Jason Moran

00:00:00
Speaker 1: This episode is also available as video on YouTube. You can visit Nora Jones channel and be sure to subscribe while you're there. Hey, I'm Nora Jones and today I'm playing along with Jason Moran.

00:00:11
Speaker 2: I'm just playing long, I'm just playing lone with you.

00:00:23
Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Nora. This is Sarah. Hello. Hello, Welcome to the show. Welcome to our show.

00:00:30
Speaker 3: Today we have the acclaimed pianist, composer, and innovator at the forefront of contemporary jazz, Jason Moran.

00:00:40
Speaker 1: Also a Fellow Texan. Fellow Texan.

00:00:43
Speaker 3: He is a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient and he has multiple award winning albums.

00:00:49
Speaker 1: He's great and I love him. I've known him a long time. He's such a great musician. And another brilliant piano player played piano. No, I didn't mean I was the other brilliant one. I meant like, another guest who's a brilliant piano player played my piano.

00:01:11
Speaker 3: This episode has is really packed with a lot of incredible music. It's just like completely seamless between the music and the talking.

00:01:20
Speaker 1: I feel like, oh, there's a lot of music in this one, a lot.

00:01:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, And you know, you talk about your shared Texas roots.

00:01:27
Speaker 1: He feels like family for many reasons to me, partly the Texas thing and then also the Blue Note Records thing because he was on We've been on the same label back in the beginning, we were on the same label.

00:01:41
Speaker 3: So yeah, you know, I had a little parallel moment familial.

00:01:45
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed the episode with Jason Ran.

00:01:48
Speaker 4: Alicia and I are playing in the church for this festival in Molda Festivals like way up North gorgeous. And then so they had us kind of waiting in this room which is like the rectory or whatever, and it had a pump organ in there, and I said it that thing, and Alicia was like, oh God, here we goes. And when I got back to New York, I was like, I gotta find a pump organ. Found one Midtown and somebody's storage for like fifty dollars.

00:02:15
Speaker 1: Wow, was it kind of like that size?

00:02:17
Speaker 4: It was this size and it had the cabinet ornate it on the top two but it wasn't. The person who who had it put an actual air pump in it, so you just pressed your foot down once and then it blew air into it.

00:02:31
Speaker 1: Oh, so that they wouldn't have to work the feet.

00:02:35
Speaker 4: It was quite lazy, but it sure sounded great.

00:02:39
Speaker 5: And then I sold it to Brooklyn Recording.

00:02:42
Speaker 1: Oh cool.

00:02:43
Speaker 5: So I don't know, I don't think so.

00:02:45
Speaker 4: I think he probably was like, man, what the fuck is this because the pump, the air pump was pretty loud.

00:02:52
Speaker 1: Oh so it's kind of went against the whole point kind of how much did you use it before you sold it?

00:02:57
Speaker 4: I used it a lot in the house, you did, and my kids get on get all scary and like play weird stuff. It was great that its beautiful. Yeah, instruments used.

00:03:07
Speaker 5: To be a lot more beautiful than they are now.

00:03:09
Speaker 1: They're so ornate. And I had this in my kind of dining room for a while and it really was beautiful. It would get played every once in a while, but mostly it was furniture. It looked pretty.

00:03:24
Speaker 5: Yeah.

00:03:25
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I put art on it. I don't know, Like instruments have like lives and they're like made of wood that come from trees and then they and then people sit at them and unlock stuff, and I feel like.

00:03:37
Speaker 5: That's part of our job.

00:03:39
Speaker 1: It's the fun part.

00:03:40
Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't know if it's fun.

00:03:41
Speaker 4: Sometimes I didn't. I had therapy this morning too. It's a little bit all over the place, right.

00:03:52
Speaker 1: It's great. Well, it's not fun if you can unlock it. But don't you feel like you usually.

00:03:56
Speaker 5: Can if I'm with the right people. Yes, yeah, And.

00:04:02
Speaker 4: I don't know. So I think when I look, when we first started making music, we were I mean, at least for me, I was just trying to make music. I wasn't even sure what it was for you know what I mean. Like, you're young, so you're like, oh, is that the right E?

00:04:15
Speaker 5: Seven?

00:04:17
Speaker 1: Does it matter?

00:04:19
Speaker 5: Am I going to a minor? Am I going to D seven?

00:04:21
Speaker 1: Oh?

00:04:21
Speaker 5: My god?

00:04:21
Speaker 4: Okay, wow, how will I get there? And those small decisions, And then I think over time learning that those decisions meant something maybe about life that I didn't no one taught me, like when they were teaching me harmony. Yeah, And then I was like, shit, okay, so okay, this means a little bit more than just playing the right chord?

00:04:42
Speaker 5: You know this?

00:04:43
Speaker 1: What's the best part? Yeah, forgetting what the right chord is and then moving on to what it means.

00:04:51
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that and finding that and finding it and listening to it change and and making sure that you don't mind the changes. I think that's my place where I am now making sure that I don't mind the changes that are that are happening. And I don't mean like, I don't mean like changes in music. I just mean in myself.

00:05:19
Speaker 1: So this is perfect. You're the perfect guest for this podcast, and.

00:05:26
Speaker 5: I'm glad you have a furry friend next to me.

00:05:28
Speaker 1: This like that?

00:05:31
Speaker 4: Can I gush for a second, I'm sorry, Can I do that for a second, because on the way here, I was so, I know, years ago when Alicia and I had twins, twins are raising kids in New York is like real hard, especially difficult.

00:05:48
Speaker 5: Twins is difficult.

00:05:49
Speaker 4: And Sunrise may have just been out. Okay, that was like every day for about two years. The records start to finish. This morning, I was telling Malcolm, who's now seventeen and the six foot three ballet dancer that's I'm going to see uh Norah Jones today. I said, you know, we used to listen to her like every day for a couple of years when you were like a baby. And then I played so and he was like, oh yeah, that sounds like music that I like. I was like, you know, what fucker we put that in you.

00:06:21
Speaker 1: He doesn't. He doesn't probably actually remember.

00:06:24
Speaker 4: I was like, we placed your taste. We were talking about exactly you just came up with this on your own anyway. But then I was also re listening to because I think right at that time, like, okay, piano playing is the thing, and then piano playing in groups with a certain kind of energy is a thing.

00:06:38
Speaker 5: So you figure out a certain kind of.

00:06:40
Speaker 4: Way that your muscles moved to make music, and then listening to your piano playing, I'm just gonna talk about your piano playing so much during that record. My whole is I know it how much my style changed, No, no, any kind of two handed response to a melody line. It's because I was listening to you for that long. And you know, like Shirley Horn, right, she has a way that she sings in places which is about space, but she does like something very kind of abstract with texture, Whereas you were like placing these responses the things Billy Holliday might think, but it wasn't playing the piano, and.

00:07:22
Speaker 5: I was like, oh okay, wait, okay.

00:07:24
Speaker 4: So then when I started working with bands that would act that had a certain space in it, especially when working with guitar players. I was like, Oh, I'm going to learn how to use space and I'm gonna learn how to respond to phrases by just playing.

00:07:39
Speaker 5: You know what I'm saying.

00:07:40
Speaker 4: Come on, yeah, basically, Oh, man, Jason, that's nice. I was like, well, you know that's really Enarge.

00:07:44
Speaker 1: That's lull. You made me cry.

00:07:47
Speaker 4: No, just I just I wouldn't make sure that that's said. If no one really talks about your piano playing, I'm gonna talk about your piano because the feel you have, but the space you make around the voice, and then the way you respond and then the solos too, all that.

00:08:04
Speaker 5: Man like.

00:08:04
Speaker 4: So that record was like just like when you listen to something for a while, it has a way of like kind of like showing up as a reference point. Yeah, you know, and for me, a high watermark reference point.

00:08:17
Speaker 1: It's so great.

00:08:19
Speaker 5: I always tuld to say that on record. Now that I'm sitting I.

00:08:22
Speaker 1: Really appreciate that. You're so sweet. I think that record. I love that record, but I think it was a little all over the place, and because I was kind of finding my way for the second record, and some of it I love love, and some of it I kind of forgot about because I don't play those songs much anymore. And we did a lot of songs by the band, which was really fun. Like my band at the time, everybody had a song on the record, so it was sort of collaborative. But you know about that octave stuff, the two octave, that's that that thing I do a lot. I totally ripped that from Oscar Peterson. It's not as fast by the way speed and.

00:09:07
Speaker 4: Oh yeah I hear that, okay, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:09:14
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, that's kind where I got it.

00:09:17
Speaker 5: No, it's works, though.

00:09:18
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, like I think probably the beautiful part about music leaving its its own space is it finds a way to kind of like plant, be planted in another garden and like grow a little bit differently, and you almost redistribute the stuff that that seemed to work in and like say a straight ahead jazz context like Oscar Peterson, but like you know, I almost often think of like those saxophonists like Johnny Hodges and Duke Ellington's band, the way he could bend the note, and then the way like in Indian classical music you hear the saxophone is like, yeah, you hear pitch as a as a as a thing around the world that really can wave. But I love hearing and understanding that these small things connect to a lot of different things.

