Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. Hi, this
Speaker 1: is Sugar Steve from Questlove Supreme. It's April, which is
Speaker 1: Jazz Appreciation.
Speaker 2: Months, so we are running some selections from the qlsrchas
Speaker 2: from artists who make some jazziza. This is a twenty
Speaker 2: twenty one conversation with none other than Pat Martini. He
Speaker 2: is the only artist to win Grammy's in ten different categories,
Speaker 2: and he's got twenty of them. This interview explores Pat's
Speaker 2: many facets of music and his incredible career accomplishments. From
Speaker 2: one of the greatest guitarists in all of music, let
Speaker 2: alone jazz.
Speaker 1: Please enjoy this QLs classic.
Speaker 3: Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to another episode of Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 3: I'm your host, christ Love. We have the entire team
Speaker 3: Supreme with us right now. There is Sugar Steve ready.
Speaker 4: Hello, How you doing?
Speaker 5: Pat Methene? Oh my god.
Speaker 4: This is awesome for Steve, It's awesome for all of us.
Speaker 4: I'm paid Bill, what's up?
Speaker 6: Brother?
Speaker 7: And I feel the same way, Papathe I don't know
Speaker 7: what you did right now.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna try to keep it cool, all right? Skipped
Speaker 4: it from now? These fonticlar.
Speaker 5: I wear it up, but I'm good man down thirty eight.
Speaker 5: We weighed in. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: So yeah, weigh in every day?
Speaker 5: Hell no, that's chaos.
Speaker 8: I only wear it once a month. I was waiting, Sorry,
Speaker 8: what's a week? I weigh in every Monday. So every Monday,
Speaker 8: I weigh in and then immediately after I wait in.
Speaker 8: That's when I have, you know, whatever I wanted to
Speaker 8: eat just at the way in, you know what I mean.
Speaker 8: So because they give me the rest of the week
Speaker 8: to work it off.
Speaker 4: You know, accountability.
Speaker 3: I feel you integrity and accountability. I'm right there with you, like, yeah.
Speaker 4: How are you?
Speaker 9: I'm good and I'm negative COVID negative as of yesterday.
Speaker 5: I just wanted word up. But what you had like
Speaker 5: or something?
Speaker 6: Huh?
Speaker 5: Where you worry you had? Like above or something.
Speaker 9: I'm trying to get out of town, you know, but
Speaker 9: shd I know what I am right now?
Speaker 6: You know what I mean.
Speaker 3: I had a major bug last week. I thought it
Speaker 3: was I thought it was a rap, y'all.
Speaker 5: It's just around man, I had.
Speaker 3: The flu, but it was it was major anyway, Hey.
Speaker 4: Guys, Pat Metheni's here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh I got that anyway, Ladies and gentlemen, our
Speaker 3: guest today, his reputation speaks for itself. First of all,
Speaker 3: we have to start with the mind blowing factoid that
Speaker 3: our guest today is the only musician uh to win
Speaker 3: Grammys and ten categories. I didn't even know there was
Speaker 3: such a thing like. It's we got to make a
Speaker 3: collaborative record, so you can get a hip hop one.
Speaker 4: You probably have one on it, Okay, you know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Not to mention this being his almost fifth decade in
Speaker 3: the professional recording business, his grand total was twenty He's
Speaker 3: absolutely one of the most adventurous, dependable, expansive creatives and
Speaker 3: cat artist in music. Even without a guitar. Is the
Speaker 3: way that his brain thinks. He is a self recleaned
Speaker 3: professional improviser, which is very impressive to me because to
Speaker 3: deal with the pressure of having to live up to
Speaker 3: the moment of your expectations and audience expectations, that's a
Speaker 3: lot for me to to weigh in. So I definitely
Speaker 3: want to get on that. That's you know, so much
Speaker 3: I can say, but you know, let's just get to it.
Speaker 3: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome be great Pat mactheney Es question.
Speaker 6: Thanks man, what what a treat for me to be here,
Speaker 6: and thanks for inviting me. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 4: Well, we we thank you for coming.
Speaker 3: We were We're also complimenting you on your on your
Speaker 3: your your awesome coiff that you've made.
Speaker 6: Coming from feather one of them picks like you.
Speaker 3: That's all you got to say, That's all you got.
Speaker 4: To you know. It's it's weird because.
Speaker 3: I know, oftentimes sort of outsiders tend to pigeonhole musicians
Speaker 3: in a particular category, and oftentimes more than that, it's
Speaker 3: not necessarily sort of an apt description. I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: to call you a jazz musician, I think is rather
Speaker 3: limiting because you know, you've done so much more.
Speaker 4: I always wanted to know.
Speaker 3: But the thing is, I'm very familiar with your catalog,
Speaker 3: but not familiar with your story or your journey. What
Speaker 3: would you necessarily call your your brand of music? Because
Speaker 3: you you've literally done everything but the kitchen sink when
Speaker 3: it comes to emulating sounds or producing sounds from your
Speaker 3: studio to the record stores and to our ears, What
Speaker 3: would you call your your genre of music?
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's a question that comes up a lot. I'm
Speaker 6: sure for you too. For for for most musicians, you know,
Speaker 6: it's it's it's often an issue. I mean, you know,
Speaker 6: for me, I wish we had a better name for
Speaker 6: for stuff, you know, or or that we didn't have
Speaker 6: to have names to me when whenever we start going
Speaker 6: down the thing of you know, and and yeah, you're right,
Speaker 6: I get it all the time, like you know, what
Speaker 6: is what is this? It's usually for me it's usually
Speaker 6: a political discussion or a cultural discussion or a dress
Speaker 6: code discussion more than a music discussion. And you know,
Speaker 6: I feel like there are a couple musicians in that
Speaker 6: generation that sort of is just above me, that's sort
Speaker 6: of were of course heroes for me, but also kind
Speaker 6: of defined a new way of being as a musician.
Speaker 6: And I'll just throw out some names. I mean, Herbie
Speaker 6: is one, Chick Korea would be an incredible example. This,
Speaker 6: Keith Jarrett, Gary Burton. And by that, I mean it's
Speaker 6: a bunch of musicians who could play written music with
Speaker 6: the New York Philharmonic one night and probably not get
Speaker 6: fired and actually be invited back with you know, kudos
Speaker 6: all around, and could play the next night with you know,
Speaker 6: James Brown, or something, you know, I mean, or or
Speaker 6: could play with, you know, a folk singer. I'm kind
Speaker 6: of like a little bit what you guys have to do,
Speaker 6: you know, on the show too. But I mean, for me,
Speaker 6: when I think about that generation of musicians, and there
Speaker 6: were a few significant people before them, Train, Charlie Parker,
Speaker 6: Art Tatum ll come to mind, it's people who really
Speaker 6: advanced what was possible on their instruments, beyond any description
Speaker 6: that you might want to impose on it on a
Speaker 6: political level or a cultural level, just strictly in terms
Speaker 6: of what can you do as a human being with
Speaker 6: an instrument in your hand. You know, that to me
Speaker 6: is clearly the model. And you know, I mean the
Speaker 6: J word, I don't know anybody that likes that really,
Speaker 6: And you know, then there's all these other ones. I mean, man,
Speaker 6: there was the the F word came along about about
Speaker 6: ten years into my thing, and I was like, where
Speaker 6: did that one come from? I mean, you know, when
Speaker 6: I first, you know, started making records and stuff, that
Speaker 6: was the era of hyphens. You know, there was jazz, rock, jazz,
Speaker 6: folk folk, this you know, you know, and in a
Speaker 6: way that was a little bit descriptive of something. But
Speaker 6: I mean, man, by the time I came along, I
Speaker 6: was actually a reactionary to you know, distortion and backbeats
Speaker 6: and stuff. I mean I was already kind of like,
Speaker 6: you know, you know, kind of looking for something past
Speaker 6: the Maha issue thing. As much as I love that
Speaker 6: that was really more closely connected to, like Tony Williams
Speaker 6: or something like that. And you know, so you know,
Speaker 6: it's it's hard to to to come up with a name.
Speaker 6: So here's what happens. I mean, you direct answer your question.
Speaker 6: I'm sitting next to a person on a plane who says, well,
Speaker 6: what kind of music do you play? And I kind
Speaker 6: of look at them and I go, well, you know,
Speaker 6: this person seems like if I say jazz, They're going
Speaker 6: to know what I'm talking about, or they're not, or
Speaker 6: you know, it's like it's a case by case thing.
Speaker 6: But man, I mean I kind of would do anything
Speaker 6: to have to avoid having to do that. But of course,
Speaker 6: you know, we do live in a world, especially now,
Speaker 6: where you know, this whole issue of stratification of our
Speaker 6: entire personal lifestyles or something that everybody's cure aiding their
Speaker 6: entire existence in very specific ways. Yeah, my thing of
Speaker 6: trying to open it up even further. Is the actually
Speaker 6: in direct opposition to the culture of the moment.
Speaker 3: So I see, yeah, I was going to say, well, okay,
Speaker 3: I do want to start to how you came to music,
Speaker 3: but since you already went there, I have to know, okay,
Speaker 3: because you were born in a certain time period, and
Speaker 3: knowing that you know albums like in a Silent way
Speaker 3: or a bitches brew even on the corner, or I mean,
Speaker 3: I mean, we can even talk about like the experimental
Speaker 3: phase of Coltrane during his last period. You're twelve, thirteen, fourteen,
Speaker 3: fifteen at the time, which I know based on other
Speaker 3: musicians I know of that that's a very that's an
Speaker 3: extremely impressionable and influential time in a musician's life where
Speaker 3: they take everything in and don't throw it away. Whereas
Speaker 3: I would guess if you were older, if you were
Speaker 3: in your twenties during that time period, you might have
Speaker 3: an eyebrow raised with what the fuck is Miles David's
Speaker 3: doing right now? But can you describe what it was
Speaker 3: to grow up at least with your young ears, assuming
Speaker 3: that your palette was changing by.
Speaker 4: Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen fifteen, could you.
Speaker 3: Describe what it was like to witness kind of first
Speaker 3: generation those experimental movements in jazz at such a young age, Like,
Speaker 3: how did you take to it? Was there someone to
Speaker 3: slap your hand like that's not music?
Speaker 6: Or had they done that, it would have made me
Speaker 6: like it even more, which was kind of the kind
Speaker 6: of where I was at. No, it's funny. It's really
Speaker 6: interesting that that you're mentioning that it kind of coincidentally,
Speaker 6: in the past month or so, a really fantastic writer
Speaker 6: in the Kansas City area where I am from, wrote
Speaker 6: a book kind of. I mean, it's ostensibly about me
Speaker 6: from nineteen sixty four to nineteen seventy two, the years
Speaker 6: that I, you know, kind of was on the Kansas
Speaker 6: City scene, right, and man, she brought back all kinds
Speaker 6: of stuff and there's all these people talking about that era,
Speaker 6: and man, it just took me right back there, because
Speaker 6: generally speaking, I don't look back too much. I'm if
Speaker 6: you come to my house, you were talking about Grammys
Speaker 6: and you wouldn't see one thing. Man, everyday broken every
Speaker 6: day I started zero. You know, I don't want to
Speaker 6: see anything about how the gig was last night. I
Speaker 6: want to like whatever but today it's new, and so
Speaker 6: I don't like to have anything around. I don't like
Speaker 6: to think too much about kind of, you know whatever,
Speaker 6: from in the past. But this book just took me
Speaker 6: right back to exactly what you're talking about. And you know,
Speaker 6: I'm talking about Kansas City, but in fact, I grew
Speaker 6: up in a rural town about twenty thirty miles away
Speaker 6: from Kansas City, where, I mean, man, no one had
Speaker 6: any idea what I was interested in at all, and
Speaker 6: nor did I really have any frame of reference for it. So,
Speaker 6: I mean, I realize now. My way of quantifying things was, oh,
Speaker 6: it's on a record. So the record could be The
Speaker 6: Beach Boys, it could be Ornette Coleman, it could be
Speaker 6: John Phillips SUSA. It could be Porter Wagner and Dolly Parton.
Speaker 6: All I knew is I could take it down in
Speaker 6: the basement and play it on my parents recently retired
Speaker 6: record player, and actually I only had a very few records,
Speaker 6: and one of the records that really made an impact
Speaker 6: on me was a record my brother brought home four
Speaker 6: and more. That was it, Miles and Miles record. It
Speaker 6: was you know, it was the Quintet When George Coleman
Speaker 6: was was in it, and it's sort of all the
Speaker 6: up tempo stuff from the My Funny Valentine Live concert.
Speaker 6: And I mean, you know, I do hear the rap
Speaker 6: often of people saying, well, you know, you got to
Speaker 6: develop a taste for that kind of music and this,
Speaker 6: that and the other.
