April 1, 2025 • 66 mins
A month ago at the Grammys, Alicia Keys gave a beautiful speech while accepting the Global Impact Award. Part of her speech was dedicated to the women producers who power the industry, women like Patrice Rushen, Missy Elliott, Linda Perry, and others.
This was top of mind for Justin Richmond when he sat down with esperanza spalding at the Blue Note club in New York, where she was in the middle of a residency. Not only because she just produced a gorgeous new collaborative album by the unheralded Brazilian genius, Milton Nascimento, naturally called “Milton + esperanza.” But she’s also self produced just about all of her own projects from the very beginning.
esperanza and Justin talk about why she’s been producing herself from the jump in this episode, what it’s been like working so closely with master mentors like Milton Nascimento, but also Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock. And esperanza talks about the rocky beginning of her career.
Listen to the songs of Milton Nascimento as curated by esperanza spalding
Listen to Milton + esperanza’s collaborative album
Listen to a collection of songs by esperanza spalding
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. A month ago at the Grammys, Alicia Keys gave
a beautiful speech while accepting the Global Impact Award. Part
of her speech was dedicated to the women producers who
power the industry, women like Patrice Russian, Missy Elliott, Linda Perry,
and others. This was top of mind for me when
(00:35):
I sat down with Esperanza's faulding at the Blue Milk
Club in New York, where she was in the middle
of a residency, not only because she just produced a
gorgeous new collaborative album by the unheralded Brazilian genius Milton Ostumento.
Na'turally called Milton and Esperanza, but she's self produced just
about all of her own projects from the very beginning.
Esperanza and I talk about why she's been producing herself
(00:58):
from the jump in this episode, what it's been like
working so closely with master mentors like Milton Nostrumento, but
also Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock, and Espernza tells me
what she views as the rocky begins and in her career.
This is broken record, real musicians, real conversations. If you'd
(01:23):
like to watch the video version of today's episode, visit
our YouTube page, YouTube dot com slash Broken Record podcast.
Here's my conversation with Esperanza Spaulding.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
He's just such a fan girl for He's not even
gonna he's not gonna own it, like he's cool, he's cool.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Yeah, he's probably playing it cool.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
I think so because he knows they're gonna roast him
about it all the time.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
That's so funny. Cool. Yeah. No, but I'm happy. Uh,
I'm happy this work out to do too though, because yeah,
I'm like, uh. As soon as the album got announced,
I was like, you gotta be kidding me. This is
the most amazing thing I've ever heard.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
That's what I also felt, this is the most crazy
thing that I've ever heard. When when his son asked
me to produce it, So yeah, is that.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
The origin of the visit. So it's going to be
more you producing a Milton.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Well when the in the same moment that his son
was like, oh you should produce this record, he said
it should be Milton and Esperanza. He kind of he
framed it as like, oh, it'll be a duo project.
You know, you and him should do this project together
and you produce it. And I mean I when you
(02:34):
revere somebody's work that much, it can almost it felt
hard to almost like insert myself into the like pallette
of sounds. You know, maybe I felt an initial temptation
as a producer. It's just kind of like I just
want to bring stuff together and just you know, bask
(02:56):
in the glory of your songs, in your sound. He
Milton and his son were like, no, no, you know,
we go do it together. It's gotta be it's gotta
be your stuff too. It's got to be what you
want and that so that that actually made it scarier,
I think, because ooh, it's kind of like, hmm, can
(03:18):
you it's almost like a challenge to the to the
mentee or the younger person, like can you stand by
what you've developed at this point in your musical life,
you know, and consider it a contribution to the same
global cannon of music as your you know, mentor.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
And because that's that felt like the that feels.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Like it's always the invitation with every next generation, like
you can't just keep you know, revering and bowing to
and like, oh, you know, holding on this like silver
holy platter.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
I don't know, the works are the ones.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Before you like you have to sit in and live
in and find out about what you've made inspired by them.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
You know, it was initially just maybe so to be
just you producing a Milton record, but then it's sort
of no, it.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Was he always his son always framed it as you
produced a record, and it's going to be you and him.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
I just found that scary, you know.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
As a conceit of like, oh, it's going to be
both of our music or both of our kind of
you know, esthetic voice or presence on the album. I
felt intimidating as a conceit as a producer, and also
ass like a person who's so inspired by him and
(04:36):
feel so affected by his body at work, you know.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Yeah, I mean you collaborated also very closely with Wayne
Shorter with the albums dedicated to Did It Feel? I mean,
I guess and are you are you just not used
to are you not yet used to working so closely
alongside your your hero or is it just never Is
that something you just never grow accustomed to when you
(05:00):
revere people When.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Yeah, I mean, when you put it like that, it
sounds like there's just this long line of people a
on the level of Wayne and Milton that like you
could go, you know, like, oh, and the next.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
You'll go work with. To me, those two people are
like my number one and number two.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
It's not in any hierarchy of order, but really in
the uh in the history of music that's affected me
that I've loved most deeply and studied the deepest. Wayne
and Milton are it, you know, So this weird kind
(05:42):
of like timing, I guess of working so closely with
Wayne for a decade, approximately a decade on this opera project,
and then in the year that Wayne passes this project
with Milton coming up that I don't know what to
(06:03):
say about that, even I think that's the first time
I maybe said that sequence of events out loud.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
And I don't know what to do with that.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
I don't even know how to process that, because you know,
I know these humans. You know, they are people that
I love and revere as as folks. You know, people
that I know that I talk to and call and know.
And also they are the two of the profoundest musicians
to ever walk the earth, just period, and and the like,
(06:34):
the circumstances that conspired for me to even know them
and to even meet them connect with them, and then
get through. These projects are just ridiculous, like it's it's unbelievable.
So all that to say, no, I'm not accustomed to
working with people like Wayne Shorter and Milton because there
(06:57):
aren't people like Wayne Shorter and Milkon. They are both
so singular, and yeah, I getting to know both of
them in the different ways and the different journeys that
brought me to both of them have have just been
miracles of my life, you know what I meant. And
when the opportunities opened, or the invitations really i'll say,
came for me to work with them, I just said yes,
(07:21):
what not.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Really asking like am I am I ready for this?
