58:05

try to stay around young musicians.

58:07

I mean, everybody in my band is younger

58:09

than me, and people that wrote

58:12

in a different way than than I do.

58:15

And I'm talking about the Social

58:17

Science band. So if you if you heard

58:19

that record, I think it definitely pointed

58:22

to something different

58:24

than I would have been able to do on my

58:27

own, you know, because of the writing

58:29

and uh and the players you know,

58:31

like Morgan and uh,

58:34

and you know Matt and the ideas of mixing

58:37

other genres, like you know, somebody

58:39

like Matt Stevens mixes more indie rock, Aaron

58:42

Parks is you know, like leads

58:44

into classical composers. You

58:46

know, Morgan's into you know, more of the kind of

58:49

new school jazz. Uh.

58:51

And then I had Casa Overall, who is

58:54

not really with us any more. Kokaia's

58:56

doing it, but Cosa uh, you

58:58

know is definitely kind of into more cocaine,

59:01

yeah, jazz me hip hop.

59:03

So that I did was for

59:05

me to recognize kind of like you know,

59:08

Prince did, right, And

59:10

Uh, that's my favorite part about

59:12

Purple Rain is that Prince was

59:14

like finally like, oh, like,

59:17

you know, I need to in order for me to remain

59:19

relevant, I have to let Wendy and Lisa write,

59:22

you know. So for

59:24

me that was kind of like my reckoning with

59:27

I'm gonna do much better, you know, with

59:30

this kind of collective. So I feel

59:32

like I've always tried to

59:34

keep my ear and

59:35

my spirit to what's happening

59:38

now, even though I can't do it like

59:41

you know, like they do. You know, I

59:43

never had gospel chops or something that I

59:45

just never did it, never went to church,

59:48

never you know, played in church, and

59:50

never developed that kind of technique.

59:53

And I don't really hear the drums like that.

59:55

But I can't see how, you

59:58

know, listening to this younger generation,

1:00:00

how it has influenced me to

1:00:02

some degree, you know. And

1:00:05

so as far as the stranger strange land,

1:00:08

I don't really feel that. I feel

1:00:11

like I'm constantly being fed, you

1:00:14

know, and it kind of you know, in the end,

1:00:16

you know, comes up my way, and I still feel like I can

1:00:18

comment, you know, on

1:00:21

what they're doing.

1:00:21

So you're still at Berkeley.

1:00:24

Yeah, absolutely, I'm always

1:00:26

a student, always a student. But

1:00:28

you know, what that also taps on, though,

1:00:30

is how jazz education has screwed

1:00:33

up jazz because what I'm dealing

1:00:35

with mostly are people that

1:00:37

come out of jazz programs.

1:00:39

And now the people in the jazz programs are

1:00:42

mostly affluent, you know, from

1:00:44

certain cities. So I don't know, like it's

1:00:47

all over really, but people

1:00:49

that had programs in school and

1:00:52

jazz was kind of more street

1:00:54

music, you know, I mean it was from the

1:00:56

people and their experience academia

1:01:00

exactly. So the academia they started,

1:01:02

you know, they were able to codify it in a way

1:01:04

and then uh, you know, uh,

1:01:08

what's the word make money

1:01:10

from it? Monetizer monetize, But there

1:01:12

was another word modify, commodify.

1:01:15

Yeah, yeah, And I

1:01:17

feel like now to get

1:01:20

into a school, you have to be on

1:01:22

this certain level and have gone through

1:01:24

this system, which is you

1:01:26

know, is still

1:01:28

dealing with you know, it's yes, it's prohibitive

1:01:31

for a lot of people. Yeah, there's a racist,

1:01:33

sexist system.

1:01:36

You know, so income based what

1:01:38

else?

1:01:39

What I mean, that's why it's racist. Yeah.

1:01:46

There's a certain side of musicianship that

1:01:48

I'm seeing now with younger people in

1:01:51

which they're able to

1:01:53

do whatever,

1:01:55

fly to the bumblebee levels of speed

1:01:59

and and literally just packing

1:02:02

everything in the first one

1:02:04

minute, whereas where I tell them to do

1:02:06

something like my dad

1:02:09

had a trick where he would make musicians just play

1:02:11

a ballot, play something very

1:02:13

simple, and man, they will

1:02:15

all fall apart, one by one.

1:02:17

They would just like fall this like if.