00:10:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, we all know where we kind of get them or we don't, but they've all been around, but not the way we do them.

00:10:15
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, slow Oscar Peterson down.

00:10:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I can never play as fast as Oscar Peterson. But he did that too, octave that's true. Line than Yeah, it's phenomenal. This is so awesome. It's so good to see you. It's been about I know how long it's been because I remember my baby. I have my baby with me, and I know how old he is. So it's been almost eleven years since I've seen you, and so it's just really lovely.

00:10:44
Speaker 4: To see you.

00:10:45
Speaker 1: You too, Do you feel like playing a song?

00:10:47
Speaker 4: Sure? Yeah I try. Yeah, Well, like what if I don't play a song.

00:10:53
Speaker 1: Or I don't know. I really like that that Curtis song you suggest, the Curtis Mayfield song. Yeah, I was thinking that would be fun to try.

00:11:02
Speaker 4: Yeah, what do you think?

00:11:04
Speaker 5: Yeah, sure, let's try the makings of you.

00:11:06
Speaker 4: I think the other day I was listening to move on up really and it sent me to the piano like, oh, let me just try to get that strumming that's in that song.

00:11:16
Speaker 5: And also I needed that song that day.

00:11:18
Speaker 4: Yeah, And then it led to Makings of You, and I was say, wait a minute, do I not know how to play Makings of You on the piano? And then I was like, wait a minute, Jason, come on, go back to school right quick and sit down for a while.

00:11:32
Speaker 1: Is that what was happening? Because I asked you if you could think of a cover we could do together, and you're like, well, I've been inside this song all day I had.

00:11:40
Speaker 4: I took the beat from Makings of I mean the beat from Move On Up. There's like this drum break and an extended version, and I slowed it way down and I just put it on in like for an hour.

00:11:53
Speaker 5: I just played, you.

00:11:54
Speaker 6: Know, and.

00:12:56
Speaker 2: The little shot how You sclad a great, big expression of happiness.

00:13:09
Speaker 7: Boy couldn't made.

00:13:16
Speaker 2: With a dozen rowses, such.

00:13:23
Speaker 7: Stall the joy of children laughing around you. These are the makings of you?

00:13:35
Speaker 4: Is it true?

00:13:38
Speaker 1: The makings of you?

00:13:45
Speaker 2: Righteous?

00:13:46
Speaker 6: Way to go?

00:13:50
Speaker 2: Little one would know or believe, Liver. I told them, souls your second to know the love of old man kind should reflects so side of these words I've tried to reside.

00:14:18
Speaker 1: The coms were not quite almost impossible to.

00:14:26
Speaker 2: Residing. The mankins you.

00:15:13
Speaker 1: The righteous way to gold. An one would know.

00:15:22
Speaker 2: Or believe if I told them, son.

00:15:27
Speaker 1: Your second to night. The love of all mankind.

00:15:36
Speaker 2: Should reflects some side of these words I've toed to the side. Their class were not quitet almost impossible to do the siding the.

00:15:54
Speaker 1: Makings of you. Oh that's so pretty, it is pretty.

00:16:32
Speaker 5: It's so pretty. I mean, Curtis.

00:16:34
Speaker 4: Mayfield, I know he's the best, you know. I think about like I think specifically about black falsetto.

00:16:41
Speaker 1: Well, it's so cool that he's singing and I'm not even changing the key and it's still high for me, you know, but I didn't change the key at all, And it's great.

00:16:51
Speaker 4: These people who can do that, you know, Prince Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye.

00:16:57
Speaker 5: I think by the instrument too at the piano.

00:16:59
Speaker 4: Like the way to almost imitate false settle at the piano. Sometimes that's about that thing that we were talking about before, The double octive thing is a way to kind of like give a sense that the note that you might have in your.

00:17:15
Speaker 5: Body has a ghost that lives a little bit higher.

00:17:17
Speaker 1: I like that.

00:17:19
Speaker 4: So both of these are present at the same time, the double consciousness, you know, like it's like a double thing. So these people like Curtis Mayfield writing these songs that are like so tender also so fragile. They feel like so good in a time when people are doing some other version of some other thing, there's some other performance that is less fragile, less tender. So I think when I heard that just the other day, I was like, oh gosh, so I'm glad you asked. I was like, oh, come on, can we try that.

00:17:53
Speaker 1: It's just such a deep song. And it's also it's easier to receive something some beautiful and deep if it's fragile, you know.

00:18:02
Speaker 4: Sometimes yeah, sometimes, I mean, you know, but we moved to New York.

00:18:07
Speaker 1: I don't know why we live here.

00:18:09
Speaker 4: Sometimes we moved here. Alvin was wondering how you felt about being in Brooklyn all these years.

00:18:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I feel kind of stuck here, like I can't get out of it. I mean, we're both from Texas, right, You're from Houston, from Houston, Okay, arts Magnet.

00:18:24
Speaker 5: Yeah, HSPVA, Yeah, you had glasspro on here.

00:18:29
Speaker 1: We know all these people, you know.

00:18:31
Speaker 4: But also like when I was in high school, you know, Booker t was was our battle school.

00:18:36
Speaker 1: No, I know, I know, but I never got that because I feel like I just met so many people from from the school. I never felt competitive with any of them because I wasn't like you and and Robert and you know, Sean Martin and everybody. You guys were a little more on the same plane. I was kind of like down here still learning, Like I can sing, though I can't play fast.

00:19:02
Speaker 4: But oh gosh, yeah, I mean, I was just in Houston last week, and I have been spending the full year, it's a year now playing mostly Ellington concerts, really in celebration of his one hundred and twenty fifth birthday.

00:19:16
Speaker 1: Oh is that what it is?

00:19:17
Speaker 5: So right?

00:19:18
Speaker 4: So like I've just been all around the world playing these Ellington shows.

00:19:21
Speaker 1: That sounds really fun.

00:19:23
Speaker 4: Yes, and really challenging and really good for me because as a pianist, he is not to be messed with. No, just as a pianist. Okay, then we want to get into his songs, okay, wow, And then you want to get into what his songs could mean.

00:19:37
Speaker 5: I keep sifting through.

00:19:38
Speaker 1: So many layers.

00:19:39
Speaker 4: Yeah, but I played this concert last week with the high school big band, Like I was like, I want to play a full show with you all from the school, from the school, and it's so special. It felt it felt good, and these kids were taking risks that I was like, Okay, the pros don't do that.

00:19:55
Speaker 6: Really.

00:19:55
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, maybe it's because they're kids, yeah, but but I feel like they had a kind of recklessness with the music that I was.

00:20:01
Speaker 5: Really appreciative of.

00:20:03
Speaker 4: And also I felt like, huh, that's kind of what the school wants to wants to make is like some restless students who want to wrestle with music, or wrestle with dance, or wrestle with theater, wrestle with art, and my gosh, well we're going to.

00:20:19
Speaker 5: Need their their sensibility.

00:20:21
Speaker 4: Yes, So I look forward to these kids kind of coming out onto the scene in the next ten years because they'll they'll have some solution points that I think our generation just wasn't.

00:20:31
Speaker 5: You know, there's just another crew. They have a pollone.

00:20:34
Speaker 1: First of all, they have a whole other level of knowledge also of stuff that's out there that we didn't completely have yeah.

00:20:43
Speaker 4: I was going to say that kids are like, like a song, you have to keep playing.

00:20:52
Speaker 1: Yes, that's good.

00:20:54
Speaker 4: Yeah, like you know, like and then they're gonna, you know.

00:20:57
Speaker 1: One day they'll play themselves right.

00:20:59
Speaker 4: And you know, they'll know how to sing it and they'll That's what I'm kind of watching the seventeen year olds.

00:21:04
Speaker 5: Look, they kind of they.

00:21:05
Speaker 4: Kind of know their song, which already okay, great, like grown a little bit a little bit.

00:21:11
Speaker 1: Is this their last year in school?

00:21:13
Speaker 5: They have another year?

00:21:14
Speaker 1: Oh okay, cool, so you're not quite there. Yeah, well I can't imagine it's going to happen in like five minutes.

00:21:20
Speaker 5: Yeah, but you know, I mean I think.

00:21:27
Speaker 4: When we signed up for this stuff, you know, I didn't know how much my music would change about raising people.

00:21:37
Speaker 1: Interesting.

00:21:38
Speaker 5: I was like so thankful.

00:21:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, can you can you say more? Can you put that into an example?

00:21:47
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean maybe this is a perfect segue, but uh oh, very clear. I started doing the Fat Swaller Show because I needed a place for my kids to act a fool, run up on on stage, run around, yell in the audience, because I was meant to be making a party, not a concert. Pass Waller Show was always a party. I wore a paper mache mask of fast Waller.

00:22:11
Speaker 1: You played, yeah, like, no.

00:22:13
Speaker 4: This is a this is supposed to be fun. He's fun, yes, in a dark time. And the kids should feel like this is theirs, like.