Speaker 5: Thing.
Speaker 6: Man, for me, it was like somebody switched on the
Speaker 6: lights and it was mostly Tony to tell you, the
Speaker 6: tree it was to me. The sound that, yeah, the
Speaker 6: sound of the ride symbol was to me like that
Speaker 6: was what was about to happen in the world. And
Speaker 6: it was actually.
Speaker 3: And Tony had a really like heavy It was almost
Speaker 3: like I would describe it as his approach to his
Speaker 3: ride symbol was violent but very beautiful. Just the amount
Speaker 3: of tone that the fact that he can get so
Speaker 3: much tone out of one symbol, hitting in various ways
Speaker 3: like yeah, that always.
Speaker 6: And also he you know, it was just this constantly
Speaker 6: changing like set of grooves. It wasn't it was, you know. Then,
Speaker 6: of course I had no reference of any of that either,
Speaker 6: nor did I understand that they were playing on a
Speaker 6: blues or they were playing on the form of There
Speaker 6: is No Greater Love. All I knew is what it
Speaker 6: sounded like and mostly what it felt like to me.
Speaker 6: And at the same time, you know, I picked up
Speaker 6: a guitar a year or two before that because, like
Speaker 6: me and a billion other people in the world, I
Speaker 6: saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. So the
Speaker 6: guitar itself was this sort of iconic thing as much
Speaker 6: as it was an instrument, and in reference to my
Speaker 6: general nature, the one thing my parents didn't want me
Speaker 6: to ever do was play electric guitar. So, I mean,
Speaker 6: you know, there you go. It's like, you know, it's
Speaker 6: kind of I joke around.
Speaker 3: Like an electric guitar was like a four letter word,
Speaker 3: similar to like Dylan grabbing electric guitar in sixty five.
Speaker 6: Like, oh, way more than that. I mean, you know,
Speaker 6: way more than that. I mean it was like I I,
Speaker 6: you know, it's more like mom and Dad, I think
Speaker 6: I'm going to join the devil worshiping cult down the
Speaker 6: street here.
Speaker 3: So it wasn't a matter of like we just want
Speaker 3: a less a not noisy instrument in the house.
Speaker 4: It was more like what that guitar represented exactly.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And there were musicians though, right well.
Speaker 6: They were kind of musicians. I mean, actually they were
Speaker 6: very musical. My dad especially was a really good trumpet player.
Speaker 6: And I have a very important figure in my life.
Speaker 6: It's my older brother Mike, five years older than me,
Speaker 6: incredible trumpet player at a very young age. And I
Speaker 6: started playing trumpet two when I was eight, and hence
Speaker 6: the Miles Davis record. You know, trump but was a
Speaker 6: thing kind of in our family, like, you know, not
Speaker 6: any particular kind of trump but just trumpet. And you know,
Speaker 6: we would go see Doc Severnson, who was you know,
Speaker 6: come out the Midwest and do concerts or Clark Terry
Speaker 6: more about the trumpet part of it. And so yeah,
Speaker 6: guitar was this other thing. And once again they were right.
Speaker 6: I mean, man, what happened in the few years after
Speaker 6: nineteen sixty four, sixty five, sixty six with people with
Speaker 6: guitars strapped around their necks was their worst fear come
Speaker 6: to life by ten thousand percent. You know what's weird
Speaker 6: in my case, though, is that that Miles moment put
Speaker 6: me on this whole other direction. And this is more
Speaker 6: in response to your question, I didn't think about, like, oh,
Speaker 6: ornett is really some wacky, far out thing that people
Speaker 6: were getting into fistfights in front of the bandstand about
Speaker 6: and Wes Montgomery, Oh he's commercial because he's playing going
Speaker 6: out of My Head. And you know, I just had no,
Speaker 6: first of all, no interest in that, in that aspect
Speaker 6: of it. I was just like, man, what are they playing?
Speaker 6: And how are they playing that? And what do I
Speaker 6: need to know in order to understand this? Like what
Speaker 6: is this?
Speaker 3: And did you know did you understand at at early
Speaker 3: age that maybe jazz was sort of like an intellectuals
Speaker 3: music or an intellectual game, like did you choose jazz
Speaker 3: because like all of your other friends are trying to
Speaker 3: learn Smoke on the water Riff and you're like, well,
Speaker 3: I'm learning Wes Montgomery Like.
Speaker 6: I mean, you know, again, I have to say where
Speaker 6: I would where I grew up, man, I mean yeah,
Speaker 6: I was. I was completely non aligned with any person
Speaker 6: my own age. You know, I just had nothing to
Speaker 6: do with anybody, nor was I particularly interested what anybody
Speaker 6: thought about anything, because I was really in them. Well,
Speaker 6: I think most people that are going to deal with
Speaker 6: this language at some point along the way, they had
Speaker 6: to spend four or five years, twelve hours a day alone.
Speaker 6: It's you know, it's sort of like, you know, I
Speaker 6: want to give a speech in you know, Greek to
Speaker 6: a bunch of nuclear physicists. You know, first of all,
Speaker 6: I have to learn Greek, and then I got to
Speaker 6: learn about nuclear physics, you know. I mean, it's it's
Speaker 6: not something that's going to happen overnight. You know. The
Speaker 6: benefit for me, though, was the Kansas City thing where
Speaker 6: I just happened to kind of chronologically come along at
Speaker 6: a time where at a very young age, I was
Speaker 6: able to start working with people who were a lot
Speaker 6: better than me. And I mean, I don't know about you,
Speaker 6: but that's the way you learn is to be And
Speaker 6: I always tell people try to be the worst person
Speaker 6: in every band you're in, or at least be around
Speaker 6: musicians who you're going to learn some stuff from, because
Speaker 6: that's how it works.
Speaker 4: You know, you got to be the least knowledgeable person
Speaker 4: in your circle.
Speaker 9: So by the time you got in your first band,
Speaker 9: what was your knowledge and.
Speaker 6: Where were you well, I mean, you know, I did
Speaker 6: have my year or so of you know, kind of
Speaker 6: messing around with you know, kind of I guess we
Speaker 6: could say rock bands or whatever, and but you know,
Speaker 6: I immediately took it very seriously to the point of concern.
Speaker 6: I would say of everybody. You know, I mean the
Speaker 6: other analogy joke I always make, and it's I think
Speaker 6: a valid one. You know, I've got three kids, and
Speaker 6: you know, as much as there had been resistance to
Speaker 6: me playing the guitar, the thought of me spending twelve
Speaker 6: or thirteen hours a day down in the basement, you know,
Speaker 6: learning who knew what was a little bit like for
Speaker 6: right now. If one of my kids said to me, Dad,
Speaker 6: I'm going to become a professional video game player, you know,
Speaker 6: I would say like, no, you're not. You can't do that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 6: I mean exactly so. But it was like that to them.
Speaker 6: I was like, yeah, I'm going to you know, learn
Speaker 6: you know this McCoy tyner solo on Reaching fourth and
Speaker 6: I'm going to really check out Roy Haynes. You know tonight, Mom.
Speaker 4: So you were you were practiced twelve hours a day?
Speaker 6: Oh, I was really. I was really finally.
Speaker 4: Up to my expectations.
Speaker 6: I get up at four o'clock in the morning almost
Speaker 6: every day.
Speaker 5: Now, you know.
Speaker 6: It's you know, to me, music is really hard. I
Speaker 6: know there's people that are really talented and stuff, and
Speaker 6: I I really I cautioned people about their talent because
Speaker 6: I kind of don't really believe that much in talent,
Speaker 6: you know, I'm more about you know, it's hard. I
Speaker 6: don't care how talented you are. You gotta you gotta
Speaker 6: work on it.
Speaker 7: Why why are the early days were you pushed towards
Speaker 7: the hollow body because seems like if you earn rock bands,
Speaker 7: it's a weird choice for rock bands, right, I mean
Speaker 7: it was because of West Montgomery, or was just because
Speaker 7: that was the first guitar you had the Gibs in the.
Speaker 6: Yeah, good question. I mean, so with my parents, you know,
Speaker 6: when I finally like convinced them that I was really
Speaker 6: I really wanted to get a guitar, my Christmas present
Speaker 6: one year was not a guitar. It was permission to
Speaker 6: buy a guitar with my own money that I earned.
Speaker 4: You got permission, all right, I got permission.
Speaker 6: So it just happened that the you know, I earned
Speaker 6: sixty dollars doing I had a little back. Yeah, I
Speaker 6: had a little job and looked in the Kansas City
Speaker 6: Star and there was a Gibson guitar for sixty dollars.
Speaker 6: It didn't even say what kind, just Gibson guitar, and
Speaker 6: it was an Es one forty, which is this small
Speaker 6: hollow body And honestly I didn't, you know, to me,
Speaker 6: it was like Gibson and it was electric and you know, cool,
Speaker 6: and so I didn't really care with solid body hollow body,
Speaker 6: and that would have been before I heard four and more. Interesting.
Speaker 6: So once I heard four and more, then I began
Speaker 6: the thing that we all do of, like, you know, okay,
Speaker 6: who are the other trumpet players? Who are the other
Speaker 6: bass player that I need to know? And then, of
Speaker 6: course guitar. I was already holding it in my hand,
Speaker 6: and in fact, the father of a friend of my
Speaker 6: brother said, you know, you should check out Wes Montgomery
Speaker 6: and he played me a record and man, that was
Speaker 6: it for me. And I was like, well, I got
Speaker 6: this hollow body already.
Speaker 3: So I'm like, you know, in the perfect ballpark the
Speaker 3: guitar shows you you can choose the guitar.
Speaker 6: Well yeah, and then actually funny thing happened. Not funny,
Speaker 6: it was tragic.
Speaker 4: At the time.
Speaker 6: My mom is from Wisconsin and back in those days,
Speaker 6: you the only way to get to Wisconsin from Kansas
Speaker 6: City was an airline called Ozark Airlines, and you would
Speaker 6: stop it like des Moines cedar rapids, you know, Debuque
Speaker 6: like you'd stop like six places along the way before
Speaker 6: going to Manitauc where she was from. And when we
Speaker 6: got to manage Walc, I went to get my guitar
Speaker 6: and it was just pieces would shattered, not only know,
Speaker 6: maybe two months so it was awful. And but Ozark
Speaker 6: Airlines gave me I think one hundred dollars you know,
Speaker 6: in repayment for it. And that's when I got my
Speaker 6: Yes one seventy five, which was the guitar that I
Speaker 6: still play most of the time. I've had it all
Speaker 6: these years.
Speaker 3: I was going to say to you that I want
Speaker 3: to thank you because I thought, I mean, we've done
Speaker 3: five years of five years of shows, and you know,
Speaker 3: we've had every virtuoso musician that you could think of
Speaker 3: on the show, and nothing makes them happier than debunking
Speaker 3: my theory that perfect practice makes perfect. And you know
Speaker 3: this this goes a long time ago. I had met
Speaker 3: saxophonist David Murray and I would ask David like, yo,
Speaker 3: like you know, he mentioned something like, well, you know,
Speaker 3: I took a nap at two in the morning and
Speaker 3: then I got up at six to practice my scales
Speaker 3: and I'm like, wait a minute, you practice your scales
Speaker 3: at six in the morning. He's like, yeah, every day
Speaker 3: I wake up like five, six in the morning, do
Speaker 3: my scales. For about four hours, I do breakfast and
Speaker 3: da da da da, Then I do another five hours.
Speaker 4: We're in my.
Speaker 3: Tonal thing, and I'm like, wait a minute, how many
Speaker 3: hours a day do you practice? And he's kicking it,
Speaker 3: like seventy He's like sometimes ten eleven hours.
Speaker 4: I'm like to this day. He's like, yes, to this day.
Speaker 3: And then like his gigging starts, you know, after that
Speaker 3: eleven hours, and you know, I kind of stuck to
Speaker 3: that sort of that religious and that was like back
Speaker 3: in eighty seven eighty eight, and like you know, you
Speaker 3: know it's doing.
Speaker 4: Like a master class with him or something.
Speaker 3: But then you know, I would ask every musician that
Speaker 3: I knew, like how often do you practice? And they'd
Speaker 3: be like whatever, like two three at the most. It
Speaker 3: was making me think that that whole thing was just
Speaker 3: a myth, like the idea of the musician. Ernie Issley
Speaker 3: has a similar story about when when Jimmy Hendricks used
Speaker 3: to live with the Isisley brothers over in Jersey, how
Speaker 3: Jimmy would wake up every morning to practice his scales
Speaker 3: four point thirty five in the morning, and Ernie would
Speaker 3: just sit in the closet and watch Jimmy for like
Speaker 3: two to three hours practicing these scales.