1:02:20

You ask them to play tea for two or chopsticks,

1:02:23

it was like asking them to play rights to Spring. So

1:02:26

as as a teacher, do you find it

1:02:28

that more students are now

1:02:32

in this We're in an era now where

1:02:34

like your Instagram stories

1:02:36

is fifteen seconds, like your TikTok

1:02:39

is thirty seconds, Like you got to have all the impact

1:02:42

of an entire performance in thirty seconds

1:02:45

with you know, they don't believe that much

1:02:47

in space or quietness anymore, like have

1:02:50

is there such a thing as a drummer who just plays

1:02:54

straight ahead and gives

1:02:56

what's required?

1:02:57

Or are you dealing with like.

1:03:01

More gospel chops people that have to like

1:03:03

have bells and whistles and firing,

1:03:06

eating and everything.

1:03:07

Yeah, I

1:03:10

love it. Time field is the most important thing

1:03:12

period right for a drummer, Like if

1:03:14

you don't have a time field it feels good,

1:03:16

then nothing else really matters,

1:03:19

no matter what the genre, you know,

1:03:21

and then it needs to be you know, I'm into

1:03:23

playing free these days. You know, it's

1:03:26

just kind of where my head is. But

1:03:28

there's time in that, you know, it's not it's

1:03:30

not like free means absolutely no time.

1:03:33

And I think the people that play free the

1:03:35

best of once they have good rhythm.

1:03:39

But as far as the students are concerned,

1:03:41

I don't teach drums anymore. I

1:03:44

haven't done that in probably

1:03:46

like six years or so. I

1:03:49

just have ensembles and right now, I'm the

1:03:51

artistic director of an institute, but

1:03:53

I do have two ensembles in that institute,

1:03:56

and so I'm just dealing with the overall sound

1:04:00

of the of the group more than individuals.

1:04:05

But it's the same thing with all the instruments.

1:04:07

What you're saying, is that hard

1:04:09

to convey now to a generation that feels

1:04:12

like to me, all Star games are the

1:04:14

most boringest games ever in basketball

1:04:17

because you know, gonna

1:04:20

try to show off, whereas a

1:04:23

Golden State Warriors in Boston. Sorry,

1:04:25

by the way, you

1:04:27

know, it's literally

1:04:30

about teammate and you putting

1:04:32

in your twenty percent and him putting in his twenty

1:04:34

percent and doing one hundred percent? Is

1:04:37

that harder to convey on students

1:04:40

now? As far as ensemble is concerned, well,

1:04:44

I.

1:04:44

Mean sometimes I'm

1:04:46

actually asking them to play more because

1:04:49

that's the part of me that is

1:04:51

like old school and jazz, like you

1:04:54

know, like you gotta like I'm finding

1:04:56

that a lot of them can't play

1:04:58

consecutive ace notes and construct

1:05:00

lines that are interesting. You

1:05:03

know, they've gone into this like moved into

1:05:05

something else, and I think

1:05:07

they're using too much space sometimes.

1:05:10

Like what you're saying, I would have thought,

1:05:12

like a little bit back in the day where

1:05:14

everybody was just blazing all the time, and

1:05:17

yeah, that's tiring. I get tired

1:05:19

of listening after you know, a

1:05:22

minute or two. That's why. That's another reason why

1:05:24

I don't really listen

1:05:26

too much or prefer to listen to the gospel chops

1:05:28

drumming, because I'm bored after I

1:05:31

you know, it's just I get bored,

1:05:33

you know, because I'm not a geek, a drum geek,

1:05:36

you know, So I don't really care about

1:05:38

that. And I think at the end of the day, that's

1:05:41

what your job is, to make the listener

1:05:43

care, right, what is it

1:05:45

that? Why do we even do this? You

1:05:48

know? So if you feel like it's to make

1:05:50

them groove that they care, you know, that's

1:05:52

a level of care, right. But I

1:05:54

also feel like, you know, kind of coming out of

1:05:57

the way short of in Herbie Hancock book,

1:05:59

I think it's about touching the humanity

1:06:02

in them, you know, exploring what

1:06:04

it is that you share in common. So

1:06:06

how do I inspire you? That's

1:06:09

my humanity relating

1:06:11

to your humanity, and so that's

1:06:13

where my head is. And so sometimes

1:06:16

when I'm listening to some of these young musicians. I

1:06:18

can't get past their sound, let

1:06:21

alone the notes, you know, because there's nothing

1:06:23

in there sound yet there's no pain, you

1:06:26

know, I don't hear the joy, you know

1:06:28

what I mean. So I try to get them to, you know, go

1:06:30

back to the beginning. Like I remember once

1:06:33

being on some I got honored

1:06:36

and there was a I can't remember who it was, but there was

1:06:38

a pro ball player, must

1:06:40

have been for the Patriots, and because

1:06:42

it was in a Boston event, and he

1:06:45

said, and I'll never forget this because this

1:06:47

is how I feel too it in music.