00:22:22
Speaker 1: They're part of it. So they would be part of the show.

00:22:25
Speaker 4: Yeah, if they were there, they could run around and do anything because it was supposed to be a dance party, so like that's fun. I mean I would test songs on them. I'd be in the house like trying to figure out like this song pass Waller has called yacht Club Swing, and I was like trying to play it. And then Malcolm the dancer now but he would start dancing and he was like and I was like, oh I hear that.

00:22:47
Speaker 1: Yea.

00:22:48
Speaker 4: So they were like they were ground zero for like is this good?

00:22:51
Speaker 1: Yes, that's what I mean.

00:22:54
Speaker 4: They were like quality control it could it affect them?

00:22:58
Speaker 5: Could it affect the kids or.

00:22:59
Speaker 1: Does it go completely over their head? And they don't care about it?

00:23:02
Speaker 5: You know what though?

00:23:02
Speaker 4: But I mean, look, kids who grow up with parents who do a lot of their work at home, they absorbed so much of it they don't even think, like Alicia warming up doing lip trills and you know, loud operatic singing at all times of the day and night. You're used to that sound, you're not, you know. I mean they also they had that in the womb, you know, so they're not They don't think of it as like Dad's doing weird music. They at least not to me. Maybe they think that, but maybe they don't tell.

00:23:33
Speaker 1: Me, but my mind telling me when they don't like it. They're very clear.

00:23:39
Speaker 4: There was one show, I guess when I was playing at the Old Stone that John Zorn used to have on the Lower East Side, and was playing with this drummer and bass player and the boys were there. They were sitting on the floor right in front of the band. We were like thrashing. Then they came a bass solo and then Jones just went to the bassist. I was like, okay, it's not cool. But also like, I don't know, sometimes the kids read is I mean, you know, it hurts sometimes.

00:24:12
Speaker 1: It hurts, but you don't need that many bass solos, Let's be honest.

00:24:17
Speaker 5: Anyway.

00:24:17
Speaker 4: But yeah, no, I really I also really appreciate the young minds because they because they aren't like beholden to the same things that we think are important.

00:24:29
Speaker 1: You know, not at all. Yeah, that's the best.

00:24:33
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's something I don't know. Yeah, so that's why I was gonna say, Oh, you want to try Fat Swaller.

00:24:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, I yeah, that's that sounds. I'm sorry I missed that show. Did you ever do it again?

00:24:49
Speaker 5: I have to do it again.

00:24:51
Speaker 4: Who are the artists who are aware enough of the time to know, maybe not know all the way one hundred conscious, but know what the public needs.

00:25:02
Speaker 1: Maybe it's the need.

00:25:03
Speaker 4: And them, Oh my gosh, and he I mean he died young and young girl, but exactly he's got to share the stuff, the feeling of the people, his his own inner battle, his drinking battle that took him out in the end. And you know when he passed away, he was cremated and his ashes were spread across Harlem in a in an airplane or a helicopter. Yeah, yeah, I mean, Fat Swaller is of Harlem. The reason I live in Harlem is because so I could still have some of his dust. All these people I live in Harlem because of that piano history that's up there. Duke Gallington and Mary Lou Williams and Fat Swaller, you know, all these people that would be on the block, James P. Johnson, Willie Lyon Smith, like these people who I think like impact how the piano is played, and then you know. But they lived in a neighborhood and they traded songs, and the windows were open, windows were open.

00:26:07
Speaker 1: You can hear the piano. That's my favorite sound when you catch it.

00:26:11
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's so rare.

00:26:12
Speaker 1: It's almost never anymore.

00:26:14
Speaker 4: Oh my god, you're bringing that up right. Maybe I can't wait till spring open my window. They don't have to battle the neighborhood. I got to battle the dumpster and.

00:26:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.

00:26:26
Speaker 8: The guards man get up early, and.

00:28:18
Speaker 1: No one to talk with.

00:28:20
Speaker 2: All by myself, no one can walk with. But I'm happy on the shelf. I ain't miss Behaven. I'm saving my love for you. Are you and know for certain.

00:28:41
Speaker 4: One I love.

00:28:43
Speaker 2: I'm through with flirting. It's just you I'm thinking of. I ain't miss Behaven. I'm saving my love for you, for.

00:28:55
Speaker 1: You, for you, for you, follow you, for you. Sorry I came in.

00:29:41
Speaker 5: I like that.

00:29:42
Speaker 1: I was going to sing but not playing.

00:29:44
Speaker 4: Okay, right, come on, isn't that why I keep reminding myself and the students that I work with. That's why you play this kind of music, why, meaning like that things can happen that you haven't.

00:29:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, I knew if I came in it would be cool, but then if I did, it would be okay.

00:30:05
Speaker 5: That's right.

00:30:06
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, look, there's other music you can play where the map is there for you. Yes, but I think we chose music that like lives a little bit more.

00:30:16
Speaker 5: People like to say.

00:30:17
Speaker 4: Organic, but it sounds cheesy. It's like what was organic before they started saying that word. Everything was organic, But it does like just live though.

00:30:30
Speaker 1: Yeah. I also I just I wanted you to play the Stride to some more. It sounds so good.

00:30:36
Speaker 4: I meant it. I mean, it's the thing I came to New York for really because I felt like I came to New York to study with Jackie buy Art at Manhattan School Music.

00:30:49
Speaker 1: It was really clear, did you come at eighteen, like right after school?

00:30:53
Speaker 4: Right after school?

00:30:54
Speaker 5: Thank god I had a scholarship.

00:30:56
Speaker 4: Thank god my parents were like sure, and in the norm.

00:31:01
Speaker 1: And where you just like this is crazy where you just go and see so much music that you were all sad.

00:31:07
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're in New York City where the music lives on the street and it's the nineties, so like it's also what has become known as the Golden Asia hip hop, so just the streets itself.

00:31:20
Speaker 5: It was kind of incredible.

00:31:24
Speaker 4: But Jackie Bayer was like play with Charles Mingus, he played with Eric Daffy, played with Sam Rivers. He plays all this kind of weird history of piano, and he cares about it enough to not stop playing it. Being like the stuff that went out of style. He thought, now there's something to do with it. And he definitely gave me that, like, here's yours, here's your mission, you know, don't ever tire of history.

00:31:50
Speaker 5: That was like his thing.

00:31:52
Speaker 1: That's a great way to think about it.

00:31:54
Speaker 4: I mean, I mean it's also challenging because you'll watch your peers, many of them in the field, can often turn away from history really easily.

00:32:04
Speaker 5: I mean, like I'm doing my thing.

00:32:05
Speaker 1: Yeah thing, I did not think that it's cool or important to acknowledge as much.

00:32:12
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, And Jackie wasn't. He wasn't necessarily about that. And I could say all my teachers, Andrew Hill and Mooha, Richard Abrams, they really weren't like that. And then I think about the people that that. One other person we met with a few times was with Marion McPartland.

00:32:28
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you were on Marion's show once or twice twice twice.

00:32:32
Speaker 5: I we did duet concerts together.

00:32:34
Speaker 1: Amazing. I wanted to talk to you about that.

00:32:36
Speaker 5: I mean, like Mary McPartland, like, here you are doing your show.

00:32:39
Speaker 1: Well, this is the total of her show. I mean, she was the complete inspiration for this.

00:32:44
Speaker 4: Yeah, so what a what a woman, what a pianist, what a thinker?

00:32:49
Speaker 6: Like?

00:32:49
Speaker 4: She was cool, very cool. Yeah, and nothing was off limits when she was at the piano.

00:32:55
Speaker 1: I know it was beautiful. I'm so glad you had that too.

00:32:58
Speaker 5: Yeah.

00:32:59
Speaker 4: And I remember I think one there was a birthday party for her at Birdland and you all played.

00:33:04
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we were all there.

00:33:06
Speaker 5: Yeah what did you play? You played?

00:33:08
Speaker 1: No, I don't remember, Okay, so it's going to come to me. No, I don't remember what I did on that. I did her show twice though, once in the studio and then once in front of an audience, right.

00:33:19
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, the people and so people like that, right, like Mary McPartland, who sits out here and talks to musicians. She knows some musicians she doesn't know who and she wants to get to know them better.

00:33:31
Speaker 1: It's just so cool what she did for a.

00:33:34
Speaker 4: Long time too. Yeah, and then like that and then they pass right, so then I.

00:33:40
Speaker 1: Know and she's gone. But it actually it makes me think of this moment I had with her, which you know, I came up singing standards and I don't think I thought about the lyrics yet because I was too young to really understand what I was singing about, you know, and she was talking about for all we know that song.

00:33:57
Speaker 4: Yes, when her.

00:33:57
Speaker 1: Husband Jimmy died, someone wrote her a card and on the card just said we come and go like a ripple on a stream, which is a lyric from that song.

00:34:07
Speaker 5: Wow.