Speaker 4: And then that's basically how.
Speaker 3: You known, in my opinion, you know, kind of earned
Speaker 3: that baton from Jimmy Hendricks. But yeah, I just want
Speaker 3: to thank you for at least not making me feel foolish,
Speaker 3: because every time I ask about practice or on the show,
Speaker 3: every guest is like whatever.
Speaker 6: So you know, it's an interesting thing because I think
Speaker 6: every musician has a wildly different path, as we all
Speaker 6: do as individuals from everybody else. I mean, everybody's kind
Speaker 6: of got their own physical thing and their own whatever
Speaker 6: I mean, and being a musician also is so unique
Speaker 6: to each person. I mean, what this guy wants to do,
Speaker 6: what that guy? I mean, everybody's got their own path.
Speaker 6: And you know, at the same time, I think that
Speaker 6: like I'm sure you know, we've both known people who
Speaker 6: were just at very young age is incredibly good, like
Speaker 6: they could just kind of do it, and man, that's
Speaker 6: a tough that's like it's almost one of the worst things.
Speaker 6: I think that can happen.
Speaker 10: To something handicapped to be like a super person because
Speaker 10: it throws you off, you know, it gives you, it
Speaker 10: gives you kind of the wrong idea.
Speaker 6: And I mean a lot of people can skate maybe
Speaker 6: their entire career that way. But you know, to me,
Speaker 6: the guys that I you know, maybe that list of
Speaker 6: names that I read off, like Gary Burton's a great
Speaker 6: example of this. He I think was in fact, I'm
Speaker 6: sure he was like this ridiculous prodigy guy, but he
Speaker 6: also took it really seriously. And I don't know that
Speaker 6: his version of practicing would be what you and I
Speaker 6: would talk about as practicing. But you know, I mean
Speaker 6: there are people who I think I mean Mike Brecker,
Speaker 6: you know, he could he I remember seeing him near
Speaker 6: the end of his life and he was like quiet,
Speaker 6: and he was like practicing, you know. I mean, you know,
Speaker 6: it's like it. I think it can show up in
Speaker 6: a lot of different forms. I will add in in
Speaker 6: my case, I don't ever feel like I'm practicing. I
Speaker 6: always feel like I'm just playing. And when I practice,
Speaker 6: I take a tune that maybe I don't know as
Speaker 6: well as I wish I did. And you know, I
Speaker 6: just start playing it, and I try to play it fast.
Speaker 6: I try to play it slow. I try to play
Speaker 6: it in all twelve keys. I try to really know
Speaker 6: what makes that tune that tune. And that's hard. I mean,
Speaker 6: you know, I can still take tunes that I've been
Speaker 6: playing all these years and play them, and as I'm
Speaker 6: playing them, I'm discovering first of all, what I can
Speaker 6: do and what I can't do, and what I work
Speaker 6: on is what I can't do. It's like, I don't
Speaker 6: do what I can do. I work on what I
Speaker 6: can't do. So if I start hearing something and I
Speaker 6: can't really do that, it's like, Okay, I need to
Speaker 6: work on that, and I'm less. Times I hear people
Speaker 6: and they're practicing, but they're just playing stuff they can
Speaker 6: already play. I try to play what I can't play.
Speaker 2: Is that what the improvising is working on.
Speaker 6: Worms there By the way we're improvising right now, and
Speaker 6: we're using our language. We all have a relationship to
Speaker 6: English that allows us to just do our thing without
Speaker 6: really worrying too much about verbs and nouns and pronouns,
Speaker 6: you know, or what your tongue is doing while you're
Speaker 6: you're just doing it. You're just doing We're improvising, And
Speaker 6: I mean that's essentially you know what what this thing is.
Speaker 6: You know, being a musician in this realm is to
Speaker 6: be able to just talk about whatever you want to
Speaker 6: talk about and not get hung up with the mechanics
Speaker 6: of it.
Speaker 3: Let me ask for okay, So I think I've shared
Speaker 3: this story before. George Clinton once famously joked, you know,
Speaker 3: Prince Prince often had a big reputation for overpracticing. You
Speaker 3: know again that ten am, I'll find you. If you're late,
Speaker 3: We're going to do the same riff five hours in
Speaker 3: a row until we get it right, that sort of thing.
Speaker 3: And George Clinton used to tease that Prince is the
Speaker 3: only cat that he knew that could practice his spontaneity.
Speaker 3: And you know, I know how big you are on improvisation,
Speaker 3: And sometimes even when I'm rehearsing with my guys, sometimes
Speaker 3: I want to save that energy for the stage.
Speaker 4: Like I know that there's a certain.
Speaker 3: Type of energy and excitement that happens at our shows,
Speaker 3: in particular that I often worry we might give away
Speaker 3: in soundcheck, you know, and I kind of want to, like, all.
Speaker 4: Right, all right, save it for the show. Save that
Speaker 4: energy for a show, don't don't go there.
Speaker 3: And get that right, and we shoot the ship before
Speaker 3: the show, save it for the show, and you know, well,
Speaker 3: you're you're actually I'm wondering, Okay. So when I spoke
Speaker 3: to uh when we did Bobby McFerrin on the show,
Speaker 3: you know, he said that, you know, that's his greatest thrill, like,
Speaker 3: you know, not to do too much beforehand, but like
Speaker 3: he considers that I'm practicing on the stage. But because
Speaker 3: I know you're so big into improvisation and whatnot, do
Speaker 3: you ever worry about overpracticing before you even get to.
Speaker 4: Present it to whatever show you're doing that night.
Speaker 6: You know, there are a couple of cliches that are
Speaker 6: really effective, really useful, and I found it be really true,
Speaker 6: and that one about you know, luck or whatever. Success
Speaker 6: is where prepar preparation meets opportunity. To me, that's like
Speaker 6: a key one. And the way that applies to this
Speaker 6: discussion is, you know, knowing kind of as much as
Speaker 6: I can know about the possibilities of what a situation
Speaker 6: might entail. I mean that may be the band and
Speaker 6: the music, the you know whatever, there's infinite variations as
Speaker 6: much as I can be prepared for those things, the
Speaker 6: more fun I'm going to have. And so for me,
Speaker 6: the goal in fact is, I mean spontaneity, improvisation, professional improviser.
Speaker 6: You know, we're kind of circling around the job description
Speaker 6: in a way, and what that involves for me then
Speaker 6: is to be really ready. I mean, I'm like, you know,
Speaker 6: kind of you know, I really strongly enforce that sound
Speaker 6: checks are I don't want to hear anybody really try
Speaker 6: to play anything, and I'm like the save it for
Speaker 6: the gig cham like do not do not jam, do
Speaker 6: not do anything, you know, like just make sure and
Speaker 6: kind of I have I usually come up with like
Speaker 6: one section of something that we can play that we
Speaker 6: can play it for twenty minutes, because it can take
Speaker 6: a while for this kind of music to settle into
Speaker 6: the hall, and you know, I want to give the
Speaker 6: sound guy a chance to do his best too. And
Speaker 6: there's a way for me of improvising where it's sort
Speaker 6: of like I'm going to just kind of hang in
Speaker 6: the zone of the fundamentals that it's kind of improvising,
Speaker 6: but I don't really have to think about it too much,
Speaker 6: And there's a kind of warming up because the physical
Speaker 6: thing of playing for me is I could say almost challenging.
Speaker 6: I mean, I'm not a natural guitar player in a
Speaker 6: lot of ways, so I really do have to warm
Speaker 6: up for a couple hours, and during that period of time,
Speaker 6: I'm trying not to play any quote unquote music. But
Speaker 6: I have kind of developed these things where I can
Speaker 6: sort of invent they almost like unfold on themselves. Like
Speaker 6: I'll start in a key and then I'll say, Okay,
Speaker 6: now I'm going to take that and I'm going to
Speaker 6: move it through uh you know, the cycle of fifths
Speaker 6: backwards or something like that. So I'm not really thinking,
Speaker 6: I'm not thinking about it. I'm just doing something that's
Speaker 6: going to get the mechanics working, that's also doing the
Speaker 6: whatever those brain connections are that you want to have
Speaker 6: where you have an idea and you can get to
Speaker 6: it within you know, sub millisecond, uh you know response time.
Speaker 6: And you know. The best thing for me too, also
Speaker 6: is if I can go all day without talking and
Speaker 6: really I don't eat before a gig, I really get
Speaker 6: into like this thing because for me, the gig is
Speaker 6: is the that's church, you know, that's the destination. I know,
Speaker 6: records are a thing, you know, and there were all
Speaker 6: those years like, Okay, you got to go out on
Speaker 6: the road to promote your record, and I'm like, really,
Speaker 6: I to me, it's like, you make a record, so
Speaker 6: when you show up in Peoria, somebody might come to
Speaker 6: the gig because they've heard your name, you know.
Speaker 5: To me, it was.
Speaker 6: Always the records where they add to get people to
Speaker 6: come to the gig, because the gig is it. And
Speaker 6: that's still the case for me, which kind of fits
Speaker 6: right now in the world of gigs and T shirts,
Speaker 6: you know, because that's really what we are, right so,
Speaker 6: you know, and I you know, I did kind of
Speaker 6: get into making records there, you know. I mean I
Speaker 6: got better at it, I think, and took it a
Speaker 6: lot more seriously as time went on. But to me,
Speaker 6: the gig is that's it. You know, it's all headed
Speaker 6: for the gigs. So if I can really, you know,
Speaker 6: do the things that I know will help me get
Speaker 6: ready for that moment, and then that moment does take
Speaker 6: on this sort of significance as this is what it's
Speaker 6: all been leading to, you know. I mean from the
Speaker 6: time I heard four and more, you know, it's like
Speaker 6: everything has been leading to this moment, and also this
Speaker 6: may be the last time I ever play, And in fact,
Speaker 6: the last time I ever played was Auckland, New Zealand,
Speaker 6: the first week of March last year. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 6: I didn't know at that time. Gee, that was the
Speaker 6: last time I'm going to play for a year and
Speaker 6: a half. So I'm kind of glad I play like
Speaker 6: that because that was it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so you've not been on a stage since and
Speaker 4: now got.
Speaker 6: Some gigs coming up? Man, I hope.
Speaker 4: How is this the longest that you went concurrently without
Speaker 4: being on stage.
Speaker 6: This is the longest I've been in one place since
Speaker 6: high school. It's the first time I've bought out a
Speaker 6: window and seen you know, spring, summer, fall, winter, spring,
Speaker 6: summer from one point of view, and I have to
Speaker 6: say it's been fantastic. I've really enjoyed that. And the
Speaker 6: best part for me that the headline is nobody in
Speaker 6: my immediate circle died, you know, and so many of
Speaker 6: people in our community have been hit so hard. I
Speaker 6: mean not to mention just the new gig thing, but
Speaker 6: I mean, man, I mean, you and I both know
Speaker 6: a bunch of people who are not here right now.
Speaker 6: You should be because of this stuff. So yeah, it's
Speaker 6: been rough in that respect, but you know, at this
Speaker 6: point in life, I've done a lot of gigs, so
Speaker 6: that's great. And also it's kind of been interesting for
Speaker 6: me to kind of look out the window a bit.
Speaker 2: The first time I think I saw your name and
Speaker 2: credits was on this Joni Mitchell album called Shadows and
Speaker 2: Light nineteen eighty. It's a live album from a tour
Speaker 2: that you did with Jocko. I believe Pastorius was in
Speaker 2: that band as well, Yes, and Joony obviously. Can you
Speaker 2: tell us any memories of that time period playing with
Speaker 2: Jocko and Joni and that tour.
Speaker 6: Well, you know that, I mean, Jocko was like, you know,
Speaker 6: one of my closest friends, years before anybody knew who
Speaker 6: either one of us were, and you know, our careers
Speaker 6: or whatever you want to call it, parallel to each
Speaker 6: other chronologically in a pretty significant way. In fact, before
Speaker 6: years before the Jony thing, Jocko it on my first record.
Speaker 6: He and I both kind of made our recording debuts
Speaker 6: together without even knowing that's what we were doing. We
Speaker 6: thought we were rehearsing with Paul Blaye, one of the
Speaker 6: greatest piano players.
Speaker 4: Ever, I was going to say, how did that happen?
Speaker 3: You accidentally made a record with zachopistor is not knowing it?
Speaker 6: Well, you know, Paul was a trip I don't you know,
Speaker 6: I don't know how much y'all know about.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: That was my next question was if you could tell
Speaker 2: our viewers about Paul.
Speaker 6: Well, Paul changed music a couple of times.
Speaker 4: Is it liar Blaye Blaye?
