Part 2

Would you say that it feels like you're coming up with the material on the spot? Or is it sort of reusing things you've prepared and then putting them in a different context?

I remember one time Miles had a band and they were in the hotel room during the daytime. And you know, there was this horn player who was just practising. I mean, he was practising everything. Miles just stood out there, listening. When the guy finished practice, Miles said, Now, if I hear any of that tonight, you're fired! Because Miles had already heard it – the guy should have saved it! That is the moment and you can't beat it.

How are you going to practice the unknown? You can't do that. That's just where it is. You have to know you're free.

Miles was a great musician, but he was also a great psychologist. Do you think he meant that statement? Or do you think he that was more of an effort to to get the most interesting material out of the musicians at that particular night?

You right. That's the best way to put it. Because, as I said, Miles made you stronger. He could come up with those phrases. And they would work.  

I worked with Marcus Miller when he was about 18 or 19. And then, when Marcus got with Miles and Miles realised I had already worked with Marcus, I got a call from Miles. I got all excited and said, Oh Miles you found your twin. Miles hung up on me, but he did work with him and and look what happened. He came up with Tutu and the rest is history.



Are there rules in improvisation?

I tell young musician: Notes and scales are not music. It's what you do with them. You can't sit down and only play those scales you learned. For creative musicians back then, there was no Berklee School of Music. You had to define yourself and how you wanted to approach music.

Of course, now you can go to school and the teacher will teach you all the latest scales to play on this chord. Which is fine but then, after you get that data, you have to take the next steps.

What are the next steps?

Realising there's no such thing as wrong notes. I remember a story Herbie Hancock once told … He was talking about how he was playing with Miles and something extraordinary happened. And he said, I don't know what it was, I was nervous and I don't know what I was thinking about, but I hit the wrongest chord you could ever hit ... But when Miles heard it, he got excited. He thought Herbie did it on purpose. Like going crazy. And then Miles played something, and made everything 100% correct. That's amazing.

It's really hard to explain what is happening there. I remember one time when Pharoah and I were performing in Philadelphia, at Temple University, and people said, y'all were playing, and creating so much that it looked like you were levitating on stage! I said, I wish someone had took a picture! I would have loved to have seen that!

But you'd be so in the moment. Everything just just disappears. You're just out there and sending creativity into the universe.

Is it like a trance? A state of clarity?

I don't think it's a kind of clarity, at least not the kind we think of when we hear that word. More like a trance or something in that area. Because you're not analysing anything, you can't analyse. You can't be in both worlds simultaneously. It's almost like you you become a part of the universe. But when you come back to what I guess we call the regular regular world, it's hard to put all that into terminology that the regular world can understand and relate to.

I remember when Pharoah and I first started, I would say, let's create and expand as far as we can go. But let's come all the way back, and bring the listeners all the way back to the beginning. You can't just leave the people out there and spaced out … you've got to land as well. So we always did that.



Have these intense, spaced-out improvisation sessions taught you something or given you a different experience or outlook on life and death?

When I got to New York, this was way before Pharoah and 'Train, I think it was just Alvin McCoy, and Jimmy Garrison … I think it was at Five Spot, I think that's the one in the village and upper village, Main Street. And when you stand outside and listen to the creative music being made, once you hear it, it can can make your whole week better. It's crucial to the person, you listen to it. And it'll just make you so happy and overjoyed. And it's such a great feeling that you can just deal with any negativity that approaches you.

You were active in a lot of incredible projects with a very strong improvisational slant. Over the years, improvisation took more of a backseat to composition and song structures. And it's interesting that a lot of other artists towards the end of the 70s went down a similar route. Is there a particular reason why you felt more drawn to these slightly structured pieces and working in this kind of framework?

It's really interesting, these young kids all over the world, now, they want to go back to the 70s. For some reason, it was the most creative period that man has experienced in a long, long time. We were just really creating, it was as strong as you can go.

But then, in the 80s, the record companies no longer wanted us to record these 20-30 minute songs. However, it's important to note that even though the songs were short, we were still doing the improvisation in the middle. So it was still there, it just wasn't as long as it used to be.

Even when I did "Expansions" … we all grew up listening to James Brown, he had really laid it down. So I said, Okay, I'm gonna put that that funk on the bottom and I'm gonna put some positive lyrics on there. So the idea was to give the people something positive, to expand your mind, expand your consciousness and they can dance to it.

And when I did Jazz is Dead, when I got to the studio, everything was just like it used to be in the 70s, there were even early 70s keyboards. They had a Fender Rhodes – it wasn't the one I'm used to playing, but that's what they wanted. And I asked Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Adrian Younge, how do you want to work? Because usually, you arrive there with some songs prepared and all that. But instead they said: Well, we got these little motifs and ideas. And we want you to develop them and just improvise and when you leave, we'll put everything together.

When the record was finished, people were really excited! They'd not just added their takes to it, but also vocals and lots of different instruments. And now I'm doing interviews all over the world.