Am I equipped to do this?
Speaker 2 (07:25):
I said yes? Because I love them? You know, how
could you say no? And that's what I can say
about that. So yeah, also with also, I don't want
to like conflate the two of them because working with
them with their own very distinct journeys and projects and pretexts.
But it's really something. So it's like a.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Perpetual kind of.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Sticks boob like dual state of existence where you're like, okay,
this this person in front of me, we got.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
This work to do. We're just trying to figure out
the key for this song or like that, you know, whatever.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Is the detail in front of you, and then the
other part of you is like, oh my god, this
is Milton. Not to mental, you know, just trying to
actually stay present and not swoon and like faint at
the immensity of your hero sitting in the room with you.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
You know, so I imagine the like focusing on the
details and just the task at hand is definitely the
way to just get your mind out of the fawning
and the yes.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
One step at the time.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
And also, I mean, you know, since we're talking about
the record with Milton, Milton is a very kind and
generous person. You know, he makes it easy for you
to be around him, like if he likes you, if
he's messing with you. He makes it easy for you
(08:55):
to just be in space. You know, he's telling stories.
He's he's telling them like something will happen with the
song or in the room that reminds him of a story,
and then he'll tell you a story and make sure
you understand, you know, the punchline. And so felt it
felt very like you know, familial to be in the
space and create and and the we had work to
(09:16):
do you know what I mean. Like, he's a person
who is very specific about what he's put into his
songs and why, you know, down to like the voicing
of a chord. And you know, here I was saying like, oh,
I'm gonna, you know, re harmonize some things, like do
these little arrangements and this and that, and.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
He was cool a lot of the stuff that I propose,
and he.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Would get so specifical like oh no, wait, wait, wait, no,
that chord has to be that those notes, because it
really felt like there's like a poetry to how he puts.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
The songs together.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
And because I'm not the poet, I don't know why
he put that chord there instead of one that maybe
sounds similar, but he does. And so it was it
was deep to learn about that specificity of his craft
that he's like, no, this, this chord has to be
right because it's doing something, you know, in the logic
of the whole thing. And that was like a great
you know lesson too of that that like kind of
(10:18):
standing up for the specifics and then also being flexible
to the new voice of somebody else who's hearing something
new with what you.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Made there is I mean it's it's fascinating to hear
that there's these certain details that he feels and need
to be there because he has such a I don't
even know how to I wouldn't know how to describe
his music other than that, you know, and there is
Maybe it's just because they collaborated and I conflate them
in my mind, but Wayne and Milton both have this
(10:47):
to me ineffable quality to the music that's just so
beautiful and so you know, just to hear that you're
there and there are these sort of key Yeah, there's
these things that are key to him and key to
what he does. I mean, do you feel like you
understand those things better now?
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Boy?
Speaker 3 (11:07):
What I can? I I don't know if it's understand but.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
I maybe feel the his archetype as a creator more
as a poet than before. I mean, I remember asking
him once about his songwriting process. I think I was
swooning over some lyrics and it's like you know how, but.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Like how did you do that?
Speaker 2 (11:36):
It was some image in a lyric, like did you
did you see that image first and then write it?
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Like?
Speaker 3 (11:43):
How how did you you know? What?
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Was?
Speaker 3 (11:46):
What was that process? I think I was asking more
about like what was the creative process?
Speaker 2 (11:51):
You know, did you sketch it? Was it somebody else's
idea or a story you had in mind, or you know,
like how did you craft it? And he just said,
I'm a poet, you know, that's that's what I do,
you know, And that landed at that time in relationship
to like the construction of narrative and a song and
(12:15):
beetting a little bit closer to that singularity and that
specificity around the music. The musical elements are like, Oh,
I'm not a poet. I don't identify as a poet,
but I can appreciate that craft where like there's a
science as a math, like what the sense soial image
(12:35):
that you want the person to receive, you know, like
their imagination has to put your symbols together, and there's
like this like chemical reaction of like imaginative chemistry where
like oh they get the sense loyal image, and it's
like it's got to be those words and that sequence
and that part of the poem. And I I think
(12:57):
I perceive him doing that with all the parts, all
the parts, the tambore of his voice, what register he's
singing in the instrumentation, the texture or the harmonic progression.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
The intro, the outro.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
You know, he's doing that kind of like architecture, you know.
And I do think, I mean, I don't want to
conflate them either Wayne and Milton, because there's such distinct
singularities and that intentionality, that care into the minutia, that
(13:33):
care of the minutia is something that Wayne definitely embodied
in practiced down to he wrote every note of his
symphonic score is by hand now with pen, with pen,
so you know, the whole score, all the instruments in
(13:54):
the symphony. He wrote every note, every single note in
stem and line and sharp pen a hand. And the music,
the symphonic music he was writing always had like.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
A big theme, you know, a big ooh.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Story or feeling or idea, and he would be writing
into the note in that passage of the music. It
would it would be some aspect of the larger theme,
you know, So he'd be writing into the note like
the intention of that part.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Of the music, like with his hand from his heart.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
He'd be you know, like imbuing the note head with
that that idea, just the way he just everything. Yeah,
he would he would be like thinking about it and like, yeah,
this I want I want this third violinist, I want
this obo's to like feel this right here. So I'm
gonna I'm gonna write that in to the to the
to the phrase, and I mean then you zoom out
(14:54):
and you're like, Okay, a twenty five minute symphonic piece
that this person wrote, and every single note that he
wrote is like imbued with this this like message and
prayer or intention for the player is It's just it's
mind boggling. It's like a whole ecosystem, you know. So anyway,
(15:14):
they're both their own singularity, and maybe that depth of
care and thoroughness is something that we could say, you know,
I've witnessed in each of them, you know, in their
own in their own ways.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
It's interesting too, because you know, I guess you know,
sometimes I think there's the temptation with things with with
music to just think that things just are like all
I mean, there are playing I think happy accidents that
occur in music making, but not everything is like some
there are like I mean, there are some things that
(15:50):
are are intentional and specific to these people that they
they go out of their way to imbue, you know,
their music with when do you think.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
About when you talk about happy accidents.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
It makes me think of, well, yes, there are lots
of happy accidents, and it's like.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
What do you do with those happy accidents?