Speaker 6: And I mean you know Carla Blay.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, well he was married.
Speaker 5: That is why.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, see I have a whole relationship with Carla
Speaker 3: Blay is.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, hip hop samples but good.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well Paul was. I mean, you know, I could
Speaker 6: talk for Paul about Paul for forty five minutes, so
Speaker 6: I'll just leave it, you know. I mean, if you
Speaker 6: ever listened to a record Footloose, which was made in
Speaker 6: the early sixties, Pete Laroca playing drums, Swallow playing bass,
Speaker 6: I mean that changed everything. There's a solo that Paul
Speaker 6: plays on a Sonny Rollins record where he called where
Speaker 6: he plays with Sonny and Coleman Hawkins and they play
Speaker 6: all the things you are and Paul solo on that
Speaker 6: like just revolutionized everything. And you can even go back
Speaker 6: to like nineteen fifty six. So Paul was a heavy
Speaker 6: cat and also unusual person. So you know, we were
Speaker 6: asked to go to this rehearsal studio we thought, which
Speaker 6: was a recording studio actually, and there were mics and stuff,
Speaker 6: but you know, we were both pretty green, to tell
Speaker 6: you the truth. And so we were playing and Paul
Speaker 6: had not really let us improvise much. We would just
Speaker 6: play the heads over and over again to all these
Speaker 6: hip Carlo Blay tunes and some more net tunes, and
Speaker 6: then suddenly we were like playing and I was like, wow,
Speaker 6: this is great, but the John Jaco sounds fantastic on
Speaker 6: this record. Paul that the night before had heard some
Speaker 6: rock band and had decided that I should play through
Speaker 6: a stack of marshals, and he'd rented a wah wah pedal,
Speaker 6: a Morley wah wah pedal. Guitar player would it's like
Speaker 6: a fate worse than death, you know, And even with
Speaker 6: a good wah wah pedal, that was not really where
Speaker 6: I was at particularly right then. So basically you hear
Speaker 6: Jocko sounding good on that record, and then kind of
Speaker 6: off in the distance heied, and that's me. But yeah,
Speaker 6: So that was nineteen seventy four, and then we made
Speaker 6: Bright Seize Life my record in nineteen seventy five and
Speaker 6: we played a lot. Is that that trio with Bob Moses,
Speaker 6: the Bright Size Life trio, you know, And that's so
Speaker 6: that's several years before the Jony thing. And in the meantime,
Speaker 6: so after Bryce Eie's Life, Jocko became Jocko because at
Speaker 6: the time I did Bryce Eie's Life, I had to like,
Speaker 6: why would you want to use so and so and
Speaker 6: so and so when you've got this what's that bass
Speaker 6: player's name that you use? I was like, yeah, Gary,
Speaker 6: you're probably right we should do and Moses was like,
Speaker 6: you're crazy if you don't use Jocko, you know. So
Speaker 6: that was the band for Bryceie's Life. And then Jocko
Speaker 6: joined Weather Report shortly after that, and honestly, he and
Speaker 6: I went in very, very different directions in terms of lifestyle.
Speaker 6: Jocko was the only guy I'd ever known, you know,
Speaker 6: kind of around that time who was as straight as
Speaker 6: I was. And you know, the first time I saw
Speaker 6: him with Joe's Amnell, that was a different dude. And
Speaker 6: he remained a different dude, and we were always tight,
Speaker 6: and you know, I had gone different directions, but he
Speaker 6: called me in the middle of the night one night
Speaker 6: and said, I'm going to put together a string band
Speaker 6: for Jonie. I want you to be in it. I'm like, okay, cool,
Speaker 6: And so it was going to be me and Joni
Speaker 6: and Jocko and Alex Akunya playing hand percussion, I think,
Speaker 6: and then I you know, I saw I'm like, wow,
Speaker 6: this is a different level because at that point I
Speaker 6: was still like driving around in the van. I put
Speaker 6: like one hundred and fifty thousand miles or something on
Speaker 6: a van with my band where we would play, you know,
Speaker 6: every two hundred dollars gig. We could play for three
Speaker 6: years in there. And so suddenly it's like lear Jets
Speaker 6: and you know, it's a real culture shock, you know,
Speaker 6: for me. But you know, it was an interesting experience.
Speaker 6: The rest of the band was Mike Brecker uh and
Speaker 6: Don Olias and then you know, Joni had just gotten
Speaker 6: an electric guitar for the first time and had like
Speaker 6: nine George Benson model and the guitars all tuned different
Speaker 6: and it was you know, it was an interesting experience. Okay,
Speaker 6: the best part was here in Joni at the end
Speaker 6: when she would do a couple tunes solo, because honestly,
Speaker 6: to me, you know, we it did you know, she
Speaker 6: didn't need that, you know, she was she was Joni,
Speaker 6: you know. And and to me, her best thing was
Speaker 6: always sitting there and playing the guitar or the piano
Speaker 6: or whatever.
Speaker 3: You know, So you didn't like her for a raison
Speaker 3: to the jazz world that you know, like the stuff
Speaker 3: she did with me.
Speaker 6: In terms of phrasing, she's she's incredible, man, you know,
Speaker 6: I mean to me, there there are you know again
Speaker 6: we're back to this. How like what are we going
Speaker 6: to talk about in terms of style? You know? I mean, man,
Speaker 6: you know there are some singers like there's some I mean,
Speaker 6: Dolly Pardon man, I mean you want to talk about phrasing,
Speaker 6: or Dion Warwick or you know. I mean to me,
Speaker 6: it's like yeah, and and Billy Holliday. You know, there's
Speaker 6: a Karen Carpenter. You know. To me that I think
Speaker 6: about people who can really make the melody be the malady,
Speaker 6: you know, And I'm not thinking, oh, well, now she's
Speaker 6: she's folk, jazz, country. You know, it's just music, you know,
Speaker 6: and you know, singers in general. I think we all
Speaker 6: listen to to learn from how to how to do
Speaker 6: that that thing, you know, and Johnny is amazing, you know,
Speaker 6: she's incredible.
Speaker 8: I want to ask you about just your working relationship
Speaker 8: with Alau Mays, you know, who passed, you know, recently.
Speaker 8: He was just somebody that you know, you just seem
Speaker 8: to have just an amazing creative partnership with. Uh, how
Speaker 8: did you guys meet and what was what's your story
Speaker 8: with him?
Speaker 6: Man, it's tough now because it's like, God, there's he said,
Speaker 6: there's Lyle, and there's Charlie, Mike Brecker, you know, Billy Higgins,
Speaker 6: I mentioned, Dewey Redman. I mean, man, these are the guys.
Speaker 6: I mean, not only did we live this musical life
Speaker 6: together and each one is so deep and rich and
Speaker 6: very they were like I mean, man, Lyle and I
Speaker 6: grew up together literally, I mean, you know, we knew
Speaker 6: each other when we were you know, basically just out
Speaker 6: of being teenagers. And you know, it's just so far
Speaker 6: beyond what I can even say, you know. I mean,
Speaker 6: the good thing is that there's those records, and those
Speaker 6: records say a lot, you know, and yeah, it's tough man.
Speaker 6: And then I think about like Roy Haynes, who's ninety.
Speaker 9: So that's what I was about to ask you about,
Speaker 9: because I was given the assignment by my father, who's
Speaker 9: a student of Roy Haynes, to ask you about that relationship.
Speaker 9: And you already said earlier that you were listening to
Speaker 9: Roy when you were a young kid. So the fact
Speaker 9: that you guys did a record together, like, can you yeah,
Speaker 9: talk about it?
Speaker 6: Please? Man, I could talk about Roy for the whole time.
Speaker 3: To me that you know, he's still good, he's still amazing,
Speaker 3: he's still killing.
Speaker 6: He's killing and yeah, I mean it's been now, I
Speaker 6: think a couple of years since I usually try to
Speaker 6: go down during his birthday and play at the Blue
Speaker 6: Note with him. I think the last time I did it,
Speaker 6: he had turned ninety three, so he must be ninety
Speaker 6: five or something. It's still playing. Oh my man. You
Speaker 6: know to me that the drum thing is central and
Speaker 6: drummers love to hear me say this, but it's the truth.
Speaker 6: Whoever the drummer is is the leader. It doesn't matter
Speaker 6: whose name is on the marquee. It's the drummer's band.
Speaker 6: And I have been so lucky to play starting in
Speaker 6: Kansas City with some of the greatest drummers of this
Speaker 6: period of time. And you know, to me, the Roy
Speaker 6: thing as it sort of unfolded throughout the fifties, I
Speaker 6: always point to We three this it's a famous record
Speaker 6: with Roy and Phineas Newborn and Paul Chambers. To me
Speaker 6: that one, You know, the sound of Roy is the
Speaker 6: sound of modern drumming. I mean, to this day when
Speaker 6: I play with Roy, that's it. That's it, that's that's
Speaker 6: in a cole of everything.
Speaker 4: You just listen to this.
Speaker 6: This is great.
Speaker 4: Yeah, let me let me ask for you.
Speaker 3: And I know this might be blasphemous, being as though
Speaker 3: you know you've done sort of long term work with
Speaker 3: with your band well In and now the Pat mctheny group,
Speaker 3: But who would be kind of your all star lineup?
Speaker 3: Like if I were to sign you and say, okay,
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty two, you're going to go out and
Speaker 3: tour the world. You get to put your all star
Speaker 3: lineup together. Who's on drums, who's on keys, Who's who's
Speaker 3: uh on bass, who's on percussion?
Speaker 6: You know? I mean, honestly, I know that my thing
Speaker 6: is kind of there's like these partisan things like, oh well,
Speaker 6: you know, it's really man, it's just the group. You
Speaker 6: got to check out the group, so that other stuff,
Speaker 6: you know, that's really the only cool stuff all areas now.
Speaker 6: Or you got to check out the tree, you know.
Speaker 6: I mean, the thing from my standpoint is that it's
Speaker 6: not divided, and I have to take some responsibility for
Speaker 6: that because I kind of got maybe too good at
Speaker 6: sort of like, Okay, this is the Patmatheni group, and
Speaker 6: this is the Patmathini Trio, and this is it. And
Speaker 6: you know, people didn't do that back then. You know,
Speaker 6: that was kind of a new thing to have all
Speaker 6: these different bands and sort of present yourselves in different ways.
Speaker 6: For me, they're all the Pat Metheny group because they
Speaker 6: all acted the same way. It was. You know, I'm
Speaker 6: going to write ninety percent of the notes we're gonna play,
Speaker 6: and we're gonna rehearse and we're gonna you know, it's
Speaker 6: like it didn't really matter if you look and this
Speaker 6: is a cop out answer to your exact question, if
Speaker 6: you look at the list of names of people that
Speaker 6: I have played with, those are my favorite musicians. And
Speaker 6: you know, but I include in that Kenny Garrett, Josh Redman,
Speaker 6: you know, Mike Brecker, you know those guys, Herbie. You know,
Speaker 6: I've been really lucky to be able to say. You know, man,
Speaker 6: I you know, I just did a due ad tour
Speaker 6: with Ron Carter. Man. I mean it's like, you know,
Speaker 6: you know, those guys are my heroes, man, and everybody
Speaker 6: I play with, including the new cast. Joe Dyson is
Speaker 6: my hero right now. You know, he's a new drummer
Speaker 6: on the scene from New Orleans. Man, this guy is
Speaker 6: everything I'm talking about, you know, So you know it's
Speaker 6: like to me, to me, it's one, you know, my thing.
Speaker 6: I see it as one thing, and you know, I'm
Speaker 6: just glad to be a part of all of it. Man,
Speaker 6: I just feel lucky to be in it, you know.
Speaker 4: Only because you mentioned it, I kind of have to
Speaker 4: go there. Okay. So I don't even know if you're
Speaker 4: aware that.
Speaker 5: We were.
Speaker 4: We were quasi label meets.
Speaker 3: I mean, your period of Geffen I think ended right
Speaker 3: when I started with Geffen, which instantly meant you know,
Speaker 3: that first year rating the closet was just awesome. Like
Speaker 3: you know, it's like your first ben shopping is hiding
Speaker 3: in the going in the closet of your record label
Speaker 3: and taking all the CDs.
Speaker 4: So that said, you mentioned zero tolerance for Silence.
Speaker 3: Okay, so from from my point of view, definitely coming
Speaker 3: from a standpoint of hip hop, which I think our
Speaker 3: ears are built way different than anyone else. For me,
Speaker 3: that album was is always my go to record because
Speaker 3: of your shrill noises, you know, like it's literally just
Speaker 3: an entire album of textures and solo noises that can
Speaker 3: lead to other ideas. So whereas you know, of course,
Speaker 3: you know, I guess if you're talking about your cannon
Speaker 3: for the most part, you know, maybe zero.