00:34:08
Speaker 1: And it just like floored me. Wow. And it made me realize these aren't just these old standards. These are just deep, beautiful poetry. And at the time, when she was young, they were new, and you know, it just made me think about them differently, and it was it was a moment.

00:34:26
Speaker 4: Yeah about when, yeah, when when people Maybe that's all I kind of want to say about Curtis Mayfield.

00:34:32
Speaker 5: When we need a song, yeah.

00:34:34
Speaker 1: We need it?

00:34:35
Speaker 4: Like in whose songs get pushed up? Like whether dare I say it, whether it's the algorithm or not, you know.

00:34:43
Speaker 1: People respond to it. Yeah, they're going to respond to.

00:34:45
Speaker 4: It pushed up into our consciousness that then we hear it again, and we'll almost hear it a new which are great songs. Can stand that listen over and over again. You know that's beautiful. The conversation between generations, right, it's really important to have.

00:35:05
Speaker 1: It's kind of rare.

00:35:06
Speaker 4: Yeah, like, okay, you're right, Like I'm like, right, So when we came up to New York and you're like, you met an older musician than he's like, you have to really get humble one to listen because you know that, well, they know other stuff. And that was my thing with Jackie was like, he knows stuff that I don't know none of the piano players out here on the scene talk about. And I also know that he's in his mid seventies now, so this is not going to be here forever. Yeah, take advantage and that intergenerational conversation is wow. I think for art making, it's so necessary, you know it is. And so Marian was like, come on, a little youngster, what you got?

00:35:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know That's how I felt we were probably not far from the same age. I was probably twenty two or twenty three when I went on our show, and I was nervous. I also grew up listening to her.

00:35:58
Speaker 4: Right and then and then when they serve like that role of like somebody you can rely on reliably gives you information.

00:36:07
Speaker 5: Yeah, now, and not only just music information.

00:36:10
Speaker 4: But like like like contextual information about another artist. That Yeah, those people there, they did a lot of work, you know, a lot of really great work. And every once in a while when her birthday comes up, I'm recharged with how important a person she was in the legacy of spreading kind of art making to a wider public.

00:36:34
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:36:35
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's special, the demystifier.

00:36:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, the good old Marian parlance. That show. Another song I really loved is that for James song suggested. That's that's another I feel like you have. I think I'm really into the same thing, the sort of cyclical songs. They don't really have an ending, and they just kind of keep going, and you just want them to keep going. I think that Curtis song had a little bit of that.

00:37:07
Speaker 4: That's true.

00:37:08
Speaker 1: It does your cycle, the chord cycle leads itself back into itself, instead of having an ending exactly, Yeah, I love songs like that.

00:37:19
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, this is I don't know the songs that are infinite. I don't know for James has written for this guy, James Rees Europe, who was this incredible composer at the turn of the twentieth century, and he's a black composer here in New York, really kind of revolutionizing music, like moving out of vaudeville what black performers are having to do on stage and starting to say, like, there's something else that we can say on stage. And so he has this like what they term as the first big jazz concert at Carnegie Hall in like nineteen ten or nineteen eleven. There's one hundred and sixty five people on stage with him. That's insane, it is. And so when World War One happens, he joins the war because he wants to fight for.

00:38:13
Speaker 5: America.

00:38:14
Speaker 4: And when they find out that he's joined, they say, oh, wait, but you're famous, so why.

00:38:19
Speaker 5: Don't you lead a band?

00:38:20
Speaker 1: Wow?

00:38:21
Speaker 4: He says, I need I think the equivalent was like three hundred thousand dollars back then.

00:38:27
Speaker 5: That's what he was like, because he said.

00:38:28
Speaker 1: Because he was like, did he overplay it just a little bit.

00:38:31
Speaker 4: No. He overplayed it because he said they're going to say.

00:38:33
Speaker 1: No, yeah, but they said sure, they said yes. They didn't even talk.

00:38:39
Speaker 4: Money and they and he went got musicians from Puerto Rico, got musicians from Chicago. He got the best band he could wow to put together this band, and they went to Europe and they fought on the side of the French. That's how segregated the American forces were, so the black soldiers for America fought on the side of the French.

00:38:58
Speaker 5: It's kind of wild.

00:39:00
Speaker 1: He's such a weird story.

00:39:02
Speaker 4: So I made this piece about him, and we've been traveling for like seven years, and but I hadn't written a song for him. I just kind of played the material he played and we manipulated and we have this film that happens with it. But for James is is kind of based on a medley he wrote. And sometimes the medleys these artists were putting together were songs that were quite racist, you know. And I think the medley is called Plantation medley, so it's like, come on, you know. But sometimes somewhere in the transition material between the two songs, he composed this little like three bar thing and it was like like something like that and then something.

00:39:52
Speaker 5: Like that, something like that.

00:39:53
Speaker 4: I just thought when I heard it, I was just I was like, I gotta get to a piano. I got gets a piano, and here what I think happens with that? And then how what he imagines for It's what big bands become.

00:40:10
Speaker 5: What he's imagining the band.

00:40:11
Speaker 4: He takes to Europe in this this military band becomes big band sound yeah, And how does he in all that work he does in the nineteen teens lead up to like an earth Wind and Fire Yeah, to a Duke Ellington, like the way the horns working all this stuff, and.

00:40:27
Speaker 1: In the in this song you have the band and the incomes in. It sounds like more like a second line.

00:40:32
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

00:40:34
Speaker 4: And so you know, I've been trying to It's like my sing along moment at the end of the show.

00:40:39
Speaker 1: Oh, I love it. I love when you starts singing it.

00:40:43
Speaker 4: I am not a singer, but well it's also a vocalized It's cool.

00:40:46
Speaker 1: It's I mean, it wants lyrics. I almost wrote some, but then I was like, I don't really know enough about James, so I wanted to ask you about that. But what if I sat next to you, would that be cool?

00:40:57
Speaker 4: Yes?

00:41:26
Speaker 9: Stop mom, Mom, I didn't expectually go back down.

00:43:49
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, it goes back. Yeah, it goes back down.

00:43:52
Speaker 4: And one day I'll get that kind of like that songwriting thing together that says, oh no, you know it keeps like goes goes.

00:43:58
Speaker 1: Up, don't you ever? Yeah? When the when when the sort of second line style New Orleans vibe comes in at the end of that, it's really I just want to I just started to dance.

00:44:11
Speaker 4: Yeah, And those are like kids, those are those are college kids. There's a woman named Stephanie Neil who started an organization called the three six nine Experience. So it's built to teach that music to HBCU kids and all those bands. So she sources like sixty kids and so I went and met with them in DC and then I taught them this song by ear yeah the mart They started like coling up stuff. The drummer was like, oh, ho, try this, and I was like, oh, you know, they got into it like so quick. That's also maybe something else about good I don't know why I was gonna say good music, So fuck that, I'll take that.

00:44:47
Speaker 5: That's something else.

00:44:47
Speaker 4: About good music is that it the ability for it to get into other people and then them feel like they can add something to it, versus like I can't do anything with this except sing it, but they wanted to like add all this stuff to it. So that experience is uh captured. At the end of that record, It's like I was, I was literally just talking to them about this man, this music, this song. And then I say, and the person who taught me about this man is Randy western you know, like like like I'm like, nah, like, let me make sure that I came to Brooklyn to sit at Randy Weston's house and he was the one who for three hours told me about James Rees surep. It was like you got to know about James Reurope, you know, like yeah, so these this is that innergenerational conversation that so thankful that I had when I moved to the city because I did need guidance.

00:45:37
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, you can get really lost here, yeah, which is you know while people come.

00:45:45
Speaker 5: Meaning like you know, like.

00:45:48
Speaker 4: I think in therapy, I was, I was loving that when you moved to New York, you can like you're sure that people saying anybody worried about you. You know, like you can almost you can kind of disappear, And.

00:45:59
Speaker 1: Especially the older you get, I've noticed lately I feel invisible.

00:46:07
Speaker 5: It's kind of good, it's kind of.

00:46:09
Speaker 1: It's kind of nice, definitely humbling. It's like, Wow, these young people don't give a crap about me. They have no clue and they don't care.

00:46:22
Speaker 4: It's I mean, I also like when we think about the industry we walked into together, and you know, like what it was in the late nineties versus what it is twenty five years later, it's like a totally different you know. And if we talk about Bruce Luanfall for a moment, just for a second, to just talk about how beautiful.

00:46:49
Speaker 5: A leader he was.

00:46:50
Speaker 1: He was amazing, had a Blue Note Records signed me to Blue Note signed you. What year did you sign a Blue.

00:46:58
Speaker 5: Note ninety nine?

00:47:00
Speaker 4: Yeah?

00:47:00
Speaker 1: Before me okay, and yeah, he was just the best. He gave me a notebook once of standards, he said, sometimes when I'm on the plane, I just try to think of all the standards I know. And here's it. Because I was making some demos for them, this is before they signed me. First, they gave me a little money to make more recordings because they weren't sure about.

00:47:20
Speaker 4: Me during that era. No, I didn't know that they weren't sure. I was in the office when the tape came in. No way, that's crazy, but go ahead.