Speaker 2 (16:10):
You know that that, to me is where the brilliance
happens because there's so much happening real time when you're
playing or improvising or composing. Even you know, Wayne needs
to always say composition is improvisation slowed down? So yes,
these things were like, oh emerge, yeah, I know he's
full of Yeah he was like he would say playing
(16:35):
is compositions sped up? And composition is soloings slowed down?
But yes, these miraculous your hand you're trying to play
one voice and like ooh your hand falls and another
ways like oh okay, that's interesting.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
But you know what's compelling.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
I guess where the like brilliant slides in any artists,
Like what what you see in that the potential that
you recognize in the quote unquote happy accident and how
you how you shift it, you know, how you integrate it.
And on the record, you know, we on the Milton
and s Bronza record, we really wanted to do this way.
Short song one You Dream because of course we were
(17:12):
thinking of him, uh, from son up to some doown,
you know, being in Brazil with his dear friend, and
Leo Genovese was there, and Leo was very close to Wayne.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Actually, the last.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Grammy Wayne won, he won with Leo Genovese. It was
the first time that two jazz instrumentalists shared the same
Grammy for Best Jazz Performance. Yeah. Incredible, Yeah, incredible player,
incredible composer. So yes, So we're in this room, you know,
and all of us in the room had had some
(17:46):
kind of a connection to Wayne.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
He had departed.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
In his own last words, he said, I'll be back soon.
I gotta go get a new body so I can
continue the mission. So we're all just you know, with
that immensity of his influence on our life and being
in the studio with Milton and wanted this song, and
(18:10):
I had done this whole arrangement. I spent weeks prepping
it and it was not working. It was just not working,
and I could feel it and I could own that
it wasn't working. But we just wanted to do it
so ad you know. So we're like we keep, you know,
carving at it and trying to rework the clay.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
It's just not happening. And then we like stopped. I
felt so defeated.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
I was like, ah, the night started remembering or hearing
Wayne's voice like, you gotta have fun. You know, it's
suposed to supposed to have hell of a good time.
You know, in everything, you're not having fun.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Why do it? You know?
Speaker 2 (18:56):
And it's kind of like we started sharing these like
quotes and things that we had heard, you know, remembered
him saying or doing.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
And then we.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Like threw the arrangement away and we said, let's just
go for broke. You know, let's just let's just play it.
You know, the melody is alive in us, and we're
gonna like let whatever tumbles out.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
There's this line from a great poem that the.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Police tumbled out of the back of a van like oranges. Anyway,
it's like that feeling of like, you know, it's just yeah,
just telling out whatever gravity is working on you, the
forces of the world working on you.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
Let it go.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
And you could say the whole song, the whole song
is like this unfurling cascade of happy accidents. Because we
didn't have like an arrangement in mind, you know, we
were in real time, responding to the cascade of you know,
encounters from what each of us was playing that felt
(20:00):
fun or felt good. And I feel like that what
ended up on the record is this beautiful portrait of
like when when you when you usher in, are you
steward or you you trust? The kind of chaos of
many brilliant people pouring out, you know, the ingredients for
(20:23):
happy accidents to happen sequentially through the song.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
We'll be back with more from Restaurants Spalding after the break.
I think, you know, it's like that. That was one
of the things. You know, Quincy Jones just died too,
and that was one of the things people kind of
talks about with him in terms of just the way
he arranged sometimes was like just getting people who were
(20:49):
really good at what they did and you could trust
and just let them go. And I guess that's a
similar thing, like if you have players who you know,
you know, bring a certain thing to the table. It's
like what I'm doing with.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
The exactly that's one of good producing is well, I
guess you can because sometimes you're run in to produce
and it's already a group of people that you don't
you know you don't necessarily have history with but I
like the agency and the it's almost like a composition
(21:23):
of people. You know, the composition process starts with the
people of just what you said, you know, how the
chemistry of the folks work. You know, kind of like
the chemical reactions of these group of people. And you know,
I mean Quincy was definitely a master that, but all
great band leaders that's what they're doing, you know, that's
(21:44):
I remember. I mean I think about like Terryln Carrington,
who's a phenomenal producer, phenomenal producer, phenomenal arranger, drummer, yes,
a band leader, all the things.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
And it's like she can see, she can like foresee
miracles between players that I think most people wouldn't give
the opportunity to to flourish. And she particularly kind of
has that. I like the potential of young musicians. You know,
it's like maybe they're not quite there today, but she
can like sense or smell like, but if I bring
(22:19):
them into this band with that person, that person, you know,
that gift, that thing that they have is gonna open
up and flourish in the right you know, chemical reaction
with with the other parts that are here. And that
is maybe a easy to miss superpower.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Do you think you have that?
Speaker 3 (22:38):
I may, but I don't. I don't have a lot
of opportunity to find out because I play with the
same people. I have been so.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Lucky to encounter these players through my life that are
just you know, just gems, just so who like Leo,
like folks in this band, Eric Dude, Matt Stevens, Morgan Gharrion,
Justin Tyson, Corey King.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
You know, these ones.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Who I just know, like I just I trust them
so deeply and to the point where I also know
they won't let me jump off any cliffs that I
can't fly back from, you know what I mean. And
that's also people that can give you like honest critique
and honest feedback. So I'll say, maybe I have that skill,
(23:32):
but I'm not putting myself in the circumstances to flex
that musclefully if it's indeed there. Yeah, okay, I will
find out, maybe you.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Kind of from the beginning. I've just been producing your
own records.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Yes, I've been producing my record since the first record
and in I guess two thousand and six six, WHOA.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
That's weird.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Yeah, well, I guess I produced them two thousand and
five and it came out in two thousand and six,
twenty years ago.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
That's shocking. WHOA, what do you put it like that?
Speaker 1 (24:10):
To find a point on it.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
I'm like, WHOA, is that true? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (24:17):
And that's I don't want to say that's easier, but
I feel.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
It's a It's a really different.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Creature when you're producing in a way that's ushering someone
else's vision, you know, into fullness. I have immense respect
for the producers who do that for a living.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
You know, I can't imagine producing your very first record
is any easy because you're kind of like, I mean,
now you know what to expect of yourself in a
situation going into produce another artist you might not know.