Speaker 4: Talents for Silence would be kind of considered.
Speaker 3: You're on the corner like an album that was immediately
Speaker 3: met with indifference and anger from the jazz guard whoever,
Speaker 3: Robert Christa Gower, whoever, the critic of the moment is.
Speaker 3: But for you though, I mean, now that decades have passed,
Speaker 3: like what is your relationship? What was your feeling with
Speaker 3: the record when you turned it in and you know,
Speaker 3: three decades after the fact, what is your your feelings
Speaker 3: on that? Because there was also speculation that you pulled
Speaker 3: to Neil Young. Neil Young also famously wanted to get
Speaker 3: off Geffen and you know, I'm giving you.
Speaker 6: That kind of I have to say I rarely get
Speaker 6: pissed off and stuff at.
Speaker 3: That because it was like, oh, they thought, you see,
Speaker 3: you heard the rumors of that.
Speaker 4: You throwaware.
Speaker 6: I mean, there was some guy who wrote something to
Speaker 6: that effect and it's some magazine and.
Speaker 3: That was only because Neil Young did it with trans
Speaker 3: and people thought, you know, like what, Neil Young's doing
Speaker 3: a craft work record. Now he's trying to get off
Speaker 3: the label, like that sort of thing. Or so, yeah,
Speaker 3: what were your feelings on its reception and time since then?
Speaker 6: You know my feelings about that well, and also have
Speaker 6: to preface it. And I don't know about you, but
Speaker 6: most it seems like many, if not most musicians never
Speaker 6: ever listen to their own records ever again after they're
Speaker 6: finally mastered, after they've heard it for six months, and
Speaker 6: have a jest about whether it should be point two
Speaker 6: dB at niney K. You know all that stuff that
Speaker 6: we all do.
Speaker 4: You know, you don't listen to see if it's aged.
Speaker 3: Well, Like, I don't like listening to my records personally,
Speaker 3: but when I'm making a new record, I will go
Speaker 3: back to the other roots records to see it is
Speaker 3: his age well or not, So yeah, maybe.
Speaker 6: I should try that sometimes. I mean no, I mean,
Speaker 6: you know, every now and then, though I do, I
Speaker 6: have to say, I hear something and I don't recognize
Speaker 6: that it's me, and usually I go, well, that sounds
Speaker 6: pretty good. Who's that. Scribe It's rare that I hear
Speaker 6: something and I go, what is that? Oh my god,
Speaker 6: that's me. So, you know, generally speaking, I would say,
Speaker 6: you know, my sense is that, like I was saying before,
Speaker 6: it's this one long story with these different chapters that
Speaker 6: represented different periods, but it's this continuous thing. But specific
Speaker 6: to what you're talking about here, I mean that that
Speaker 6: was a period for me. You know, as I've referenced
Speaker 6: a couple of times, I grew up in a kind
Speaker 6: of open spaces kind of environment. You know, there were
Speaker 6: lots of trees and then a field and then another tree.
Speaker 6: So so kind of like the idea of spaciousness was
Speaker 6: something that was built into my thing, and I carry
Speaker 6: it with me now. I mean, I've got this seventeen
Speaker 6: years of quiet that I can always go to. But
Speaker 6: my life after the time I left Missouri was like man, intense, dense,
Speaker 6: packed and it's been packed ever since. I mean, you know,
Speaker 6: I mean, I'm on the road like more than most
Speaker 6: people live in New York City, you know, international family,
Speaker 6: It's an intense life and the natural thing for me,
Speaker 6: and it maybe hit a pinnacle around that time was
Speaker 6: the record Secret Story, which was done just at the
Speaker 6: same time basically as Zero Tolerance. And the idea that
Speaker 6: I had at that moment in time was I had
Speaker 6: lots of these sort of images of things that had
Speaker 6: open canvas, and I wanted to fill up the entire canvas.
Speaker 6: Secret Story does that, and Zero Tolerance for Silence does
Speaker 6: that in a different way. And that's kind of my
Speaker 6: sense of it. There was a really great description given
Speaker 6: to me by a and around the time of those
Speaker 6: two records, and said, you know, Secret Story is like
Speaker 6: a painting and there's a river in the painting and
Speaker 6: it's beautiful. Yeah, that's right, that's the river. And that's
Speaker 6: kind of the way I see it too. I didn't
Speaker 6: know it, but yeah.
Speaker 5: She was right.
Speaker 4: I just thought about something.
Speaker 3: You know, at the time, in the first part of
Speaker 3: your career, you were on em Records as well, Yeah,
Speaker 3: which is a highly trusted label. However, you made the
Speaker 3: move to Geffen, and it's almost like I almost feel
Speaker 3: like we're in the same boat, because if you're a
Speaker 3: non rocket at often questions I got was like, why
Speaker 3: even risk it going to a label and really not
Speaker 3: built to promote you or whatnot? So what was what
Speaker 3: was the unusual choice of going to Geffen Records?
Speaker 6: Well, you know, honestly, you're right. I started on ECM.
Speaker 6: I did eleven records at ECM.
Speaker 8: Which Travels I really loved. I wanted to say Travels.
Speaker 8: I love this that album, man, beautiful record one.
Speaker 6: That I still you know, if people want one record
Speaker 6: of that era, I say get Travels because that's got
Speaker 6: a lot of information on it. But you know, after
Speaker 6: my eleven records or the ECM, they were all done
Speaker 6: in the classic form. You get two days record, a
Speaker 6: data mix. By however it came out, that's your record,
Speaker 6: and that's it. And I mean, you know, that's a
Speaker 6: viable way to make music. I mean, you know I
Speaker 6: would still make a record like that now for a
Speaker 6: certain kind of thing. You're doing a documentary, you're doing
Speaker 6: a documentary record. You're getting a bunch of guys, You've
Speaker 6: got some tunes, you're going to play him a couple
Speaker 6: of times, you're going to pick the best take, maybe
Speaker 6: do an edit. We didn't do fixes back then, maybe
Speaker 6: one or two barely, but you know, and that's it.
Speaker 6: And you know, I did my best under those, you know, auspices,
Speaker 6: and I'm to this day grateful to have had the
Speaker 6: chance to be on that label during an incredibly fertile
Speaker 6: period for that label. I mean, it was still kind
Speaker 6: of emerging. I mean I was within the first hundred
Speaker 6: ECM records.
Speaker 2: A couple of times, I think I can I interject,
Speaker 2: and I don't want to interrupt the answer to the
Speaker 2: why I go to Geffrine question, But since we're right
Speaker 2: here at ECM and I just wanted for our listeners
Speaker 2: to hear the name Manfred Iiker, so can you tell
Speaker 2: us a little bit about him. He's the owner and
Speaker 2: producer of the label and thousands of records.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, he's he's the guy that to this day,
Speaker 6: I mean, he's you know, I was in that first
Speaker 6: hundred records. I think they're up close to three thousand now,
Speaker 6: and honestly, everybody should hear about two thousand and six
Speaker 6: hundred of them.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I really know how to make records.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and he.
Speaker 6: And I, honestly we never got along. I was a
Speaker 6: snotty little kid, and I thought I knew all kinds
Speaker 6: of stuff that I probably didn't know. But you know,
Speaker 6: my snottiness ended up also being kind of a super
Speaker 6: charged engine to do a lot of stuff that probably
Speaker 6: was impossible to do that somehow I did, you know,
Speaker 6: And I'm just here, I am admitting on air that
Speaker 6: I was super snotty. Man. That's what.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much, And we're going to go back
Speaker 3: to that, yeah, exclusive, just.
Speaker 6: To finish up the gaff and thing, because ycause it is.
Speaker 6: It is kind of an interesting thing. So at the time,
Speaker 6: you know, this was nineteen eighty four, I had, you know,
Speaker 6: had you know, a kind of success that honestly, I
Speaker 6: nobody was more surprised than me that we were not
Speaker 6: selling eight hundred, nine hundred records, travels and of you know,
Speaker 6: you know, the records of that era, including New Chautauqua,
Speaker 6: you know, which was a solo guitar record. They were
Speaker 6: selling hundreds of thousands of records. They were on the
Speaker 6: pop charts, and it wasn't like I was trying to
Speaker 6: do that. The tunes were still fifteen minutes long. If
Speaker 6: just we just kind of were touring constantly, and there
Speaker 6: were radio stations around that time that would actually play
Speaker 6: twelve minute tracks mixed in with Fleetwood, Mac or whatever
Speaker 6: else was happening. I mean, there was a bunch of
Speaker 6: stuff in the culture that allowed that to happen. And
Speaker 6: so I had a certain I guess viability within the
Speaker 6: recording industry world that caused the moment that me leaving EC.
Speaker 6: I am a lot of interest amongst people, and you know,
Speaker 6: I'm very fortunate that from the very beginning, I've been
Speaker 6: with one agency, Ted Curland in Boston. We've been together
Speaker 6: I don't know, forty whatever years now, and Ted, Yeah,
Speaker 6: Ted got the message and and sort of did a
Speaker 6: thing where he got a bunch of companies interested. I
Speaker 6: was able to start my own company, which since then
Speaker 6: we've licensed to all the record companies. I owned everything
Speaker 6: from post ECM on thanks to Ted.
Speaker 4: Oh wow.
Speaker 6: And among the suitors of that period, David Geffen had
Speaker 6: just started his own company and he only had a
Speaker 6: few artists, John Lennon and you know Sharer and Jennifer Yeah.
Speaker 6: I mean, there were just a few, and hired a
Speaker 6: guy Donna. Summer he had hired Gary gersh who's a
Speaker 6: guy who I had known from the work with that
Speaker 6: I had done just prior to that with David Bowie
Speaker 6: ed Em I signed by the way, Yes, yeah exactly,
Speaker 6: and Gary came to Geffen as one of the guys.
Speaker 6: Gary sort of made a case like, you know this
Speaker 6: guy me, it's nobody knows what it is. He's got
Speaker 6: a following and you know, we should sign him. And
Speaker 6: David I said, can I meet with David Geffen? Wow?
Speaker 6: They arranged it like sure. So I had lunch with
Speaker 6: David Geffen and he was like, well, it sounds like
Speaker 6: you've got a thing going on. We'd like to have
Speaker 6: you on the label. And they never I think I
Speaker 6: ever heard that Jay were there. You know. They were
Speaker 6: just like, this is a band kind of like guns n' Roses.
Speaker 6: We signed this other band, Nirvana. This is a band
Speaker 6: kind of like that band. You know they you know,
Speaker 6: they go out and they play gigs, and they were
Speaker 6: not thinking of it as anything other than music. And
Speaker 6: I mean, you know, wow, that's far out, huh. And
Speaker 6: you know, I ended up. I think I've got two
Speaker 6: or three gold records from them from that period.
Speaker 3: I was gonna ask did you ever think of collaborating
Speaker 3: with Kim and Thurston of Sonic Youth. I know that
Speaker 3: was a big fan of yours.
Speaker 6: No, and and uh, you know, I mean it's funny because,
Speaker 6: like you say, at the record company, you know, you
Speaker 6: go to the record company and you see everybody else
Speaker 6: is on the label. And I used to see that
Speaker 6: guy from Guns N' Roses like would be leaving as
Speaker 6: I would come in, or you know. I mean, and
Speaker 6: it was cool because it's like we all had the
Speaker 6: same art director. And I remember when they were doing, uh,
Speaker 6: the Nirvana cover, the famous one, because the guy was
Speaker 6: working on one of my covers at the same time, or.
Speaker 4: That same person.
Speaker 6: I mean, you know it. It was all kind of
Speaker 6: in the house there, including Sonic Youth too. Yeah, because
Speaker 6: they were they were in there too.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I was going to say, yeah, as of today, the
Speaker 4: baby from that cover.
Speaker 7: When the baby is suing for child pronography charges on Saturday.
Speaker 4: Just just say you need ten bucks.
Speaker 11: Man, come on, come on, uh wait, okay, I do
Speaker 11: want to ask, and does anyone from my world, from
Speaker 11: the world of hip hop ever make a big deal
Speaker 11: of letters from home?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 4: Yes, without me letting it out, the bag.
Speaker 3: You mean, like musically, Yeah, see, this is the thing
Speaker 3: I don't I don't want to open up a Pandora's
Speaker 3: box because you own your masters which box, Yes, exactly.
Speaker 3: But but what I'm saying is that again, the hip
Speaker 3: hop world has a way different relationship with you than
Speaker 3: the other words. And you know, I mean that's the
Speaker 3: thing about him, because they'll look at something that the
Speaker 3: average world will ignore and then they'll be like, no,
Speaker 3: but that's the that's the thing over there. So I'm
Speaker 3: just curious, like, do any does anyone from the world
Speaker 3: of hip hop just ever come to you and.