1:06:49

But he said, you know, he was all star in

1:06:51

college and then when

1:06:53

he got to the Patriots, they said, now

1:06:56

let us show you, you know, how to throw the

1:06:58

ball or how to catch the ball. He

1:07:00

had to like go back.

1:07:01

He played it a little bit and.

1:07:06

Burn go back

1:07:08

to the basics. So for me, that's the same with sound,

1:07:12

you know, like why is it Dwayne

1:07:14

Shorter could play one note and break

1:07:16

your heart? Like it's

1:07:18

about what you're projecting, you

1:07:21

know. So the greatest compliments I ever get

1:07:24

is when somebody said, damn, somebody else just played

1:07:26

that drum set. But then when you played it,

1:07:28

like wow, you know, the sound changed,

1:07:31

and that's when I know that's right,

1:07:34

that's what because it's the sound

1:07:36

is your spirit, right, you

1:07:39

know what I mean?

1:07:40

I would say probably the Mosaic

1:07:42

project is one of your most

1:07:45

beloved projects. Could you tell me about

1:07:47

just the whole concept of doing that album

1:07:49

and and gathering these uh

1:07:52

these women together to do this album

1:07:54

and how it came to fruition.

1:07:58

Yeah, I did gig

1:08:00

in Israel. I had a gig

1:08:02

in Israel called Esperanza. It

1:08:04

was the first time, well the second time we played

1:08:06

together, and she was

1:08:08

still like she had come out of Berkeley and started teaching

1:08:11

at Berkeley, and that's when I met her her

1:08:13

first year teaching. So I called her and

1:08:15

Jerry Allen and a

1:08:17

saxophone player from Hall and Tennka

1:08:19

Postma. I realized I called

1:08:21

three women for a gig just based

1:08:23

on the way they played. I didn't realize that

1:08:26

it was three women and this was going

1:08:28

to be an all women quartet until

1:08:31

after I had, you know, booked them. So

1:08:33

it wasn't anything I was trying to do. I

1:08:35

just wanted to play with the three of them,

1:08:37

and I was like, Okay, this is a big deal for

1:08:40

me because Throughout my whole

1:08:42

career, people had asked me, oh, could

1:08:44

you do this women's festival? Could he play

1:08:46

with these women? And I was kind

1:08:48

of like, you know, when I look at somebody

1:08:50

like Mary L. Williams who didn't

1:08:52

want to play with other women, she said, well, why would I want

1:08:54

to play with them when I'm playing with the best, you

1:08:56

know, And.

1:08:57

I was wondering how you felt about this? Yes,

1:09:00

okay, yeah,

1:09:03

yeah.

1:09:03

And so I shot away from it my entire

1:09:05

career, and there was always be somebody

1:09:08

like, you know, I played with Ingrid Jensen or

1:09:11

you know, Rennie Robinson, with Wayne, with

1:09:13

Bernard Wright, you know, Rest in

1:09:16

Peace, and there

1:09:19

was always a woman here or there, you know, Jerry Back

1:09:22

with Mbase and before that actually,

1:09:25

but never all together, you

1:09:27

know, And I really shot away from it. So I did

1:09:29

it, and then I said, this is a moment

1:09:31

that I really want to

1:09:33

celebrate and shine some

1:09:35

light on. So I started with just the four

1:09:37

of them, and then I just kept adding people

1:09:40

and it just became like twenty one women

1:09:44

and that's really just how it started.

1:09:47

And I wasn't really trying to make any kind of political

1:09:49

statement other than, oh,

1:09:51

there are a lot of amazing women that play

1:09:54

and let me just put through this record,

1:09:56

you know.

1:09:57

So this is how the sisterhood started?

1:09:58

Then, because I want to ask you, is

1:10:00

there a sisterhood in well, I was gonna

1:10:02

say jazz. Really, of course, jazz

1:10:05

when it comes to musicians, you

1:10:07

know of a sisterhood that way.

1:10:10

I mean, there is, But there's a lot of women

1:10:13

that are playing jazz that still

1:10:15

they think about it. How

1:10:18

do I say, not as much like a sisterhood

1:10:21

because you know, we're affected by the patriarchy

1:10:23

too, right, So women are invested in it. Yeah,

1:10:25

they don't want to play with other women because they

1:10:28

feel like it's a step down. That's something.