That's like, but like so, I mean in the sense
of your first albums, and you're kind of like an
unknown entity to yourself in some ways in the studio.
(24:59):
As much as strange or someone you're producing got to
be scary, it had to be weird.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
The truth about that.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
First record is I wasn't planning for that to be
some sort of like representation of me as an artist,
you know, at that time in my life in music,
I was playing all kinds of records.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
I was playing.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Anybody and everybody's record because I was in school and
you just your make a record left to right. You're
going down to the studio from the two am to
six am recording session. You just here's here's playing and
doing things. I have made a lot of little demos
for myself, and you know, when this label called ava
A y v A approached me like, hey, you want
to do a record with with you know, just a
(25:40):
project that you have, I was like, cool, I had
this little you know, I don't want to say whatever,
but just two of the many dozens of people that
I was doing projects with.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
It was and Francisco Mela and yeah yeah, but I
mean it gets twenty years ago, like we didn't.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Know who A and Francisco I was gonna become their
teachers and students in Boston. So I was like, hey,
you guys, you want to get in the studio, will
make a record for this Spanish label like cuckoo cool?
Speaker 3 (26:08):
I mean it really didn't.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
It didn't have like gravitas, it didn't have like weight.
You know, we have been doing tons of gigs around
Boston with various configurations with you know those two folks,
and so we just went in the studio, played some
of the stuff we play, played some improvised stuff.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Yeah it was, and I'm thinking like this is going
to be some little like niche record from this niche
label in Spain.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
The end next kind of like thank you.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
That was a nice little archive of this band, this
Boston local Boston project.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Cool, like what's next? You know?
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Then I have played a song by a phenomenal Argentining
composer called I'd heard a version that Lilyanarrero and Juan
did of this song called that, which is on the
record thank you. I love that song and also check
out and Lillian Nearreo because their version. Anyways, at a
(27:06):
Spanish management company there happened to be a man from Argentina.
So when this teeny little label was looking like shopping
the album looking for you know, promotion, they shopped it
to this other Spanish company and they're like, ugh, no,
you know, we're not taking projects like what little just
this free jazz stuff like whatever. But then one Argentina
(27:28):
guy was like, wait, what why is this girl?
Speaker 3 (27:30):
Why is this black girl in Boston?
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Know this Argentina composer and just because of that, this
company reached out and they were like, okay, who are you,
what are you doing?
Speaker 3 (27:41):
Kind of thing?
Speaker 2 (27:42):
And then that was the only album that I had
made technically, so that became my first record, you know
what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Yeah, so and way you didn't expect it to be
like a college card or.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Even looking back, I'm like, that is just okay, yeah cool.
If it's almost like, oh, if you can.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
I think my beautiful face helped. But I was like,
if y'all can listen to that, I guess I give
you anything.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
I've listened to that, your first two records a long time, okay,
really good, really good, because I feel like the artists
sometimes you get like a narrative, either maybe you've you
embraced a certain narrative or people overlay a narrative, and
I feel like that sometimes, or if I were to
just think about it, like so, I feel like maybe
the narrative is like that you've stretched out a lot,
(28:29):
and you obviously had, you've done so much, but like
but that that those are kind of more just straight ahead,
just kind of funny. But really but when I put
them on, I was like, WHOA. I was kind of
surprised at actually how good they really are. Yeah, yeah,
I thought you're not great.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
No, but I hear you. Yeah, I was twenty years.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Old and needs to be discounted. I don't think I.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Receive it, and hey, hallelujah, that's a I do think.
I do think of the ways you can come into
the music industry. Just looking back now from that perspective,
it's funny.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
It's funny, it's kind of like cheeky. It actually matches
the truth of my personality. It's funny that the first
record was just like weird, random kind of avant garde
trio free thing with these two black Huban men who
were way freakier than musically, way freakier than what's even
on that record. Like, I like that.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
There's something kind of like trickstery about that being the
first calling card. And in a way, you know, when
when anybody wants to say like, oh, you know you're
taking it too out or like you know, do that
s side of the STU be like, no, there's a
precedent here here for being you.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
Know, on the edge.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Yeah, would you do you think you would have if
you if you had known that that was gonna be Oh,
I would.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
Have done it completely different.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Of course, do you think you would have overthought it
or do you think you have done different stuff?
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Would you have done? Like looking back, what do you
think you would have done?
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Look him back, look him back. I would have put
my songs, like my own songs on it. I would
have sung more. I would have had arrangements, you know,
more like horn arrangements and vocal arrangements, and oh, I'm
sure I would have done especially if there was the
(30:21):
lack of oversight like there was, because it really was.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
It was the sweet It.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Was like a father son duo who ran this whole album,
and it was very there was like free artistic license,
like it was really just like here's the funds, just
bring us a record, like whatever you want to do.
And it was a short timeline, so I was like,
all right, who's who am I?
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Who am?
Speaker 2 (30:44):
I already have a thing with oh YouTube, we've been
doing gigs all you know all season.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
Let's go in the studio real quick.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
It's kind of the classic way. I don't know, that's
a great way.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
I feel like that was like representative of the like
the portrait of the artists and then the.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Not the problem because I like the second record, Esperanza.
But what I'll say.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Is then other people's money and agenda was wrapped up
in the album I was making. And so I will
never dismiss or disregard the incredible support and work that
that first kind of swath of like my team did
for me. They fought for me so hard and all
this stuff. That's like I mean, of course that's my
(31:28):
hard work and my great music. But like all these
opportunities that keep you know, tumbling talk about tumbling out
from those early days of my career are really thanks
to you know, the devotion and the like hustle and
the whatever was.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
Driving these men you know in the industry who like
you know it was it was Montuno Productions, and it
was Dave Love, and it was Concord Records.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
It was John Burke and Mark Wexler, and you know,
these ones who like they saw like ooh, we know
what to do with this. It was that kind of
like I'm gonna say, they saw the commodity value, and
it's not to I'm sure they cared about me as
a human on levels. And they're in the music business
and their dubs to sell music and artists as Amadie
(32:14):
and and I remember having these conversations with the label.