Speaker 4: Say, like, yo, let hers from home.
Speaker 6: Specifically?
Speaker 4: No, next question anyway, you know, I gotta.
Speaker 6: Tell you, man, I'm like, you know, I don't hang much.
Speaker 6: You know, I kind of I've gotten away somehow with
Speaker 6: doing my own thing mostly, and I you know, even
Speaker 6: kind of within the circle of musicians that I would
Speaker 6: probably normally be around, right, you know, in the you know,
Speaker 6: going to Smalls or something, and I do go. Hear
Speaker 6: a lot of people and I go and I kind
Speaker 6: of stand in the back and listen to a couple
Speaker 6: of tunes and you know, but all kinds of music.
Speaker 6: But you know, I mean, I'm you know, I'm not
Speaker 6: really like in the scene. I mean, I will say
Speaker 6: because I did visit the new power station the other
Speaker 6: day now at Berkeley zoning it, and man, you know
Speaker 6: that was really cool back in those days where yeah,
Speaker 6: I would see uh, you know, you know everybody. You know, like,
Speaker 6: you know, everybody was there all the time. You'd run
Speaker 6: into like, you know, Eric Clapton, or you'd run into
Speaker 6: Nita Baker, you'd run into I mean, everybody was there
Speaker 6: recording all the time, and you'd see everybody, and it
Speaker 6: was in a way, it was kind of a social
Speaker 6: way that you would have an encounter with somebody sort
Speaker 6: of outside of your you know, normal hang but you know,
Speaker 6: I don't go to clubs or do anything like where
Speaker 6: I would be hanging out.
Speaker 8: The record that the slip Away record that was sample
Speaker 8: it was a song it's called Summer Days by its DJ,
Speaker 8: I think Nick Holder, and so actually crazy thing. I
Speaker 8: did a panel with him, this is probably I mean, god,
Speaker 8: this is seventeen years ago and we were just on
Speaker 8: a panel together and I had never heard any of
Speaker 8: his music. And then afterwards I heard Summer Days and
Speaker 8: I was like, man, this is great. I want to say,
Speaker 8: maybe like a year after that, chilling another one. My
Speaker 8: Homi's a big jazz head, and he was like, yo,
Speaker 8: that's so, and so I was like what and then
Speaker 8: he put me on to your break. I was like, oh,
Speaker 8: that's that was thing. Like, I had no clue, but
Speaker 8: that was a bridge to, you know, to the rest
Speaker 8: of that album, to the I.
Speaker 6: Mean, my fundamental kind of feeling about sampling and the
Speaker 6: way that not just my thing, but kind of records
Speaker 6: in general are used in that realm is very positive.
Speaker 6: I mean to me, it's really related to collage art
Speaker 6: and you know, of course graffiti and all of that stuff,
Speaker 6: which means, you know, that's the language of this moment.
Speaker 6: And so to me it's like I have absolutely no
Speaker 6: problem with it, and I love people do stuff, create creatively.
Speaker 6: But to me, that was just like, man, that's you're.
Speaker 3: Just The thing is is that you know, people don't
Speaker 3: understand like hip hop is at its core, hip hop
Speaker 3: is African music, and African music is repetitive. It's it's
Speaker 3: always a repetition of you know, and I know that
Speaker 3: you come from a world where you got to go
Speaker 3: linear and go in a straight line, like to.
Speaker 4: Somewhere else, somewhere else.
Speaker 3: So I initially asked that question if you were aware
Speaker 3: of how much that particular album, let Us from Home
Speaker 3: At sort of been a kind of a creative outlet
Speaker 3: for like a lot of the classic hip hop stuff
Speaker 3: that I grew up on, only because I know that
Speaker 3: you were also like very open and a key developer
Speaker 3: in like new technology, like with the cinclavier and with
Speaker 3: sampling and and with you know, especially when you start
Speaker 3: at your falcon and Snowman scoring stuff, how you were
Speaker 3: basically kind of using primitive technology that we're using now,
Speaker 3: Like you know, now half the stuff is on our laptop.
Speaker 3: Were you actively advising the Cynclavia people on how to
Speaker 3: build the machine or were you just the first recipient
Speaker 3: to get it and use it?
Speaker 6: And well, we're going back actually seventy nine for that.
Speaker 4: Oh that's how early. Okay, it was.
Speaker 6: Way before maybe, And yeah, I was out there on
Speaker 6: the bleeding edge of that end. I mean, you know,
Speaker 6: there's all kinds of like sort of shocking you know,
Speaker 6: technological aspects to you know, I mean I remember at
Speaker 6: one point spending five thousand dollars to get a five
Speaker 6: megabyte hard drive five may not gig and we it was.
Speaker 3: It was a megabyte, not even a gig now thousand
Speaker 3: dollars a megabyte.
Speaker 12: It was.
Speaker 6: Maybe yeah, yep, exactly. And not only that, it was
Speaker 6: so fragile it had to have its own bunk on
Speaker 6: the bus.
Speaker 5: Oh wow.
Speaker 6: And I mean you use it live, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 6: you know, it's a funny thing because now, of course
Speaker 6: everybody does all kinds of stuff now. So when the
Speaker 6: sing Leavier came out, their ad was this is the
Speaker 6: last synthesizer you'll ever need to buy and uh, and
Speaker 6: it had several new things that just had not existed before.
Speaker 6: One was FM synthesis, which this is several years before
Speaker 6: the dread of d X seven came along. And then
Speaker 6: they were the they were you didn't like the patches,
Speaker 6: well you know they probably weren't that patches it, So
Speaker 6: just be honest.
Speaker 3: In eighty five, were you looking at like, yo, d
Speaker 3: X seven, Man, this is the future?
Speaker 4: Or do you automatically knew it was cheesy?
Speaker 6: No? I knew, man. I mean we can also talk
Speaker 6: about since for hours because I have very strong opinions
Speaker 6: that one. But you know, man, I mean, you know
Speaker 6: the thing about acoustic instruments, you can't make them hurt you,
Speaker 6: you know, and electric instruments, including guitar, their default is pain.
Speaker 6: You know. It's like you really have to have a
Speaker 6: concept and a vision of sound before you plug it
Speaker 6: in with those instruments because their default is just horrible.
Speaker 6: And also, you know, speakers, we we all think about
Speaker 6: speak and we just we don't even think about speakers anymore.
Speaker 6: Of course, it's gonna come out of a speaker. I mean, man,
Speaker 6: speakers suck, you know, compared to a drum or a guitar,
Speaker 6: I mean, speaker, I don't care if it's the best
Speaker 6: speaker in the world. They're horrible. So it's like you
Speaker 6: have to have an accoustick framework to build electric music
Speaker 6: from in my opinion, and I mean my first act
Speaker 6: was to plug it in. You know, I've been dealing
Speaker 6: with knobs and wires and electricity from day one. That's
Speaker 6: part of the instrument. So all of this stuff, computers
Speaker 6: and everything else, for me, that's part of the acts.
Speaker 6: A big thing for me has always been to get
Speaker 6: a good sound and to you know, make it do
Speaker 6: at least something that has a reflection in terms of
Speaker 6: orchestration to this incredible tradition of you know, dietonic chromatic
Speaker 6: music that's evolved over the last few hundred years, and
Speaker 6: you know kind of also included in that. I would say, yeah,
Speaker 6: there can be abstraction, there can be conflict, there can
Speaker 6: be dissonance, there can be all kinds of other stuff.
Speaker 6: But to me, there it requires a certain kind of
Speaker 6: wisdom to make those things really happen. So back to
Speaker 6: the sinclavier. One of the things that it had was
Speaker 6: a sequence there that had never existed commercially before, so
Speaker 6: I could get this thing to play parts that we
Speaker 6: could play with. And I mean, man, that was like
Speaker 6: top secret for twenty years. It's like, you know, we
Speaker 6: would hide the single of ear and nobody really knew
Speaker 6: what we were doing or how it was working and
Speaker 6: what was going on. And we kind of successfully managed
Speaker 6: to do that. But I never had a loop. It
Speaker 6: was always something transparent. I was like writing for Cello's,
Speaker 6: writing for French ones, and there was always this thing
Speaker 6: in there. And we almost never had a clique either.
Speaker 6: It was always some music. Yeah, it was always something
Speaker 6: musical that you could you could work yourself into so
Speaker 6: that you could get the feel in between the thing
Speaker 6: because to me, that's where the music is too, is
Speaker 6: the feel of it. But to me, it's like, if
Speaker 6: there's gonna be a clique, I wanted to rush, you know,
Speaker 6: because all the musicians I love rush. So if there's
Speaker 6: going to be a clip, man, I spend hours with
Speaker 6: the drummer, like working on making it rush and rushing
Speaker 6: we would. I did rushing And some of that probably
Speaker 6: comes from four and More being my first record, because
Speaker 6: they rushing crazy on that. But you know, to me,
Speaker 6: those things it's like tech to me should be in
Speaker 6: the service of the music. I never relinquish anything to
Speaker 6: the tech. I'm always like, come on, man, you know.
Speaker 6: And that goes for the manufacturers too. It's like I'm
Speaker 6: always saying, couldn't you know what if you know that
Speaker 6: kind of stuff? But tempo dynamics and I mean, you know,
Speaker 6: the fact that we're still living with MIDI now is
Speaker 6: just a nightmare, man. I mean that that sucked in
Speaker 6: nineteen eighty five, you know, And so for now it's
Speaker 6: like I know, you know James because I know he
Speaker 6: works with you, but I mean he brings in these
Speaker 6: like quirgs from nineteen eighty five and I'm like, no, no,
Speaker 6: I suffered through that shit back then. Man, But you
Speaker 6: know what, he knows what he's doing, so he can
Speaker 6: do whatever he wants. But yeah, I mean stuff kind
Speaker 6: of was you know, it didn't work that well back then,
Speaker 6: you know, I mean, yeah, you know.
Speaker 3: How would you because he was so early to adapt
Speaker 3: to that sort of technology in your live show, how
Speaker 3: would you adjust if there were any faux paths or.
Speaker 5: You know, you louse?
Speaker 3: Okay, we lost half the you know, half the programming
Speaker 3: for blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 6: They own may not know that. A few years ago
Speaker 6: I did an entire project with me and a whole
Speaker 6: bunch of robots. Are you hip to the orchestra on?
Speaker 6: You know, I kind of ragged on speakers a little
Speaker 6: while ago, but actually that kind of got cracked back
Speaker 6: in in early nineteen twenties. Player pianos output device, not
Speaker 6: a speaker, the composers in the room. But he's not
Speaker 6: in the room. You're hearing an acoustic sound. I mean, man,
Speaker 6: there it is. And of course, not long after that,
Speaker 6: somebody came along with wire recordings. Then seventy eights. It's
Speaker 6: like you know that put the player piano guys out
Speaker 6: of business. So for their last gasp, they are like, okay,
Speaker 6: we need to like, let's attach some drum, snare drum
Speaker 6: and some symbols and a xylophone to the player piano.
Speaker 6: And then people did that, and so they did that,
Speaker 6: and you still hear them in pizza parlors every now
Speaker 6: and then, you know where it's like that does yep,
Speaker 6: And those were the first orchestrions. And the thing about
Speaker 6: those instruments you can't listen for more than about thirty
Speaker 6: seconds before you want to kill yourself because they have
Speaker 6: no dynamics. It's just like if somebody talks like this
Speaker 6: all the time, you cannot listen to them because and
Speaker 6: music that doesn't have dynamics, nobody can listen to that.
Speaker 6: And that's that was the real downfall of that tech
Speaker 6: so flat. You know, fast forward seventy years, Yamaha comes
Speaker 6: along with the disclavier, which we all know as you know,
Speaker 6: playing girl from Eanma how to tune in hotel lobbies.
Speaker 6: Only you would say it amazing technology. And that's sol
Speaker 6: annoys which do allow dynamics. And I've followed this stuff
Speaker 6: all along. It's something I've been interested in, you know, basically,
Speaker 6: midy to control voltage that can hit something or do something.
Speaker 6: And so I put together a bunch of instruments from
Speaker 6: five really great inventors, none of them really knew each other,
Speaker 6: and went out and did a whole tour, me on
Speaker 6: a bunch of robots, proving once and for all just
Speaker 6: how weird I actually am. It was. You know, it
Speaker 6: was not quite settled science before that, but that did it.
Speaker 6: You want to talk about, you know, the potential for
Speaker 6: train wrecks.