00:47:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, And he gave me this little notebook full of just like song titles, and I took it on the airplane with me and I was like, oh my heart. Bruce was.

00:47:44
Speaker 4: I was playing with in the saxophone with Greg Osby's band, and he was Greg Osby was on Blue note And then Greg made a record and I played on it and I was still in college.

00:47:54
Speaker 5: It was a big deal. And then.

00:47:59
Speaker 4: We played at the Sweets Sweet Baseels in the village and Bruce was there and he just came up to me in the middle of the in the break and he said, don't want to make a record.

00:48:09
Speaker 1: This is the first time you met him.

00:48:10
Speaker 4: It may have been around, maybe it wasn't the first time. Something you know, like it said, it's kind of like fast like that, and it's full of energy, and he's like, yeah, I'm psyched about it. And I was like, I surely wasn't ready to make a record. And I was like, how do you turn No, you don't turn that down, you go for it.

00:48:31
Speaker 1: I wasn't either. I wasn't ready to make a record.

00:48:33
Speaker 4: No, and you know, kind of we're you know, dare I say, we're kind of spoiled by a person who kind of can see that much, you know.

00:48:43
Speaker 5: Yeah, And then every record he was like, what do you want to do?

00:48:47
Speaker 4: Like all every story I'd heard about anybody entering the record industry is you're rarely in charge of what you want to do. He said, what do you want to do, I'll do true, Okay, what do you want to do, I'll do it. Rivers Oh okay, Like he was right, yeah.

00:49:03
Speaker 1: No, you're right, he was. We were so lucky. I don't think I even realized it until a few years later. And he was super giving. And yeah, even I even did a couple of records, like when I got more into a different sound, further and further from jazz. He even admitted to me, we used to have these Martini lunches. Did you have those with him? Oh my god, yes, yeah, the Martini drunk less.

00:49:27
Speaker 4: I didn't drink at Martini, but I'll watch him.

00:49:30
Speaker 1: Well I did. And I don't know what made me think I could drink with a man in the seventies who's been drinking Martini's for sixty years. But yeah, big dude, but we would, I mean, we would just drink for hours. And he finally admitted to me after a couple of martinis, I don't really like this record when you gave it to me. Wow, I got it. I gotta tell you, I gotta be honest with you. And I loved that. Yeah, it made me feel good. He's like, but now I kind of get it. But he didn't say he loved it, but he he understood it more. But he's like, so interesting, isn't that funny? He had to admit to me that when I first turned in the record, he didn't like it, but they still let me do it. They didn't say anything.

00:50:06
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, that's it was the fall.

00:50:09
Speaker 1: And then the Little Broken Hearts record is the two records that were very far from what I had done before.

00:50:16
Speaker 4: I mean, but also like you got to let an artists travel, yeah exactly, I mean, you know, I just remember, yeah, I felt like there were during that era, there was there were I watched artists, like clearly somebody suggested that they should do a ballatce record, you know, and I was like, you're the last person to want to.

00:50:35
Speaker 5: Hear you about it.

00:50:36
Speaker 1: That's so funny.

00:50:39
Speaker 4: I remember thinking like, why are you all doing that? And I had and all my teachers and mentors they were like, yo, Jason, just you gotta you know, you gotta like don't you know have your vision, you know, And so they were very challenging like that, and so I was really like, every record I was going to try to be show like keep turning to yeah. And that felt good because then I knew that it wasn't like going to show up in like a straight line that would seemed like like when you talked about Sunrise being a record that felt like I felt like, oh, yes, it's perfect, but like, you know, like it shows, it shows how much can happen in the band's sound and and the kinds of stories and the kinds of songs and forms, and I crave that. And I also, you know, so now there's another generation of musicians coming up, and I'm urging them constantly, you know, like, don't ever lose sight that there there has always been an era of artists who were really gonna try to keep pushing forward and maybe not everything is going to be understood in the moment, right, and.

00:51:53
Speaker 1: It takes time sometimes.

00:51:55
Speaker 5: Yeah, it does take time.

00:51:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you always just have to do what feels good to you. Were uncomfortable, but in a good way way. Speaking of uncomfortable but in a good way. I feel like you really, you really always intimidating me because you're you're so amazing, and I always felt a little out of place on blue note because I wasn't like a jazz uh what do you call it? I wasn't, but it wasn't you know, I wasn't writing jazz songs and I couldn't play fast, and I felt a little bit like a less than what's the word I'm trying to think of.

00:52:42
Speaker 4: I don't know what that works, but you know what I'm I know what you're talking about. But okay, but I'm gonna let you fish well.

00:52:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, so anyway, you never did anything to me, but I was intimidated by you because you're I feel like you're on another plane and it's just such a beautiful thing to watch you make music. And I always felt like just a little kid on the side, you know.

00:53:01
Speaker 4: Oh my god, Well that's how but you got to be I want to be clear that when I was there and that record came and the demo came in, it was like you felt the office was shifting. It was like, oh shit, right, because these songs were coming from me and they were special. And then when those songs came out, we all were trying to play.

00:53:24
Speaker 1: The song That's crazy No.

00:53:27
Speaker 4: And whether I played it, came on stage and played it, but I always played it at home, sitting at the piano. So the thing was that I always felt like oh and then everybody was like, thank God that she's here, because what else is making you know, the record label turn around because it's.

00:53:49
Speaker 1: A jazz label, I mean, of course, but like still it was my you know, I was humbled by you and everyone else on the label. I felt like just like some kind of weird impostor or something. And so so here's what you did for me. When we did the Blue Note Anniversary concert, and this is about nine or ten years ago, you were m dying it right, and you said, Nora, please come and sing a song with me. Brian Blade, who I played drums, who played drums with me sometimes often now, but at the time I hadn't played with Brian in like ten years.

00:54:28
Speaker 5: Oh wow.

00:54:29
Speaker 1: Yeah. It was John Pattitucci on bass and Wayne Shorter and I was like, what really you want? You want me me? And I was like okay, thanks, and I swear you. You were so kind to me and cool, and I was really really nervous. Of course. I mean, you know, I mean Brian always put tds, but he's so great. I knew Brian, you know, you are so great. Patatucci is so great. And then but Wayne, I mean.

00:55:06
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that's a talk about another plane.

00:55:09
Speaker 1: So another plane. And then we had such a special time. We played like two songs. And then you emailed me the next week and you said, hey, I think you should do a record with Wayne. Said you said that to me, you know, and you started so so this album I man called Daybreaks and Wayne came in and he played on four songs. Yeah, we couldn't do the.

00:55:32
Speaker 4: Whole record, but like it was so great.

00:55:34
Speaker 1: Basically we just recorded for two days with me, Brian and Pattatucci and Wayne Shorter.

00:55:40
Speaker 5: It was so great.

00:55:41
Speaker 1: And you did you did that.

00:55:43
Speaker 5: I was just listening.

00:55:44
Speaker 1: You did that for me. You gave me the boost and the sort of confidence. It was you, and I thank.

00:55:50
Speaker 4: You for that I was was it was an honor.

00:55:53
Speaker 1: I should have had you play it, but I selfish wanted to play piano because who I mean, look Wayne Shorter, the way Wayne order hears you can go.

00:56:01
Speaker 4: Like like that and then he'll spray the array of all those.

00:56:07
Speaker 5: Notes through his saxophone. He can.

00:56:09
Speaker 4: That's why Herbie loves Fight loved playing with him, is because that's how responsive he would be, and he might some all that sound up into one note, you know, like and he's he's such a special person. And I think maybe I got very lucky to sub in that quartet's band when Denilo couldn't do it one time in Australia.

00:56:33
Speaker 1: Oh wow.

00:56:34
Speaker 4: So I was always all the way on the other side of the earth. And that's when I kind of thought. After playing with that was like two thousand and five or something, and it was not long after that we did that concert, I just thought, like Wayne would be and did this you know what I'm saying, like, And I also knew how important you are, especially to the era that we were at the label. It was really important time for me and for our colleagues who are all the label.

00:57:00
Speaker 5: We had a special little era.

00:57:03
Speaker 1: It was an era. The all the people under Bruce too at that time were so special, all the all the staff at Bleueout, they were all my friends.

00:57:11
Speaker 5: Yeah.

00:57:11
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was really cool. So that moment felt like a very like a big It was a big moment. It's captured all in video, thank god.

00:57:21
Speaker 1: So cool. I've got pictures backstage with McCoy Tyner, Brian and it was cool.

00:57:28
Speaker 4: You know, Nora, you a badass piano player. Well, I just say that, I was saying it again because that stuff needs.

00:57:35
Speaker 5: To be said.

00:57:36
Speaker 1: Well, I'm not trying to get more out of you about that, but I will say you really you lifted me up at a time when I wasn't sure where I fit. Even though I had a lot of success, I never completely knew where I fit and mostly I didn't care, which is good. But you reminded me that I had that part of my history musically, and then I could fit there if I tried. And it was really sweet.