My first album came out on Heads Up, which hadn't
yet been purchased by Concord, you know.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
A KA universal.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
Then they're there, whatever you call it, the overarching companies, university, conglomerate,
thank you. I think it is SO or parent company
or whatever. So I remember, you know, I had I
wrote a lot.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
In those days.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
I had like so many songs, so many arrangements, and
I remember the head of the of the label be like,
but we have this grid. You know, you have to
the songs have to fit in these categories on the grid,
and so you can't put that a grid. It was like,
you know, songs that have this vibe, songs like a
(33:03):
ballad like and it actually became of a joke between
me and musicians like old, don't mess up the grid.
Wait now we can't make sure. Don't think he's going
to get you. And and this is, oh, you know,
where's the hook of the song. I was like, hook
of the song. Don't you know what kind of musician
I am?
Speaker 3 (33:20):
I don't know hooks and whatever.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
So I at my little twenty two year old self
I remember this like icky kind of tug of war
with these humans who had more experience than me, were
older than me, saw me as a kid who hadn't
know what I was doing, and were really putting a
lot of pressure on me to make these decisions about
the music that was gonna get end up on this record.
(33:45):
And I did fight and push, but it was a
tug of war. So that means there are compromises that
I felt like I had to make because these were
the money people and the folks who knew the industry
and I didn't know.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
Of course, their ultimate agenda.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Was like you know, you have you had the potential
to be big in jazz, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
I was trying.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
To no, because you would never say that to somebody,
you know.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
And I don't know if my brain would have registered
the depths of.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
You know, the power dynamics at work there with all
these like white businessmen who were seeing this like young
you know, I didn't. They were my representation and my
label and my you know, so here I'm this like
little young, like naive critter who's just like I just
gonna make neat songs, you know what I mean? I
don't think I could have comprehended the layers at work
(34:33):
there in the whole dynamic.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
But they could.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
They definitely could comprehend the layers of potential and you know,
you know, income potential and commodity potential and brand potential
and all the things.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
So all that to say.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
From June Joe to then the first album like it's
to Esperanza, it's a great album.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
I'm like, Wow, yes, I can stand by it, and
I feel very aware.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Of the compromises down to the budget was what it was,
which wasn't great, and so for the engineer to really
do the great engineer to do the job, they wanted
producer credit, you know, and stuff like that. And you're like,
(35:20):
I don't know what that, but you know what that meant,
you know what I mean? Like I wasn't paying attention
to that part of the contract negotiations. My manager was
doing it, who was also friends with the label, who
was friends with the you know what I mean. So
you're not tracking this at twenty two you don't know
how the music industry works yet, and I'm not This
is not a SOB story.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
I'm so grateful everything that happened happened.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
It just it just is what it is, and it's
things like also how I think like labor gets invisibilized.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
I think, especially.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Early on for the sake of you know, people want
to cut the of the narrative or a cut of
the credit or a cut of the whatever. And you know,
I'm sure the people in the room will tell you
the musicians produced that record. I produced that record. I
chose the music. You know. It was like, but my
name's not on there as a producer, you know what
(36:12):
I mean. And and there are elements in that record
that I roll my eyes about now because there were
decisions made for the grid. You know, for someone in
the industries talking about jazz music as industry, it's like
a joke. For some people, it is their industry and
(36:32):
that's how they pay their mortgage, and so.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
It's doing a thing a lot of them for error.
So maybe that's so I guess that's where the grid
comes from.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
I guess that's where the grid comes in.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
It's just I now, at twenty years later, am clarified
that then it was about what it's still about for
me now, which is you know, putting your the sounds
that you're hearing into the world.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
That's the assignment. That's what I think the assignment is.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
And I say no when the option is, hey, you know,
put this thing on this record that's going to live
in the world forever for the sake of potential. I
don't know, like it could go further quote unquote, or
you could sell more. You know, I'm always gonna say
(37:28):
no if it's either or between that choice or the
representation of what we heard. You know, what the musicians
like felt, heard, saw and were able to craft in
a way that someone else.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
Could hear it and see it.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
Do you think there's more truth in that spending more
time getting exactly what you hear in your head, or
in just getting out what you can in the moment. Well,
I I.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Don't mean what we heard in the sense of like
a tyrannical you know, it must be it must match
exactly the image of my brain.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
That's not what I mean by what we heard. I
mean what's true.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
You know, and what we heard can encompass what happened
when we started with the sketch.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
But these five people in a room whoa found another thing,
And you know, it's more about the truth.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
It's more about telling the truth of who we are,
you know, and the we is the humans who have
dedicated this time to be doing this and nothing else,
to create this thing called music that is so mysterious.
And I think I feel so holy. And I don't
mean it in any particular denomination or a religious paradigm
(38:44):
or cosmology, but you know, I think whatever the word
holiness is trying to speak to of a of a
something that is possible or is amongst us in this world.
I feel the presence of this thing that I would
use the word holy to describe that emerges when people
(39:07):
are making music, and that thing that, like you use
the word ineffable earlier, that like feeling or who our
presence is the thing that I want to share.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
That to me, that is.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
The thing worth efforting to carry it, to give, to give,
to give, to give it to each other, and to
give it to somebody who's gonna take some of their
time out of their life to listen to you.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
Like that's a bit. I think that's a big ass deal.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
Like your attention, your time, that's all you have, and
we don't know how long any of us are going
to be on this earth. And like a human being,
another human being that I don't even know that doesn't
even owe me anything, like I'm not even their family, being.
Speaker 3 (39:53):
Like oh yeah, okay, cool, Like I.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
Will dedicate some of my time, some of my attention
to this thing that was created. I feel it's our
responsibility to just try to just deliver who that holiness
that we can conjured, conjure a company usher through us.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
And and I think.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
Somewhere I knew these things at twenty, but I didn't
have the confidence to fully advocate, and I wanted to
honor the investment other people were making in me, so
I made a lot of like eye rolling concessions. But
now people like that around, So now I said that
(40:47):
I can stand by the last few and be like, yeah,
that's what we meant. That's exactly what we meant.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
But it came from It's interesting to though that those
compromises did come from a good place in you, in
that like you're like, at least it came from I
just I just want to honor that these people are trying.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
To yeah, and just be getting tired of arguing or
just being like, well, that's what we gotta tape. That
person can't come back to the studio, so Let's make
the best with what this is.