Speaker 4: Wait, were you the only human on stage?
Speaker 6: I was the only human on stage, and check it out.
Speaker 6: You know. The thing is I made a record which
Speaker 6: you know was not really understood because you couldn't see it.
Speaker 6: But at the very end of the tour, because I
Speaker 6: did one hundred and some concerts around the world with this,
Speaker 6: at the end of the tour, we filmed it and
Speaker 6: you can find it online the orchestre On project, and
Speaker 6: you can see what was going on. And honestly, it's
Speaker 6: ten years now or more twelve years since I did it.
Speaker 6: I can't believe nobody else is doing it. I was like, man,
Speaker 6: you know this is gonna this is going to be
Speaker 6: the thing, but my thing, because there is one of
Speaker 6: these inventors that I've continued to work with, and the
Speaker 6: issue is dynamics, because when you hit your snare man,
Speaker 6: the you know, the amount of you know, what goes
Speaker 6: into that in terms of like pounds per square inch
Speaker 6: is like way more than any solonoid that existed then
Speaker 6: for sure. So now that this one guy who's a
Speaker 6: Belgian guy has come up with a really powerful solenoid
Speaker 6: that if you put your hand down there, it would
Speaker 6: break your hand. Until we can present it to you
Speaker 6: or jay Z or somebody in an acoustic space doing
Speaker 6: the thing that it's supposed to do, we don't have anything.
Speaker 6: But I don't know if you've ever been to Carnival
Speaker 6: in Brazil where it's like acoustic but loud, louder than
Speaker 6: Metallica that.
Speaker 3: Because they're a billion people playing also the same thing exactly.
Speaker 6: But also just the amount of air that gets moved acoustically,
Speaker 6: you know, and you're right, it's coming from not single
Speaker 6: instruments but like a multiple of But imagine what that
Speaker 6: could be if you like, instead of you know, using
Speaker 6: a drum machine and instead of it being like, you know,
Speaker 6: something coming through your crappy little speakers, you're like in
Speaker 6: a where house with like seventeen bass drums getting hit
Speaker 6: harder than you can even imagine to make a sound
Speaker 6: and have it happen. This is the other issue with
Speaker 6: all this stuff is latency because of the amount of
Speaker 6: time from the time you hit a pad or whatever
Speaker 6: till the time it takes it to turn into you know,
Speaker 6: unfortunately midy one point zero to then the ce you know,
Speaker 6: control voltage aspect of it to the mechanism can be
Speaker 6: you know, four or five milliseconds, which in terms of
Speaker 6: groove we know is love stub milliseconds. And so that
Speaker 6: issue also I think, you know, with five G kind
Speaker 6: of stuff, and you know, we're on the cusp of
Speaker 6: a whole bunch of possibilities for musicians with this next
Speaker 6: step in tech that's going to be really great.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 3: Okay, so you're are you saying that you are currently
Speaker 3: trying to improve on a robot's ability to actually have
Speaker 3: human feel and can pre program dynamics, so like Snare
Speaker 3: one might be seventy seven, but Snare two might be
Speaker 3: forty five, and and can do grace notes and can
Speaker 3: fluctuate and speed and slow down.
Speaker 6: But but okay, so but wait, let me let me
Speaker 6: respond to that, because you know, I mean when the
Speaker 6: sink lavier came out, you know, string plers, this is
Speaker 6: going to put us out of business. You know, it's
Speaker 6: like you know, a d X seven. You can't tell
Speaker 6: the difference between this and offend your roads.
Speaker 4: It's like, yeah, uk, are you kidding?
Speaker 6: You know? No, no, you know, to me, I'm about
Speaker 6: both and I'm not about either or and the whole
Speaker 6: thing about you know, the like when I did the
Speaker 6: orchestra on project, of course, people are like, you're trying
Speaker 6: to put me the you know, you know all that stuff.
Speaker 6: It's like, no, no, if this is not a better
Speaker 6: way to do anything, this is a different way to
Speaker 6: do something. And I'm all about like, you know, what
Speaker 6: else can we do? I mean, you know, to me,
Speaker 6: like again going back to hip hop, jazz, classical folk.
Speaker 6: You know, what I'm into is creativity. And you know
Speaker 6: that's what I like is you know, like man, I
Speaker 6: think about the Beatles. It's like God, you know, man,
Speaker 6: some you know, some artists are like happy if they
Speaker 6: if each record's got a sound. I mean those guys
Speaker 6: every track had a completely different sound. I mean, you know,
Speaker 6: it's like God, I wish you know, I mean, you
Speaker 6: know the community that I kind of hang in like
Speaker 6: we're so creative. I mean, man, how many more trumpet
Speaker 6: tenor piano based drum records you know are there going
Speaker 6: to be? And I did, I did two and four.
Speaker 6: But I mean, come on, let's you know what I mean?
Speaker 6: If you think of all the spectrum of all possible
Speaker 6: music that there could be made by humans, and then
Speaker 6: you think about this tiny sliver that most music now
Speaker 6: in habits, it's like why.
Speaker 3: Well, let me let me ask is there a challenge
Speaker 3: that that you have yet to meet?
Speaker 4: And I guess the B side of that question would
Speaker 4: be have you how do you? How do you get?
Speaker 4: How do you navigate in a situation?
Speaker 6: Uh?
Speaker 3: When you're doing improvisation in which I guess improvisation is.
Speaker 4: Only good as your collaborators, and your.
Speaker 3: Collaborators is really is only strong as who your weakest contributor. Well,
Speaker 3: I don't want to say weakest, like, but how do you? Okay,
Speaker 3: let me just ask that question. One is is there
Speaker 3: a challenge that you have dreamt about that you've yet
Speaker 3: to achieve? And how do you navigate a situation in
Speaker 3: which you might be improvised with less skillful musicians. I
Speaker 3: don't know if you know, if you sit in a
Speaker 3: local bar one night with the musician. I don't mean
Speaker 3: like the guys that you actively tour with, but.
Speaker 6: I mean men. You know. For me, you know, it's
Speaker 6: the It's again, it's one of those cliches, the onion
Speaker 6: thing of every new step that you take as a musician,
Speaker 6: you reveal a thousand other things. It's like, God, you know,
Speaker 6: I really need to work on that and that and that.
Speaker 6: So it's really infinite for me. I mean in terms
Speaker 6: of God, what do I need to get better at everything?
Speaker 6: You know? I mean, it's just I mean one thing
Speaker 6: I will say though, So when I started making records,
Speaker 6: I've only been a musician for four or five years,
Speaker 6: and I mean now it's fifty some years, and you know,
Speaker 6: I'm God, I'm like so much better now than I
Speaker 6: used to be. It's which makes it so much more fun.
Speaker 6: I understand so much more. And you know, remember when
Speaker 6: we first started talking, that was kind of the goal
Speaker 6: for me, and it's still the goal for me. I
Speaker 6: just want to understand, like what is that? And when
Speaker 6: I hear some music that I really love, I want
Speaker 6: to know, like, Okay, how does that work? And once
Speaker 6: I start doing that, usually I get to the point
Speaker 6: where I can kind of play in that realm and
Speaker 6: you know, and that that opens up another thousand doors,
Speaker 6: you know. But I feel like I always am coming
Speaker 6: to music as a fan first. You know, I'm like,
Speaker 6: I love music, you know, the same way I love
Speaker 6: that Models record. You know, I hear stuff all the
Speaker 6: time and I go, I love that? What is that?
Speaker 6: And I want to know what it is? And also
Speaker 6: why do I love that so much? What is it
Speaker 6: about that that really makes me dig it that much? Okay,
Speaker 6: I'm going to give you a weird off though. All example,
Speaker 6: So the big hit right now, that young girl Olivia
Speaker 6: Yes and her tunes right, her tune? And I mean
Speaker 6: because I have three kids, so I hear the hits
Speaker 6: all the time, and you know I did hear in
Speaker 6: the hits, but you know that structurally that tune does
Speaker 6: a thing.
Speaker 4: So it's like, you know, to do don't give it
Speaker 4: that much more power?
Speaker 5: Now I'm playing.
Speaker 6: Again. I don't know anything about the culture. I don't
Speaker 6: know anything about.
Speaker 4: Her no no, no, no, no, summer you.
Speaker 6: Know, doing that thing. And also it's something that happens
Speaker 6: a lot in right at the moment, the thing where
Speaker 6: it's kind of fast, but it's also halftime, but it's
Speaker 6: also double time, you know, which is a cool thing.
Speaker 6: I mean there's like some you know, swing versions of
Speaker 6: that too, you know. I mean that's a great thing.
Speaker 4: And there you have it, Pat Metheny, I.
Speaker 6: Mean that that just popped into my mind. But you know,
Speaker 6: in terms of orchestration, dynamics, build execution, and then particularly communication,
Speaker 6: I mean, it does the thing right, and you know,
Speaker 6: maybe that's lost in a lot of this discussion. It's
Speaker 6: like all the stuff you know about rhythm and harmony.
Speaker 6: Melody is kind of a mystery zone. But rhythm and harmony, man,
Speaker 6: you can talk about that stuff. You can go to
Speaker 6: college for four years on rhythm and harmony. Easy.
Speaker 5: Pat, you were talking about your kids. How old are
Speaker 5: you kids? Man?
Speaker 6: They're twenty two, twenty and twelve.
Speaker 5: Oh okay, that's Olivia, got it.
Speaker 6: That's what I was gonna say.
Speaker 4: What with their music and matriculation?
Speaker 9: Like, like, how how do you wish your relationship with
Speaker 9: them musically?
Speaker 6: Seems like it goes like either full in or like
Speaker 6: don't bug us with the music thing? Dad, they're more
Speaker 6: in the second category, although all three of them could
Speaker 6: be musicians. They're all kind of mind blowingly good years
Speaker 6: and so forth. Taste wise, man, they're all over the place.
Speaker 6: You know, my middle kid, Jeff, who's like super hip.
Speaker 6: He's six ' four. He's mostly into basketball, but he
Speaker 6: started playing acoustic bass. And I mean he's been around
Speaker 6: Christian and Charlie Hayden and all these cats since he
Speaker 6: was born. And I mean he's just got a natural
Speaker 6: easy walk and feel. But the notes are kind of like,
Speaker 6: you know, kind of you know, not I don't want
Speaker 6: to say random, but but you know, the feel wins.
Speaker 6: Actually it's like, you know, with that feel, it's like
Speaker 6: just fill in some lengths. But he's just kind of like, yeah,
Speaker 6: I think I'm gonna go practice free throws instead.
Speaker 3: So it's never a thing when you forced the kids
Speaker 3: to like pick up the mantel and you're going to
Speaker 3: join the family business and okay, yeah, no.
Speaker 6: I wouldn't be like that. You know, I don't see.
Speaker 6: And also, you know what, man, being it like I
Speaker 6: said earlier, I mean, I'm so happy to be a musician.
Speaker 6: You know, it's like we actually get to deal in
Speaker 6: a currency. That's true. You know, it's like be flat.
Speaker 6: It's always b flat, no matter what else is going on.
Speaker 6: It's either of it.
Speaker 5: Is in every language. Is the same thing.
Speaker 4: You never know, feel good.
Speaker 3: You know, we live in a time where facts are debatable,
Speaker 3: so you know, but be flat.
Speaker 4: It's always be flat. Steve, Before I close, did you
Speaker 4: have a question?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you were also on other great labels, Warner Brothers,
Speaker 2: none such. But the two albums you put out this
Speaker 2: year in twenty twenty one are on Modern Recordings.
Speaker 4: Is that your label?
Speaker 2: And can you tell us a little bit about those
Speaker 2: two records?
Speaker 6: Yeah? So my label was formed in nineteen eighty four,
Speaker 6: which is Metheny Group Productions, and from that time until now,
Speaker 6: at various points along the way, I have made licensing
Speaker 6: deals with several different companies which were then sold to
Speaker 6: other companies on a couple occasions, which were then distributed
Speaker 6: by other companies. But throughout it all, I've always had
Speaker 6: my own thing. I do what I want to do,
Speaker 6: and everybody that I have worked with along the way
Speaker 6: has been great. My thing has been my own thing
Speaker 6: since I left UCM, and it's just been a matter
Speaker 6: of getting different distributions. These guys. Uh, you know, it's
Speaker 6: part of BMG, this modern recordings thing, you know, for
Speaker 6: the first time in a really long time. Because actually
Speaker 6: when I went to Geffen, Geffen was distributed by Warners.
Speaker 6: I mean, it doesn't matter, it's really complicated. Then Warners
Speaker 6: and Geffen got into a fight because of me. I
Speaker 6: was like this speck of dust on a pond at
Speaker 6: the bottom of that. Somehow when they broke up their
Speaker 6: distribution thing, you know, and Warners had invested a lot
Speaker 6: in me and my band distributing with Geffen into so anyway,
Speaker 6: I wound up on Warners. Then Warners had a thing.