00:58:03
Speaker 4: It was It was a special, special, special day. Also, it was like at that moment that Bruce was like heading out.

00:58:13
Speaker 1: Yeah he wasn't able to be there right, but he.

00:58:15
Speaker 5: Was coming in.

00:58:16
Speaker 4: You know, there was a lot like right during that time but also if I can just for a second talk about piano players or what do you singers who played piano or piano players who sing. Oh yeah, I can't do that, right, So I marvel at people who have a really singular piano style like you, like Anina Simone, Shirley Horn, who also really know how to distribute vocally at the same time. Yeah, Like, so I don't know, like was that always easy for you or I think?

00:58:53
Speaker 1: I think in college I had a gig at a restaurant where I played standards Fridays and Saturday nights and they let me sing when I wanted. So the gig was for piano player, but I said, can I bring a little tiny amp in and sing like every few songs? And so that's how I got the muscle memory down or the coordination to do it, And that's when I realized I had something special by doing it together. But I also I think normally when I'm doing like a song and recording, it's always better if I can do it together. Yeah, because when I do it separately, I'm good at both enough, but it doesn't have the same interaction or like alchemy as when I do it together.

00:59:37
Speaker 5: I don't know how you all do it.

00:59:39
Speaker 1: It's a it's just a different muscle, it is.

00:59:43
Speaker 4: But I often think about, like when I was listening on the way here to you again, about how people make space in music, and so there's making space for the other musicians working with.

01:00:01
Speaker 5: But I'm also meaning like.

01:00:04
Speaker 4: Maybe I mean manicuring space like a lawn, you know, like a Japanese garden. You know, that's what I mean. I more mean like that, like you give enough distance between the bass and the piano and the voice and the drums or whatever else for the things to emerge when they need like yeah, and.

01:00:25
Speaker 1: You know, but I think you're thinking of it in a different way. I think for me, I can't do it all at the same time because my brain won't let me the sort of coordination thing. So when I'm done with the phrase, I'll respond to it on the piano because I can't do it while I'm singing. So it's more of a limitation than making space.

01:00:49
Speaker 4: I think, Wow, Okay, it really is.

01:00:52
Speaker 1: I also think I will tell you this, this is the funniest thing ever. My my old boyfriend from that record of Lee Alexander, he said to me once. He said Wow, I can't believe You've found a way to do something with your limitations that's so special. It was like a weird like we realized at the time that I'm good at ballads, that I also can't play fast for shit. So my limitations sort of pushed me in one direction and I would play and respond to what I'm singing, but I didn't have the chops to to do everything else. Does that make sense?

01:01:33
Speaker 4: So?

01:01:33
Speaker 7: Does?

01:01:33
Speaker 1: It wasn't creating space, it was finding places I could fit within my my world that I had, so so to me, that's how I that's special.

01:01:46
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's.

01:01:52
Speaker 5: What do you call it? Like a coming to grips?

01:01:54
Speaker 4: I don't know that.

01:01:55
Speaker 5: I mean, I guess when you when you are something then that this is what I do.

01:02:00
Speaker 1: And I'm not downplaying it, like I know that that I'm that what I have can be special, but it is sort of based on the limitations that I started out with.

01:02:11
Speaker 5: Well they are.

01:02:15
Speaker 1: Et but isn't that funny they are?

01:02:21
Speaker 4: I mean okay, yeah, I mean like yeah, I mean, like often when people talk about Nina Simone that of course we love how she what she says and how she says it. Yeah, and then if I get selfish about it, let's just talk about the piano playing for yeah, my goodness, like the virtue virtue also and like like and the sheer steadiness of the attack of her hand at the it is so not gun shy well, and.

01:02:50
Speaker 1: It's also multifaceted. She did all that sort of she had that classical background and she did all that stuff, but then on some of those soul recordings where she's just playing and it's kind of like Aretha. Yes, I'm like, like, who played piano on that Aretha stuff? It's my favorite piano player. Oh no, dub yeah.

01:03:09
Speaker 4: Right, Aretha.

01:03:10
Speaker 5: And then there's Aretha.

01:03:11
Speaker 1: And then there's Aretha or Ray Charles.

01:03:14
Speaker 5: That's true.

01:03:15
Speaker 1: And they know where to put it. They just know where to put it.

01:03:17
Speaker 4: And that's yeah, And I think, yeah, maybe that's maybe what I'm also responding to is often like during that time when we were on Blue Note, I was working with Cassandra.

01:03:27
Speaker 1: Wilson as well, one of my favorites.

01:03:29
Speaker 4: Right, and I felt like, Okay, at the beginning of my career, I was like, I mean, I played with a lot of vocalists, but when I work with Cassandra, for like, oh, shit, Jason, you you're not prepared for this. You can make it through the gig, but you're not prepared.

01:03:41
Speaker 5: So I just because she's.

01:03:44
Speaker 4: So deep and she was doing all this blue stuff, and like I didn't quite know the blue stuff, and I just didn't. And so some years went by, she always stayed close friend, and I said, Casandra, I.

01:03:58
Speaker 5: Think I'm ready to play. So then we did another record.

01:04:00
Speaker 4: I think it's tenderly or something like that or lovely as they would record, and then I felt better about it, you know. And then even when I listened back to that, I was like, oh, Jason, because there I think there's a way when pianist is working with a vocalist, there's like a way that we want to support and engage, but also like make sure we're giving space, you know, and not feel like we're showing you notes to play, you know, yell at piano players for doing that.

01:04:24
Speaker 5: Ship.

01:04:26
Speaker 1: So yeah, don't double the melody going to sing it? Come on, I this exactly, do not double the melody if I'm going to sing it.

01:04:36
Speaker 4: Okay, okay, please send me just you saying that I'm not gonna said that to so many people. Slice for you, that's what I think.

01:04:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you didn't know that at first.

01:04:49
Speaker 5: I wouldn't do that, yeah, but but it was just like.

01:04:53
Speaker 4: What you're saying is like it's like, nah, you you have to You're when when one person is making both of them those things, then there's an inherent space you make. So when I think of like Shirley Horne as the great vocal accompanist, it is Shirley Horn singing.

01:05:07
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's so she knows where she's going. Yes, well, and I often double the melody when.

01:05:14
Speaker 4: I'm saying, listen to you do that earlier than but but you know where you're.

01:05:19
Speaker 1: But I know where I'm going. But I think I would probably not be the best accompanist for another singer for that reason because I like doubling when I'm singing.

01:05:29
Speaker 4: Yeah, I like that. But yeah, so that's what I That's why I also like talking about how the piano and the voice, you know, and then the centuries of that, you know, like Schumann and Broms, and how far we want to go back piano and voices as a as a relationship.

01:05:44
Speaker 5: You learn a lot of spacing things in it.

01:05:47
Speaker 4: Broms, the way Broms spaces that as an E minor chord, you know what I mean, like like it's just like very like he's given like a lot of space, not a spread, its spread.

01:06:00
Speaker 1: It's sort of a drop too. Yeah.

01:06:01
Speaker 4: So then in that you you're you, and you allow more overtones to rings. It's all this subtlety that they place there that I keep trying to get to when i'm when i'm when I'm working with people. And Cassandra has been a person I go back to every every seven years.

01:06:21
Speaker 5: Meet up the Okay, let me try again.

01:06:24
Speaker 1: I'm sure you always have it. You just hard on yourself. I am hard on my It's okay to keep learning and keep rolling, you know, and keep changing.

01:06:32
Speaker 4: The thing she did the last time we played is she performs at four thirty two.

01:06:36
Speaker 1: Oh really, So I've been thinking more about that lately. So you have to have the.

01:06:40
Speaker 4: Piano to Steinway, tune the piano, and.

01:06:43
Speaker 1: You're doing local pianos and yeah, so I had them.

01:06:47
Speaker 4: We had one in New York and then I had them D two and a D in New York.

01:06:51
Speaker 1: How did it do? How did the piano do?

01:06:54
Speaker 5: Amazing? It sounded like another world.

01:06:57
Speaker 1: So normal is four forty but it used to be four thirties.

01:07:01
Speaker 4: It used to be four thirty two.

01:07:03
Speaker 1: Okay, So can you explain the history of music to me?

01:07:07
Speaker 5: No, definitely not How did we.

01:07:09
Speaker 1: Arrive at that? Because this is like, okay, music is in us. Singing is an ancient thing, but piano is not. Instruments are not. I mean they are and they aren't. Do you know how we arrived at four thirty two?

01:07:24
Speaker 5: You know what?

01:07:24
Speaker 4: That's your that's your that's your next podcast.

01:07:28
Speaker 1: Who am I get to get in here to tell me about that? Maybe she could tell me? And so so so then when you move up to four forty, when do you know when that happened?

01:07:37
Speaker 5: It's like, I want to say, thirties forties.

01:07:40
Speaker 1: You know who I bet knows this as Matt my engineers. Actually, so not until the thirties or forties did it move up. So any recordings, early recordings, well they were pretty attitude.