Speaker 3 (41:13):
You know.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
And also, you know the contract that you signed coming
into the world to be an artist isn't like everything
I do will be perfect. I just was watching this
beautiful excerpt of an interview with Maya Angelou last night,
who's talking about recognizing that she's a being in process
above all else. She's a being in process, so she
(41:37):
doesn't try to affix herself to any version that worked
in the past, and nor is she even fully committed
to stating this version of who I am. What I think,
what I'm giving is final because we're in process. And
I feel it's really important for musicians of all ages.
But I want to say, especially young musicians, to stand
(41:59):
by the archive of what they give to the world,
because the archive also teaches about our evolution as creators.
You know, there's things that I've done that I ooh,
they're out in the world for every and I cringe,
you know, and it's like, well, that's part of the
archive that shows a human in process and evolution, and
(42:22):
that is that's what is interesting to me. I guess
about being on this journey of being someone who creates
that you can well, yep, That's what I was tripping
on listening to reading, and I really wanted to share
it forward.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
Now maybe I.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
Completely disagree with that, but there you have it, and
now I can show the evolution from there to hear.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
Yeah, after this last break, we're back with the rest
of my conversation with Esperanza Spalding. That's why I really
also respect like people like well, the people who are
around like I mean, I guess Miles too, but that's
more as a state, but like Bob Dylan and Neil Young,
(43:03):
who like the guys who still actively make records, but
they also are constantly just going through the archives and
releasing old sketches of things, like you know, and You're like,
it's it's really valuable. It's really valuable to hear.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
I think Mitchell too.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
I mean, I think you're kind of talking about big names,
but I think Jerry Allen was also doing that. I
just last night was listening to the Marylyn Williams Collective,
and you know, that sounds so different than Grand River Crossings,
which sounds so different than the trio work with Paul
Motion and Charlie Hayden at the Vanguard, which sounds so
different than timelines. I'm just like, whoa you know, WHOA
(43:46):
here is a person who's like letting the whatever was
however the last project metabolized like what it brought, like,
you know, letting that point to whatever's next.
Speaker 3 (44:02):
It's really possible.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
I mean Wayne Shorter is a person like that. Ess
Mental a person like that. Tarylyn Carrington is a person
like that.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
You know. Also the way Milton returned, like there's so
many there's something there's so many versions of Milt of
Milton doing his own oh yeah, you know, and I
just do like on any giving he's like that, I
love the first record, yeah, and it's like I love
all those songs.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
And then it's like sometimes I like I want to
go just hear it, like the CTI version you know,
even later or you know that is also there. It
is incredible. At what point do you feel you finally
were able to put something into the world that felt
like this is what I intended to put out.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
I really feel that Twelve Little Spells is what I
intended to put out. Like I feel like we and
Emily duplus evolution. Maybe it started with Emily du plus evolution,
but also at each point of creating or putting the
(45:08):
records out, like okay, we can really, I mean I
signed off. I'm like, okay, we can release this, you know,
so I'll say that, you know, I can stand by
them all. And I remember the feeling of Emily's Day
plus Evolution being like, you know, like nobody was gone
on this one. And also with twelve Little Spells, it
(45:30):
just felt so protected, you know, like we it felt
so much about the folks in the room were only
people who really cared about the music we were making
and really delivering like the potential, the fullest potential of
(45:51):
what these creators around this theme and this body of
work could give. And I want to leave you know,
the future open to maybe answer that question in ten
years and be like, oh, actually it was the one
that you know happened eight years from.
Speaker 1 (46:05):
Today to the May angela point of never see a
fixed yeah right, yeah, and it could be the one
so now yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
And also just because to like puncture the potential of
grandiosity or narcissistem to swell in this conversation, like it's
also like, yes, I think music is one of the
most powerful holy forces of Earth, and it's also just music.
You know what I mean, Like, it's also not that deep,
(46:34):
Like it's not like we make songs and we play
them and we put them out in the world, and
it's like just to be able to do that and
make a living, do that like good night, We're done here, fantastic,
everything's working good. You know, let's go plant a garden.
I also just don't want to get too precious or
(46:54):
too concerned or.
Speaker 3 (46:56):
I don't know, make it like a bigger deal than
it needs to be. We're just doing our job. You know,
this is my job.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
I do this for a living, and I do this
out of the deep passion in my heart that I
have for creating and for sounds and for working with people.
And like the worst thing that we could do some records,
like oh that's awful. That was all compromised for the
forces of industry.
Speaker 1 (47:21):
So it's like and right, so what that deep?
Speaker 2 (47:25):
Yeah, it'sody somebody, somebody's out there making the record. You know,
We're just one little cell in the body of music
on this earth, and that is such a privilege. So
I feel like even sometimes younger musicians will have this
kind of like almost like desperation in their voice, like
(47:47):
how do you find your voice, like how do you
how do you get into the industry, and like find
your voice and do your thing. And I can remember
that kind of like pressure, that feeling of pressure like
uh oh, you know, I gotta go do something as
a grown up now and make this thing I've invested
in work.
Speaker 3 (48:02):
And I also try to.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
Remind them like, you can't help it, you can't whatever
the hell you are whatever, even if you just want
to do Lady Gouggug covers for the rest of your
life in a club in South Korea and you know,
or whatever, do Elvis in personation, like whatever, whatever the
hell your thing is, it's gonna come out. It's gonna beautiful,
(48:27):
it's gonna be what it is. And the main thing
is are you enjoying doing it?
Speaker 3 (48:32):
Can you do it? Do you want to do it?
And just in this life to get to find a
thing like that, you're winning.
Speaker 1 (48:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (48:41):
So it's kind of like whatever the whatever you can.
Speaker 2 (48:46):
Find at this point in time, that's a thing that
you like, that you do, that you sound like, even
if you think you're faking it, great, do that and
that's great, And then make sure you call your elders,
help your friends, who have kids, you know, support folks
who are disenfranchised, pay attention to your local politics, engage.