Speaker 6: It was kind of a little different than at Geffen,
Speaker 6: where they really left me completely alone. Warners I kind
Speaker 6: of did have to you know, and was around a
Speaker 6: really good guy there, Matt Pearson, who was very a
Speaker 6: really great enthusiastic supporter of my thing. And then at
Speaker 6: a certain point they shut that down and then None
Speaker 6: Such took over what was left of that. And actually
Speaker 6: the guy that ran None Such at that time was
Speaker 6: a guy that I he started at ECM when I
Speaker 6: did Bob Hurwitz. So it's been all these guys. I've
Speaker 6: known all these guys along the way, and it's been
Speaker 6: great with all of them. Finally, you know, I had
Speaker 6: this record deal that had been put in place I
Speaker 6: think in nineteen ninety two for I mean, it's insane.
Speaker 6: And then it kind of got to the end after
Speaker 6: all these years, and I did a lot of records
Speaker 6: off the lay off the contract and stuff in between,
Speaker 6: and you know, whatever, it's all just whatever that stuff was.
Speaker 6: But finally, for the first time, I was kind of like, okay,
Speaker 6: I can it's now twelve. Was going to school and
Speaker 6: a new kid came into the class from Germany and
Speaker 6: he was this big monster fan and he came to
Speaker 6: my house and sat down with a guitar and started
Speaker 6: playing all the tunes.
Speaker 4: And I was like, wow, just showed up, like he
Speaker 4: was invited over.
Speaker 6: Oh shoot yeah. And then he said, and we're you know,
Speaker 6: I'm part of BMG and we're starting this new thing.
Speaker 6: Would you would you possibly be interested? And I was like, well, yeah,
Speaker 6: I mean why not. So now they're distributing, and I
Speaker 6: mean it's distributed I think by Warreners kid. I don't know,
Speaker 6: you know, for me, especially at this point, the whole
Speaker 6: idea of records and all that, it's a little hard
Speaker 6: to even know what's going on. I mean, you know,
Speaker 6: it's a different world in a lot of ways. But
Speaker 6: on the other hand, I'm kind of like a guy
Speaker 6: that I do believe in the sort of structure of
Speaker 6: what an album is. I think there's something to be
Speaker 6: said kind of like a novel is different than a tweet,
Speaker 6: you know. Cool, No, I mean, the novel form is
Speaker 6: a really great form, even short stories, you know, collection
Speaker 6: of short stories is a really nice form, And you know,
Speaker 6: I kind of relate to that in ways that doing
Speaker 6: one tune at a time. You know, maybe at some
Speaker 6: point I don't have anything against it, but I'm still like,
Speaker 6: you know, I've got so many projects in mind, many
Speaker 6: of which I've already even done, that are kind of
Speaker 6: album type records.
Speaker 4: So yeah, wait, do you have another question? Yeah, can
Speaker 4: we interview interview you forever?
Speaker 6: Please answers you can see for my answers that could
Speaker 6: actually be possible. On and on and on. Everybody in
Speaker 6: the house is like, this.
Speaker 3: Show actually lives up to the idea of what I
Speaker 3: would like to think every episode of Quest Love Supreme is.
Speaker 3: I mean, I love I love the education that we're
Speaker 3: getting and the knowledge, like this is this is very important.
Speaker 4: All right, I got one last question.
Speaker 6: Well, I got a bunch of questions for you too,
Speaker 6: because I want to get those in, So.
Speaker 4: Go ahead, he ask away. Wait, no, I was about
Speaker 4: to wrap up up.
Speaker 6: To this question, your last one, and then I'll start
Speaker 6: asking you.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 3: I heard that in an interview once on w bg
Speaker 3: O where you said that you I'm sorry Jersey, New
Speaker 3: York w bg OH famous jazz station of New York,
Speaker 3: that you keep a diary or journal of all the
Speaker 3: shows that you do. How long have you been keeping
Speaker 3: a journal of these shows and how in depth are
Speaker 3: they and do you ever plan on releasing this as
Speaker 3: a memoir to your illustrious career.
Speaker 6: Well, the first thing I would say to that is
Speaker 6: something I've been saying on occasion, which is, you know,
Speaker 6: the line between like full blown mental illness and like
Speaker 6: compulsive productivity is a very fine one that I do
Speaker 6: my best to stay on the right side of. And
Speaker 6: you know my reasons for that, it's been I've been
Speaker 6: doing it since the nineteen eighty one is that I
Speaker 6: was doing a lot of gigs, and you know, back
Speaker 6: in those days, it was quite common when you would
Speaker 6: do a tour. You would play the same city two
Speaker 6: or three times on the tour, and so I was like,
Speaker 6: I want to keep track of what we played so
Speaker 6: that when we come back the next time, play a
Speaker 6: different set or I put it in a different order.
Speaker 6: So that started it. It was kind of a pragmatic thing.
Speaker 6: And then I started to realize, like, okay, and also
Speaker 6: every time we would go to that hall there was
Speaker 6: like a really nasty buzz, so it's like, you know,
Speaker 6: I started to keep track of that stuff too. And
Speaker 6: every time we would go work with that promoter, he
Speaker 6: you know, would would not do this, or he had
Speaker 6: a crappy sound system or whatever it was. Back in
Speaker 6: those days, I was the tour manager, you know, I
Speaker 6: was everything, you know, and you know, having that reference thing,
Speaker 6: then I could at least call ahead to the right
Speaker 6: kind of whatever, you know, so you know, with stuff
Speaker 6: like that. But then it then I realized too that
Speaker 6: I was taking kind of I was starting to become
Speaker 6: more aware of the kinds of things that I would
Speaker 6: do again and again that I didn't really dig that much.
Speaker 6: And you know, and this was totally self directed. And
Speaker 6: there is a thing that we all have as musicians,
Speaker 6: especially if you play a long set, you know, like,
Speaker 6: you know, the fourth tune, you completely destroy the bridge.
Speaker 6: It's like you didn't even come close. And then, you know,
Speaker 6: two hours later, the set is over and everybody claps
Speaker 6: standing ovation or whatever, and you kind of go, well, yeah,
Speaker 6: I guess it was cool. I mean, everybody seemed to
Speaker 6: dig it. You know. Then the next night you're at
Speaker 6: the fourth tune again and here comes that bridge and
Speaker 6: it's like you didn't shed it, you didn't you mess
Speaker 6: it up again, you know. So it was stuff like that.
Speaker 6: It was like, you know, if I keep track of
Speaker 6: these things by replaying the whole gig in my mind,
Speaker 6: because I can only do it for about an hour
Speaker 6: or two after the gig. After that, it's like, first
Speaker 6: of all, I'm wasted because we do, you know, six
Speaker 6: cities a week and you know, riding the bus every night,
Speaker 6: and so it's like by the next day, it's like
Speaker 6: just a blur anyway.
Speaker 4: So all right, so if I got you have questions,
Speaker 4: I will answer.
Speaker 5: Them for you.
Speaker 6: I got questions.
Speaker 5: I mean, this is a first. I'm so ready for this.
Speaker 4: I'm not ready for this. I'm like, yo, man, my
Speaker 4: mom would call me a question this.
Speaker 6: Won't surprise you, though. My questions are to start with
Speaker 6: about the movie, which is unbelievable man, Thank yous. Unbelievable.
Speaker 6: It's incredible what you did. Now, I mean I appreciate that,
Speaker 6: you know, but it's more than It's more than what
Speaker 6: it is. It's something else that's really important, and you
Speaker 6: did it so good man. I mean, it's like, you know,
Speaker 6: everybody has to see that.
Speaker 2: And technically not a question, but yeah, not a question, but.
Speaker 3: I would take that compliment. Is it any more sunny
Speaker 3: Sharrock footage?
Speaker 6: And I do have a comment on that, But how
Speaker 6: did you get it to sound that good?
Speaker 4: Yo? That is the million dollar question? I lie, do
Speaker 4: you not?
Speaker 3: One of my favorite engineers in the world is Jimmy Douglas.
Speaker 4: Yes, a gentleman who's you know.
Speaker 3: He started off Barry White and Slave and eventually went
Speaker 3: to Timberland and Missy Elliott. Like he he forty years
Speaker 3: of excellence. He also did the Uretha Franklin Amazing Grace
Speaker 3: movie as well.
Speaker 5: I lie to you not.
Speaker 3: Jimmy hit us and was sort of like, I think
Speaker 3: this rough mix sounds good as is, and literally I'll
Speaker 3: say that we did maybe zero point two percent equing
Speaker 3: Like what you hearing is the act is just a
Speaker 3: rough reference mix, which to me, I don't know how
Speaker 3: to explain that. Only fifteen microphones and you can look one.
Speaker 3: You know, I've watched the movie in various ways. There
Speaker 3: was one time where I just watched the movies to
Speaker 3: see what the outputs were. And you know, in Stevie
Speaker 3: Wonder set alone, there's there's three mics on his drums,
Speaker 3: so that's already twelve mics left over, three mics for
Speaker 3: his drums, three mics for his other drummer, and then
Speaker 3: his keyboard gets a mic, his vocal gets a mic,
Speaker 3: and his rhythm section, his guitar and his bass.
Speaker 4: Is share.
Speaker 3: There they're what do you call their amster sort of
Speaker 3: facing each other, so they're sharing a mic, and the
Speaker 3: remaining five are going to the brass section. I don't
Speaker 3: know how it sounded at crispy and perfect, but we
Speaker 3: basically did very little post on on and the sound
Speaker 3: like what you're hearing, is like the rough mix of
Speaker 3: the reference, which to me was way more perfect than
Speaker 3: anything that we could have done to it.
Speaker 6: So Sonny shock right, yes, swallow this connects with with
Speaker 6: our one of our earlier points. Swallow said, yeah, I
Speaker 6: would watch Sonny like get there early and meticulously warm
Speaker 6: up with these chromatic scales for like an hour, and
Speaker 6: then he would go.
Speaker 4: Out on stage and not play chromatic scales.
Speaker 6: No, he was great, Sonny. And you got some good
Speaker 6: Sonny there too. I mean the way and also I mean, man,
Speaker 6: I mean so all the music aspect of it is great,
Speaker 6: but to me, what was really great was the story
Speaker 6: you told with it, and the way you told the
Speaker 6: story and just everything about it. Man, it's just the greatest,
Speaker 6: really really well.
Speaker 4: I appreciate that, and I thank you for receiving it.
Speaker 3: And they're laughing right now because they know that I
Speaker 3: cringe at compliments, but no, I'm wet right now. And
Speaker 3: that said, I'm rapping up this episode of Patany's Quest
Speaker 3: because they are laughing there as No, seriously, I want
Speaker 3: to thank you for doing this, you know, And again,
Speaker 3: I appreciate information in history like.
Speaker 4: No other, especially with music. And you know, all that
Speaker 4: you've done to.
Speaker 3: To push to push the art form of music forward,
Speaker 3: not even just jazz, but just creativity for it is
Speaker 3: not lost on me. And we're big fans of yours,
Speaker 3: and we appreciate you.
Speaker 5: For doing it real man.
Speaker 8: Yeah, my good buddy Chris Burnoff is a huge fan
Speaker 8: of yours.
Speaker 5: He's my guitar player. He like has like your song.
Speaker 8: He has like a Pat mactheeney song book in his
Speaker 8: studio and he showed it to me.
Speaker 5: Do that shito like the Bible. It was huge. I
Speaker 5: was like, what the fuck? So nah, man, it was.
Speaker 8: I'm a huge fan and I just want to thank
Speaker 8: you too for so may it secretly begin. That's another favorite,
Speaker 8: favorite one of yours that I really enjoyed. So just
Speaker 8: thank you for all the music, man, for real, it was.
Speaker 6: A pleasure hanging with you guys. Thank you so much
Speaker 6: for inviting me. Really yeah, all right.
Speaker 3: Well be half a sugar Steve and unpaid bill and
Speaker 3: fantigolo and like, yeah, my name is Questlove.
Speaker 4: Thank you Pat mcffeni uh.
Speaker 12: This is quest Love Supreme and we'll see you on
Speaker 12: the next go round. All right, thank you, yo, what's up?
Speaker 12: This is Fonte.
Speaker 8: Make sure you keep up with us on Instagram at
Speaker 8: QLs and let us know what you think who should be.
Speaker 5: Next to sit down with us? Don't forget to subscribe
Speaker 5: to our podcast, all right?
Speaker 6: Peace?
Speaker 1: West Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.