01:07:50
Speaker 4: Yeah, see exactly right, it's the thing. And then and so like it was the first gig we did was myself, Marvin Sewell and Cassandra and.

01:07:59
Speaker 1: So he's used to tune in the get right, so you tuned it down right?

01:08:02
Speaker 4: Just so I gotta say the songs just fo they just felt more open. And if you do like cymatics, you know, like on four forty, it's very static meaning like you know cymatics like where cimatics is like if you take a pitch and then you play, and you play that pitch four forty, like, then that the way that affects water, you know, like it'll show up as a shape. All the pitches show up as a shape and water water is affected by the sound.

01:08:32
Speaker 1: Wow.

01:08:33
Speaker 4: So right, So it's very static shape. But when you do four thirty two at a at four thirty two, everything.

01:08:40
Speaker 5: Moves around like crazy.

01:08:41
Speaker 1: Yeah.

01:08:42
Speaker 4: And so anytime we talk about like the body is made of water, you know, likes mostly water.

01:08:49
Speaker 1: When we're playing music and we're feeling it in a different ways, it's.

01:08:53
Speaker 5: Just it's it's doing a lot.

01:08:55
Speaker 4: Sometimes people talk about it in the backbone, but it's really just all your cellular makeup. That's like totally being effect it. So four thirty two felt like the songs just felt like they had more room to breathe. It helped me slow down a little bit more.

01:09:06
Speaker 1: Wow, you played differently.

01:09:09
Speaker 5: It was great. That it was really great.

01:09:11
Speaker 1: That is cool. I want to mess with that.

01:09:12
Speaker 5: Why did I start talking about four thirty two, Cassandra.

01:09:16
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, so yeah, so these people like Cassandra like comping and those kinds of things. You I learned from working with vocalist Michelle and degueo Cello or I'm married to Alicia. Like the way that the piano works with these voices is you know, really, I think I keep wanting to experiment with because it it always helps me grow.

01:09:40
Speaker 1: That's cool. I think that whenever I try to sing and something is either slowed down or sped up. Now I haven't actually tried it with four thirty two specifically, but I work with someone who likes to speed up and slow down stuff a little bit, and it's always kind of between pitches. That's nice, it can be, but I find that singing it between pitches is really hard for me. Not because I have perfect pitch or something, but I think just the muscle memory of singing in tune. Usually it's just I mean, I can do it, it's just it's hard. It's hard for me to get a vocal take in when it's sort of between the pitches, and I wouldn't think it would be, but I guess it's just memory. A muscle memory thing.

01:10:25
Speaker 3: You know.

01:10:26
Speaker 1: Wow, So I don't know, that's kind of funny. I want to try it at four thirty two now then see you say one of your pianos, Yeah, one of my one of my multiple one of my pianos. That's a good idea. Well do you feel like trying that Duke Ellington song?

01:10:41
Speaker 4: Oh?

01:10:41
Speaker 5: Sure, so good.

01:15:38
Speaker 1: Oh that's so pretty. I thought of Marian in the middle of that.

01:15:41
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, very much, very Marian.

01:15:43
Speaker 1: Kind of that was very Marian. Oh that's so pretty.

01:15:47
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean Duke Kellenson.

01:15:50
Speaker 4: Yeah, the artist, the artist, you know, like when we're talking about singer piano players, like he didn't You didn't really say.

01:15:58
Speaker 1: He didn't, but he kind of did right, Like he was vocal in a way that was cool.

01:16:05
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's true.

01:16:07
Speaker 1: Yeah.

01:16:08
Speaker 4: And then I mean, thank god he had Billy Strahan.

01:16:10
Speaker 1: Oh my god. I was just thinking about that, just the gravity of the lyrics, that he actually found someone who matched the height of his music.

01:16:22
Speaker 4: Yes, you know, and they like would travel the world together often have been saying, because I've been spending a year like playing the music and talking about it. Yeah, it's like also the other reason they need each other is not. No one person can see everything. So when you come back to the page to write a song together, the other person can write the thing that you didn't see, you know.

01:16:44
Speaker 1: Which is a you have to be open to that, though not everybody's open to that.

01:16:48
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know.

01:16:48
Speaker 1: If I'm open to that.

01:16:49
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, my goodness, like it's a it's a. It's a lot of sharing going on and that with those two. There's a documentary with Ellington where yeah, they happen to be filming, uh when Strayhorn passes. Oh, there's footage of Ellington in the funeral Strayhorn sitting in a pew like you know, I don't know this is just editing, but watching Ellington sitting at the funeral of his partner basically, yeah, like what am I going to do now that my partner is not here? Who I write all these songs with?

01:17:26
Speaker 1: That's heavy? I should watch that.

01:17:28
Speaker 5: It's beautiful. I mean.

01:17:28
Speaker 4: That's the other thing about Ellington is that he's well documented, meaning is there for him to make these long records?

01:17:37
Speaker 5: Film? Is there? Cameras are there?

01:17:39
Speaker 1: And then he lived a long.

01:17:40
Speaker 4: Life and right, so then we have all these images and credible interviews and and he didn't.

01:17:47
Speaker 5: Mind the camera.

01:17:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, he embraced it.

01:17:50
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, So I love that when you when you were when you were singing that song on that record, I was, yeah, that's right, Florette Africa.

01:17:58
Speaker 1: It's such a good one. And I that album Money Jungle with Max Roach and Charles Mingus. I've maybe you know the truth is Florid Afrikaan. I heard that that was sort of just improvised on the spot, which kind of makes sense if I'm listening to it. But do you know if there's any truth in that?

01:18:17
Speaker 5: I mean, I don't know. I'm sure, I don't know. Actually, I don't know.

01:18:20
Speaker 1: I like the whole song was improvised. Yeah, I mean, but I don't know.

01:18:24
Speaker 4: There's only one other piano player who I think gets to that is that's Herbie Hancott, meaning like the inventive nature of their piano playing, like what Ellington is playing there. He has a thought of an idea, but how he decorates that melody, like yeah, it's just it's it's odd at times, but it's so simple, comforting simple.

01:18:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then it gets a little bloozy, yes, but it doesn't at all.

01:18:51
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean it's like kind of like.

01:18:58
Speaker 4: I recently made my first successful gumbo, which is a big deal.

01:19:02
Speaker 1: First, Yeah, have you been practicing a while?

01:19:06
Speaker 4: They were terrible, but I finally made a go one. But when you're cooking and they ask you to kind of like get the bottom.

01:19:14
Speaker 1: Of the pot, yeah, the scrape up the bit. Yeah, Like I.

01:19:18
Speaker 4: Feel like Ellington is always kind of like making sure that there's some something that has kind of like crusted over, you know, something that's a little burnt in there.

01:19:30
Speaker 1: He just then he picks it up. Yeah.

01:19:32
Speaker 5: He used his tension in a way and doesn't mind creating with it to make more, you know, and using his band to do that too.

01:19:41
Speaker 1: Yeah.

01:19:41
Speaker 5: Special at that.

01:19:43
Speaker 1: That's so great. And so you're doing that show still.

01:19:46
Speaker 4: Yeah, my last one is next week at the Apollo.

01:19:49
Speaker 1: Oh that's right.

01:19:50
Speaker 5: So it's kind of like a it's been a year and and it was for.

01:19:55
Speaker 1: His one hundred and twenty fifth birthday. Yeah, and how old was he when he died.

01:20:00
Speaker 4: Gosh, let's see. If he was born in eighteen ninety nine. I think he's died in the late seventies, so he wasn't eighty, you know.

01:20:07
Speaker 1: But he was good, but he was he was old. He probably lived a hard life.

01:20:11
Speaker 4: I mean, look, he's sure smiles a lot through it.

01:20:13
Speaker 1: He sure did.

01:20:15
Speaker 4: Man something that like right when we think about people like that who put on that show enough, you know. But I think the other thing was I think about him using a big band, a thing that goes out of style, and he's like, somehow it doesn't tire like keeping that.

01:20:32
Speaker 1: I'm not even a huge big band person. I'm really not, but I can't get enough of Ellington big band. It's always weird enough and.

01:20:43
Speaker 5: Just like h yeah, and he doesn't that band doesn't over.

01:20:47
Speaker 4: I mean, of course I can think about great solos in that band, but I feel like sometimes the solo was aren't solos really like they really do feel composed?

01:20:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, and like a part yeah, or like a character yes. Yeah.

01:21:02
Speaker 4: And these musicians are people that he he felt closely about and wrote specifically for that's special.

01:21:09
Speaker 1: That's special. I wanted to talk about your mass Mocha shows all. That's really cool. So I didn't know you were an artist. I mean, it doesn't surprise me at all visual artists that is.

01:21:19
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, I think for the past, like maybe, like I don't know.

01:21:22
Speaker 4: Since two thousand and five, I've been collaborating with visual artists, okay, as kind of as as much as I would collaborate with great musicians. I felt like visual artists were asking me questions that musicians weren't.

01:21:40
Speaker 1: Isn't that funny?