Speaker 3 (49:08):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (49:09):
It's like kind of like, don't fill your brain with
all these existential concerns of the arts. Like you're a
human in a world and this is the job you
get to do and if.
Speaker 3 (49:19):
You just keep doing, it's gonna work.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
Don't worry, and now make sure you pay attention to
all the other stuff, because we can get very self absorbed.
Speaker 1 (49:29):
It's amazing though, how you can't just accept it's at
a young at a tender age. It's hard to just accept,
like you can know that to be the absolute truth,
and it's really hard to sometimes accept that, right because
I can remember similarly the same things, you know what,
like those feelings, it's very hard to hard and.
Speaker 2 (49:46):
We're being bombarded with the like messages of the hero
I'm using Lea Penman's phrase, the hero industrial complex, this
idea of like it doesn't count unless I'm the hero,
Like it doesn't count unless I am the star, right,
And that is a very that's that's like that's an
ominous weight. When you have a gift, you know, or
(50:09):
you have this thing that you love to do like, oh,
I love to play piano, and I really like like
I love soul music and I.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
But we don't.
Speaker 2 (50:17):
We don't have a lot of glorified images of like
a side person or a happy producer or an a ranger,
like a person who's film scoring, they're living their best life.
I feel, particularly, maybe particularly for musicians, this is kind
of like this pressure of like, oh my god, what
do I have to do to like make it, you know,
on top, or like get my esthetics together or whatever.
(50:39):
And that feels like pressure and concern that can be
kind of a waste, you know. Yeah, And I just
wonder about musicians that are pushing themselves past the place
that they'll actually derive the most pleasure and be able
to contribute them most because of this kind of pressure
to be more, do more when and the the also
(51:03):
when we get the kind of very two dimensional representations
of the artists that we love so much, they're completely
decontextualized from their family, their community, their elders, their teachers,
their students. So it can also be really hard to
get a sense of, you know, an artists at work
in their ecosystem, and the music industry has no is
(51:27):
not interested in your long term wellness. So it's also
something about maybe what I really mean, what I was
just being mean, like, don't become a narcissist. I think
what I really mean is like, actually learning how to
cultivate one's gift in a in a healthy balance with
being available to and in accountability to your community is
(51:51):
actually the most sustainable and uh nourishing, soul nourishing way
to go about this. And you can't sustain as a
musician if your soul isn't nourished. So maybe that's that's
what I'm really trying.
Speaker 3 (52:05):
To speak to.
Speaker 1 (52:06):
You know what's interesting? I mean, you know, you're you're right,
like there aren't like we I was reading when Benny
Golson passed away. I found power, Power, Power. I found
a what do you call it? A an oral history
interview that he had given maybe in like two thousand
and two or something, and I was reading through it
(52:29):
and he was talking about Oliver Nelson going to Hollywood
to score film and TV. And you know, I mean,
sadly Oliver, you know, doesn't liver. He passes away in
They're seven seventy one, seventy two, forty forty one, forty two,
you know, like, but you think about it, like I
(52:51):
was thinking about Oliver Nelson, and it's like, here's this
person with an immense talent that I don't think unless
you really care about the music that you might not
know you're not gonna his name is not gonna you know,
fel like Duke Ellington, you know what I mean. So,
but it's like, is this guy who like had all
that talent led a band like and probably had design,
(53:14):
probably wanted to continue to bleed a band, but it's
like what was available was to go do this work
and doing filming TV. And like I think Benny's point
from remembering correctly was like people kind of looked down
on it a bit. But then also a lot of
people are going to him from work too, you know,
so at some point it's like you kind of just
you know, you do the work you can where you're
(53:36):
able to do it. Who cares?
Speaker 2 (53:38):
Well?
Speaker 3 (53:39):
The funny thing is a haha.
Speaker 2 (53:44):
You know, it's uncomfortable to admit or it's uncomfortable to
broach the subject.
Speaker 3 (53:48):
But there are the strands of desire for validation woven
into our pursuits of notoriety, right, I mean isn't that
part of what notoriety is. You have a lot of
people in your inner circle and outer circle.
Speaker 2 (54:06):
Validating the value of what you do, and I don't
know what you do with that. That can be a
very powerful motivating force that gets people practicing or finishing
that song or getting that heartbreak out into a tune
that becomes a hit that reaches somebody in the remote
corner of the world that needed to hear that song
that made them want to get up that day. You know,
(54:27):
it's like, it's not to judge the motivation, but it's
something to check out because it begs the question, like, huh,
what's going on with the musicians who are not as
attached to the external validation but are deeply invested in
the relationship with their music and deeply passionate about finding
(54:50):
and cultivating and creating and maybe don't see themselves as
ever having because of how they look, or their stature
or their class or who knows what, and it changes
across different decades, But who either are not motivated by
that potential for validation or don't believe that they have,
(55:11):
you know, whatever it is to even go achieve that
validation and instead turn that energy towards their other things,
and you know, allah the story about Oliver Nelson, and
really so many I can think of about thirty five
people just off the top of my head who are
not interested in that part of it, the external validation
(55:33):
and or maybe of their own self esteem or you know,
messages they've gotten from the industry about like oh you
don't quite fit, you know, let's expected, and how are
you going to show up? And they have thriving, economically
viable lives in music, and that's just something to know about,
(55:54):
you know, it's something to contemplate. And I think for
artists creating, I don't think we should ever shame our motivations.
Speaker 3 (56:04):
Ever.
Speaker 2 (56:05):
I don't think we should ever like shame or feel
humiliated about the shadow motivations that maybe get us from
point A to point B. But that doesn't mean that
we can't investigate them. Yeah, and once we become aware
of them, you can.
Speaker 3 (56:22):
Make decisions, informed decisions, informed decisions like ooh, am I am.
I stand up all night every night hustling.
Speaker 2 (56:30):
On this project because I just want to be seen
as being able to do or like whatever.
Speaker 3 (56:35):
Maybe is that what I really want to do? Or
is it for the money or is it for the
and do I feel do I like that?
Speaker 1 (56:40):
Is that?
Speaker 2 (56:40):
Is that what I want to be driven by or
invested in? And like there's no wrong answer.