1:10:30

But as more greats are coming

1:10:32

out of the fold, how does it be? How is it a

1:10:35

step down? And to play with Terry

1:10:37

Well.

1:10:37

That's the well, I mean, that's the point that

1:10:40

there's only going to happen. That's why I started apprenticeship

1:10:43

program, the mentorship program New Music

1:10:45

USA, because there's a lot of mentorship programs,

1:10:48

but apprenticeship means you have to put

1:10:50

them on the stage with you. And

1:10:52

so we got a grant of one point two

1:10:54

five million dollars to do

1:10:56

this three year program. And

1:10:59

we have a these six applicants this first

1:11:01

year, and we picked seven and so like

1:11:03

I did pairings and

1:11:07

so some of the mentors are Bob McFerrin

1:11:09

and Wayne Shorter and you know, watch

1:11:11

the different people. But some of the apprenticeships

1:11:14

are with Chris Potter, Linda Mayhanou

1:11:19

Esmanza, Marcus Miller.

1:11:21

He took one Alexis, which

1:11:23

is great. She's having a blast playing with him.

1:11:25

So I just feel like, I thought, how do we

1:11:28

get more men to hire women, because

1:11:30

if they don't really do it on their own because

1:11:32

they need to, you know, they don't necessarily

1:11:35

know that they need to contribute to this shift,

1:11:38

how do we get them? So I said, pay them, you

1:11:42

know, the.

1:11:42

Men din women, then

1:11:45

the women will start hiring women.

1:11:47

You know what I mean is once you

1:11:50

know, everybody has to be invested in gender

1:11:52

equity because it's for the good of everybody.

1:11:55

And I just felt like one

1:11:57

way to get people interested is

1:12:00

is have an affect their wallet. If they're getting

1:12:02

a free musician and getting you

1:12:04

know a little money on top of that, it

1:12:07

might make it easier. And it's you

1:12:09

know, so far kind of work. You

1:12:11

know, this is our inaugural year. But

1:12:14

anyway, I think that this last

1:12:17

record, though, the Waiting Game is the one.

1:12:19

It's the only one I can listen to. Let's put it like that.

1:12:21

The other ones is I can't. I can't

1:12:24

really listen to a

1:12:26

Waiting Game. I could still listen to. So

1:12:29

I think that's for me my favorite of

1:12:31

all the elbows real because

1:12:33

I don't cringe when I listen.

1:12:35

So you're still like in your head

1:12:37

about like I could have did that better, We could have

1:12:39

did a big different take.

1:12:41

Or yeah, or just

1:12:43

sometimes like Mosaic Projects, the

1:12:45

first one, I mean I like things

1:12:47

on the second one too, but the Mosaic Project,

1:12:50

I think that the playing is good

1:12:53

overall. There's

1:12:55

like some sound things, like you know, some

1:12:58

production things that really both me.

1:13:00

But you know, playing

1:13:02

is good overall, but it's a little bit far

1:13:04

away from where I am as a musician.

1:13:07

There's a little bit of my writing that bothers

1:13:09

me. You know that, I'm like, oh man, I could have really

1:13:11

developed that idea much better, and I've improved

1:13:14

as a writer since then, So

1:13:17

that's what you know. But overall,

1:13:19

I think, you know, the playing

1:13:21

is okay.

1:13:22

Oh so you're writing writing these lyrics on waiting

1:13:24

game.

1:13:24

Okay, Well, you've been also singing on all

1:13:26

of your records.

1:13:27

That's you've sung

1:13:29

on it since your first album, You've sung.

1:13:33

Yeah, except this last one. I didn't, you know,

1:13:36

way to give it, but I wrote all the lyrics,

1:13:39

but I tried to sing a little bit.

1:13:42

Man. You you got to.

1:13:44

I guess bucket list check a

1:13:47

project before she

1:13:49

died, maybe

1:13:51

like six months before Amy Winehouse

1:13:53

died, she was stalking

1:13:56

me daily telling

1:13:58

me that her and I were going to redo

1:14:01

Money Jungle and

1:14:03

Money Yeah,

1:14:06

the Money Money Jungle album from Duke

1:14:09

Ellington and Max

1:14:11

Wroton and Charles Minkus, the famous trio

1:14:13

record.

1:14:14

What I did that record?

1:14:16

I know? And you wound up pulling it off.