01:21:42
Speaker 4: I was like, thank god, you're gonna help change Meah. And two artists in particular, Joan Jonas and Adrian Piper, these women kind of like arrive I say simply that they arrive at the moment my mother passes. So these are two incredible women and conceptual artist performance artists, and they don't play around either. And there's a record I did on Blue Note called Artists and Residents and it has their work on it. And then over the years kind of it then introduced me to a lot of other artists who I was kind of fans of, who needed something for a video, they needed something for a performance, they needed something.

01:22:22
Speaker 1: You know, this is why you live in New York City, by the way, that's true.

01:22:25
Speaker 4: That's very true. True, that's true. The community is quite can be quite small. Yeah, and then and so so it just kind of kept and then I felt like these artists knew as much about music as I did, and I thought I was a specialist, and so the questions like a painter would be asking me about Thelonious Monk. They wanted to know something else that help would help their painting. Yeah, it wasn't like they were trying to get a B flat core down. They were like, nah, I want to there's something about repeating a song. Why do you repeat a song? Why do you repeat a melody?

01:23:01
Speaker 1: Why do you keep going yes?

01:23:03
Speaker 4: Right?

01:23:03
Speaker 5: Like all these kinds of things.

01:23:04
Speaker 1: That's like I would have never thought to ask that, because it feels good.

01:23:09
Speaker 4: And they're like, now there's something in that, and so then they make a work about it. So over the years kind of working with these artists then kind of developed a I would say, a practice from watching a lot of them to help say, well, what in relationship to music? Like Miles Davis was a painter, you know, Duke Gallington got accepted to Pratt but didn't.

01:23:30
Speaker 1: Go really, yeah, I didn't know.

01:23:32
Speaker 4: It's an art student like, there's always been a relationship. And so I started trying to figure out what are the traces that we leave as pianists at the piano But then I also started really thinking about the places that musicians perform at. Like when I got to New York, I used to love going I still love going to clubs and hear bands playing basements. But then after those clubs shut down, then we sometimes think about the bands who played there in the bootle leg recording, But I want to think about the place. What happened to the place? What is it about the architecture of the place that also informs the music.

01:24:10
Speaker 1: It was also a part of that thing that was happening.

01:24:13
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it was a necessary place for an audience to come in to find something too. So there's something about gatherings that would happen in these clubs, And so I started remaking the stages from clubs that are no longer here.

01:24:29
Speaker 1: I was watching the little video of it, and so does anybody play once?

01:24:36
Speaker 5: Everyone?

01:24:37
Speaker 4: I was going to say, you must do music in the space every once in a while, somebody I know what's going through there, so you can go going up into it and play. And in some of the clubs that I've redone like a slug Saloon, I would have Archie Shep come playing, Charles Lloyd come playing.

01:24:54
Speaker 5: And those are musicians who played the original like the.

01:24:56
Speaker 1: Real Club was a weird, like out of body experience for the I think they.

01:25:00
Speaker 5: Thought like, man, this kid is here. It's some wild ship.

01:25:03
Speaker 1: That's so fun to do it with you, you know.

01:25:06
Speaker 4: But I think of it more of a continued expression because I still feel like it all evolves from the piano for me, and but I felt that in over time, I don't want to be everywhere, meaning like travel on the road and always play all the shows.

01:25:25
Speaker 1: So how do you channel it?

01:25:27
Speaker 4: How can I exist somewhere and not be podcast?

01:25:29
Speaker 1: Baby? It's what you gotta do. Man, it's your next endumor isn't in yours? But that's really cool. I want to see it because it looked beautiful and it's up till January.

01:25:42
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's yeah, it's been up for like a couple of years, so it has okay, it's kind of I mean also the largest contemporary art museum in America.

01:25:51
Speaker 5: Like, it's incredible space.

01:25:53
Speaker 4: Up there that's actually never been because it's also a long strip.

01:25:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I've heard it's a it's like on my list every summer to take the kids, and then I forget.

01:26:03
Speaker 4: It is really beautiful, but there's just something about, you know, kind of making sound and music not in concert spaces. You know, I'm sure you've been asked to play all kinds of places.

01:26:21
Speaker 1: I don't know.

01:26:22
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're not going to think about it now, but then, oh, yeah, I remember.

01:26:25
Speaker 1: That time we were well. I love the idea of like a house concert or you know, an interesting space. It is a whole other thing.

01:26:35
Speaker 4: And so sometimes like thinking about the way music fits into these spaces, and for me watching also a lot of worlds siphon ideas from the jazz world. So they extract the resources from a jazz world, which is a lot of struggle, you know, and they move them over into fashion or into film or you know, in siphoning it out and reap all this I don't know, let's just say economy right for lack of a better term yet. But the musicians who are making this like what, like how do we how do we kind of like start honoring what they did. There's a The Mellon Foundation recently gave this very large grant to musicians who are older in their lives, who have done a lot of this great work and who have not received great speak awards. And there's just something that has to come back to these people and to the community, and how do you kind of bring awareness to it. So this thing about jazz clubs, for me, revolutions starts started in these clubs, small spaces, you know what I mean, people coming into a room, whispering shit to one another in between songs. You know. So there's a lot of yet minds that depend on that kind of music. And you know, we're not the industry. The music itself is not looking for the limelight because it already had that a long time ago. But I do think that, my gosh, as the country continues to age, this country specifically, then where do we where do we keep some space to make that kind of music, to honor the musicians that did it, to honor the places that gather people together to do it, and to know that it doesn't take like it takes all kinds of megaphones to start revolutions.

01:28:38
Speaker 1: It can be small. It can be small that people are focused online, but it can still be in a small place together in real I R L.

01:28:52
Speaker 4: Beautiful what I learned today. I K t R, I K t R. I know that's right.

01:28:58
Speaker 1: I know that's right. From your kids, Yeah, what does that mean?

01:29:02
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, all right, yeah.

01:29:03
Speaker 1: Sure, I p B I play ballads. That sounded like a disease or something I have. I pp Well, do you want to take us out on a song?

01:29:15
Speaker 4: Can you?

01:29:15
Speaker 1: Would you play a song for me? And I won't play or sing at all in this one. I would love to hear. Really, you can play anything you want, but I was thinking reanimation, but or anything.

01:29:26
Speaker 5: No, I'll play re Animation just because it's a it'll make me sweat.

01:29:31
Speaker 1: It's great. Well, yeah, do whatever you want. Thank you so much, But this is.

01:29:35
Speaker 5: A yeah not it's a pleasure to be here and talk stuff.

01:29:39
Speaker 1: Oh it's so great. Can we just hang out again? Sooner than ten years? And I want to hang out with Alicia too?

01:29:44
Speaker 5: Oh my god?

01:29:45
Speaker 4: Yeah, all right here here, here's re Animation. This is written for one of the artists, Joan Jonas. Okay, this is a song for her. Don't I.

01:30:10
Speaker 7: Don't think think think think.

01:30:40
Speaker 2: No no no no no no, I don't not not b my f F like that.

01:32:17
Speaker 4: That.

01:33:05
Speaker 1: That was awesome.

01:33:06
Speaker 5: Thank you.

01:33:06
Speaker 1: I like how it melted. I just my shoulders just went down and I just started, well, thank you, my friend from Texas.

01:33:17
Speaker 5: Friend from Texas.

01:33:18
Speaker 4: Yes, good, and thank you.

01:33:19
Speaker 1: For do it again sometimes hang out. Thanks for being so awesome and coming to do this with me.

01:33:25
Speaker 4: Thank you, yay. Thanks.

01:33:30
Speaker 1: That was lovely. I love him. Oh he's so great. I mean, obviously such a natural. If you want to know what songs we did in this episode, the first one was the Makings of You. That was a Curtis Mayfield song from his album Curtis, released in nineteen seventy. The second song we did was Ain't Misbehavin of Course, music by Fats Waller and Henry Brooks, lyrics by Andy Resoff. Originally it was from the musical Connie's Hot Chocolates from nineteen twenty nine, but famously it was recorded by Louis Armstrong, Elephus Gerald, Saravon Nott, kN Cole, Frank Sinatra, and many more. The third song we did was for James by Jason Moran from the album titled Ten, released in twenty ten. The fourth song we did was Floret Afrikaan from Duke Ellington's Money Jungle, released in nineteen sixty three. I also did a version of that song on my album Daybreaks twenty sixteen. The fifth song we did was re animation by Jason Moran and the album it was on was Reanimation from twenty twelve. Special thanks to Jason Moran for joining us today and we'll be back next week with Saint Vincent. Nora Jones is playing along as a production of iHeart Podcasts. Visit Nora Jones channel and be sure to subscribe while you're there. I'm your host, Nora Jones and this episode was recorded by Matt Marinelli, mixed by Jamie Landry, Audio post production and mastering by Greg Tobler, artwork by Eliza Fry, Photography by Shervin Linnez. Produced by Nor Jones and Sarah Oda. Executive producers Aaron wan Kaufman and Jordian Mentog. Marketing lead Alison knt Graber. Thanks for joining us. Thanks Jason, Bye,