1:14:18

So we were planning me her

1:14:21

and most Step and a few other musicians were going

1:14:23

to cover.

1:14:23

The entire album. Oh my god,

1:14:26

right.

1:14:26

And she passed away and ah,

1:14:29

man, I was just heartbroken. And then

1:14:32

a year and a half or for the for the fiftieth anniversary,

1:14:35

you actually, what made you want to cover that entire

1:14:37

album?

1:14:38

Because when I see it, I was like, wow, what the

1:14:40

hell?

1:14:40

Like it came out?

1:14:43

But I wasn't even mad at it. But what made

1:14:45

you want to cover that album?

1:14:47

You know, people ask me that all the time, and I

1:14:49

don't know, it's just it haunted

1:14:52

me. I don't know what made me choose

1:14:54

it, other than it just kind of haunted me. And

1:14:57

I started reading all these Duke Ellington biography

1:15:00

books and

1:15:02

and I was transcribing, you know,

1:15:04

in the piano, and I realized these are all mostly

1:15:07

blues based songs,

1:15:09

probably the easiest stuff that Duke Ellington

1:15:11

wrote. And I knew that it

1:15:14

was as far as I could go, you know, like with transcribing

1:15:16

Duke Ellington a trio.

1:15:18

Record, you know, and that's

1:15:20

the easiest.

1:15:21

Yeah, this, and it wasn't complex,

1:15:24

you know, in general. So uh,

1:15:28

I kept flipping like, you know, some of the songs

1:15:30

to the point it didn't sound like it so even

1:15:32

you know, Christian said when he came in the session, he

1:15:35

said, you know, you really could have just called most

1:15:37

of these songs something else, you

1:15:39

know, but

1:15:46

you know, I just I wanted

1:15:48

to make sure that I wasn't

1:15:50

bastardizing, you know, Duke Ellington's music.

1:15:53

And I read enough interviews, like he said,

1:15:55

jazz, we stopped using that that word

1:15:58

in nineteen forty seven. He said jazz.

1:16:00

That just means freedom of expression. And

1:16:03

so when I realized that's

1:16:05

how he felt, then I felt,

1:16:07

okay, you know about changing

1:16:09

his music to that degree.

1:16:11

Okay.

1:16:12

And at this phase of your career, and

1:16:15

you pretty much have done everything. You've You've

1:16:18

done scores, you've taught

1:16:22

television, you've done everything. Is

1:16:25

there something that you had

1:16:28

yet to embarkle on that you wish to

1:16:30

do for this phase of your career

1:16:32

right now?

1:16:34

Oh man, I'm just getting started as

1:16:36

far as I can. I mean, I'm

1:16:38

doing I'm doing so much now

1:16:41

that I'm a little pissed that some of

1:16:43

these opportunities didn't come before.

1:16:45

I'm, you know, a little tired. I'm fifty

1:16:47

six, I'll be fifty

1:16:49

seven and two.

1:16:50

Months on somebody's baby.

1:16:54

Thank so

1:16:57

I'm a little tired, you know, and I

1:16:59

wish that I had some

1:17:01

of these opportunities earlier. Like right now, I

1:17:03

can tell you a couple of things really

1:17:06

right, really.

1:17:07

Tell you about in the fifties,

1:17:10

Like I've been waiting for this at

1:17:12

twenty.

1:17:13

I think it's the time you're at least forty

1:17:15

one, at least thirty nine. Say

1:17:17

that again now, because

1:17:19

you're ready for it now. If you got any twenties, you would have sucked

1:17:21

it up.

1:17:22

Hello, well not maybe.

1:17:23

A mirror, Yeah, everybody would.

1:17:25

Everybody he started so early.

1:17:27

So I don't know, I know,

1:17:29

but I hear you. I hear

1:17:32

you, I feel you because I feel

1:17:34

the same way. And honestly, I hear

1:17:36

what you're saying. We're wiser and maybe

1:17:38

we're doing it better or different,

1:17:41

but I feel like I'm the same

1:17:43

person really, you know, twenty

1:17:45

years ago, I would have been going on thirty seven

1:17:48

even fifteen years, have more energy,

1:17:51

and I feel like I knew most

1:17:53

of the things that I know now. I

1:17:55

just have a little more confidence now because I'm older.

1:17:58

But if I had gotten opportunity, unities,

1:18:00

because the way I see it is, there's a

1:18:02

lot of and I say this when I

1:18:04

talk to young women that feel like, oh,

1:18:08

we're not ready to be in the if they're

1:18:10

at North Texas or something, they say, we're not ready to be

1:18:12

in the one o'clock band. I don't want to get

1:18:14

the opportunity to play in the one o'clock band

1:18:16

when I'm really two o'clock band material,

1:18:19

you know, And I'm like, wait a minute. There's a lot

1:18:21

of marginal white men that have had

1:18:23

these opportunities, you know,

1:18:25

like that weren't ready and

1:18:28

why do.

1:18:28

We have to be like three times, Oh, we have to

1:18:30

be super dope. No, that's just the program

1:18:32

that way, right, Like right, So.

1:18:34

That's what I resent. I resent not

1:18:36

having some opportunities when I

1:18:39

was in my thirties and forties, when

1:18:41

I really had the energy. But now

1:18:43

I'm you know, I'm burning a candle. I

1:18:47

mean writing, you know, projects, writing

1:18:49

words, you know, like I'm writing the children's

1:18:51

book, I'm doing some film

1:18:54

for an exhibition.

1:18:56

As anybody approach you about a something

1:18:58

about your life because there

1:19:01

is no one about you. There's

1:19:03

nobody like you in the world, Like it's.

1:19:05

Just nobody's nobody's

1:19:07

approached me yet about that.

1:19:09

No memoir.

1:19:10

No, I'm just trying to get my dad. He's

1:19:13

gonna like start because he has a better memory

1:19:15

than me and he's eighty

1:19:17

four.

1:19:18

Interview your dad right now.

1:19:19

Yeah, what I'm doing I'm currently.

1:19:21

In Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm going to interview my

1:19:23

mom.

1:19:24

Like just I think generally

1:19:27

like everyone should just interview

1:19:30

their elders and get all the stories

1:19:33

out so that way that they're they're preserved,

1:19:36

you.

1:19:36

Know, and I also want to say to you too, I

1:19:38

use I tried to you

1:19:41

might not hear the inspiration, but break

1:19:44

you off. You know that end drum thing right,

1:19:46

break you off, so like I have an end drump thing

1:19:48

on a tune of mine on the second

1:19:50

Mosaic Utrich

1:19:53

Russian song when I found you, So

1:19:56

that was like your inspiration. I'm

1:19:58

going to break you off is what

1:20:01

made me write that section at the end. But this is

1:20:03

in fifteen, but I think it's fifteen.

1:20:06

But if you check it out, I

1:20:08

don't know, you know, I said once the Wayne Shorter,

1:20:11

I wrote this, you were my inspiration.

1:20:13

He was like, oh yeah, wow.

1:20:17

We should

1:20:19

have asked.

1:20:19

When we ever see y'all on a stage together on

1:20:23

We Never damn should have asked that question because y'all

1:20:25

never been on a stage together.

1:20:28

Never too late.

1:20:29

Now, now, now's the time before.

1:20:31

I'm gonna tell Christian. I'm gonna tell Christian,

1:20:33

make it happen.

1:20:34

Here you go.

1:20:36

This is long overdue. I thank you

1:20:38

so much for coming on that show.

1:20:40

You got to come back because I've skipped

1:20:43

so many, so many questions I had about

1:20:45

your career that I've skipped.

1:20:48

Because about your fuller

1:20:50

Lester Bowie, Diana Crass.

1:20:53

Yeah, Jimmy

1:20:57

jam episode, sure you like. Terry's

1:21:00

actually like a four hour episode on

1:21:02

the real. So I'm

1:21:05

at my day Jo sneaking on my lunch break.

1:21:08

Thank you for existing, Terry, Thank

1:21:11

you, thank you.

1:21:12

No, that's real like you.

1:21:14

You know, I saw you drumming

1:21:17

mad early and you

1:21:19

know you were You were the first kid that

1:21:22

I saw doing.

1:21:23

What I wanted to do for a living. That was that was really inspiration.

1:21:25

See and thank you pretty wild. I

1:21:28

never would have imagined that, and really

1:21:32

that makes me feel really good.

1:21:35

Thank you so much.

1:21:36

Alone.

1:21:37

Yeah, well on behalf of like Sugar

1:21:40

Steve, Unpaid Bill

1:21:42

and fon Tickeolo.

1:21:43

This is Quest Love and we will see

1:21:45

you on the next go round on the next episode of Quest

1:21:47

Supreme.

1:21:48

Piece we'st

1:21:57

Love Supreme is a production of iHeart

1:22:00

New Radio.

1:22:04

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1:22:06

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1:22:09

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