Speaker 1 (56:46):
You want to be money In the moment, I got it.
Sometimes I'll tell.
Speaker 3 (56:51):
You right here, right now.
Speaker 2 (56:52):
The only reason that not the only reason, but the
main reason that I propelled myself forward to go like
accept this scholarship at Berkeley and moved to Boston. I
was very happy in Portland is because somebody had a
crush on went to MIT and I was like, oh, well,
I'll be in Boston, like I'll be closer, like maybe
(57:13):
you know, like worked at this whole fantasy in my mind,
and it's like, is that a petty I was seventeen
years old, you know, but hey, that motive, you.
Speaker 3 (57:24):
Know, the passion got me there.
Speaker 1 (57:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (57:26):
I never saw the person again, but I was in
Boston and my life blossomed. So it's just something about
the exercise of investigating the motives and then, like you said,
making informed decisions.
Speaker 3 (57:40):
And it's you know, when I think about how messed.
Speaker 2 (57:44):
Up and you know, sick and egotistical and womanizing and
abusing some of.
Speaker 3 (57:50):
My favorite musicians were.
Speaker 2 (57:53):
It's like, wow, you know, medicine and beauty can really
come out of anywhere.
Speaker 1 (57:57):
How do you? Yeah, how have you? How do you
square that? I guess it just managed that you don't
you do well?
Speaker 3 (58:04):
We're more than I think.
Speaker 2 (58:07):
We're all more than our shadows, We're all more than
our wounds, we're all more than our egos, and we're all,
let me not say more.
Speaker 3 (58:18):
We have a lot of qualities, we have a lot
of things.
Speaker 2 (58:21):
To give, and I don't I don't believe that, you know,
a person's folly or humanness is grounds for dismissing the
totality of their contribution. So a person who's abused women,
who has you know, betrayed people's trusts or been engaged
(58:42):
in womanizing behavior, if they can make, if they've made
some medicine that helps me identify like my gifts and
nourishes me and helps me heal and move forward in
my life, I'm.
Speaker 3 (58:53):
Going to use those gifts. I'm going to use them wholeheartedly.
Speaker 2 (58:59):
I might investigate some of their you know, guidance or
you know, testimony about what it is to be a humanist. Well,
I might look at it with like a little grade
of assault, we be like, okay, but yeah, I think,
you know, allowing that immensity of complexity and contradiction that's
inherent in being a human is an important thread of
(59:22):
like abolitionist work too, And I really like, I couldn't
call myself an abolitionist because I'm not doing the work
actively in community. But oh I'm wearing my Innocence Project sweatshirt,
which is definitely a part of abolition work. But I
feel abolition and the work of abolition asks all of
us to embrace the totality of our humanity and know
(59:47):
that we are all in process and know that none
of us are only the worst things that we've done
are the most harmful things that we've done. Yeah. So
so almost like the same way that dimensions of abolition
ask that we still consider folks who have done heinous
things members of our community that we're responsible for. Kind
(01:00:09):
of like you practice that internally with the members of
your internal community, you know, or the the internal community
of the artists or crafts people or creators or philosophers
or whoever whose work is nourishing you. You know, it's
almost like by taking in their work, they become a
part of your community.
Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
And I don't know in ways that are instructive too,
Like I feel like we have sometimes when you cast
away or write off people who have done even heinous things,
let alone just maybe morally a little off putting, like
you're almost like not almost, Sometimes I feel like it's
you're you're then casting You can learn as much from
(01:00:50):
the negative examples as the positive, and so it's like
someone's acknowledging that, Wow, maybe I'm also capable of those things.
Keeping those people as a part of your community, not
completely right in the moth, allows you to realize that
we're all sort of capable of both really amazing things
and really maybe also awful things. And how you then
make how can I actually make decisions to not do
(01:01:13):
that thing, you know, and maybe do more of that thing?
Speaker 3 (01:01:15):
Yes, and.
Speaker 2 (01:01:18):
I feel like the tricky part, Yes, I agree with that,
and I would add to it. You know, the practice
of keeping like tending community which includes humans who have
done things you don't agree with, isn't just for what
the benefit can have to you. It also says something about,
(01:01:42):
like I'm actually willing to invest in the keeping of
another human because they're another human.
Speaker 3 (01:01:49):
You know that there's not a.
Speaker 2 (01:01:50):
Contingency on a person's right to be a member of community.
And I also think about the fear that maybe that
the subconscious fear that we have around tending really complex
conflict and even what seems like antagonism because most of
(01:02:15):
us have never actually been through the cycle, like we
don't know what's on the other side of saying Like
I think about, you know, what's been happening with what
was happening a lot in a particular season in the
jazz world of these educators or band leaders. It coming
out that they had done these like really icky, not
okay violating actions, you know, towards students, like sexually inappropriate behavior.
(01:02:40):
And we're talking, yeah, in the last I was like
last decade, and this happened with a dear mentor of
mine in Portland, and what I saw happening was this
iron curtain or ironwalk coming down. It's like, oh my god,
we don't know, we actually don't know how to deal
with this. We actually don't know what reconciliation and community
(01:03:01):
could look like. We don't know what accountability and repair
could look like. We actually we have we have so
little idea that the only option on the plate is
like you have to go like by you don't exist anymore.
Speaker 3 (01:03:16):
It's like that, It's like whatever.
Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
Other connections or contributions up to that point, it was
just like you're out.
Speaker 3 (01:03:25):
And that.
Speaker 2 (01:03:27):
I agree, It doesn't matter what I think, but I'll
say just my little two cents in at all is
like protecting people who have been violated absolutely prior to
number one. And what I feel that whole response exposes
is how inequipped we are actually as humans in quote
unquote community, whether that community is an institution or a
(01:03:50):
field like jazz music, to like stay with the trouble,
to stay with the trouble and go like, actually, what
if we don't just get rid of this person? Like
what is protection and repair and accountability and responsibility actually
look like? And that like stew of questions feels like
(01:04:11):
what so scary that you're just like, ah, you know,
it's like get out. I can't. And I I wish
I hope for me and and all humans and.
Speaker 3 (01:04:22):
Folks who have been through all sides of you know, harm.
Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
I wish for us more robust palette of options, you
know that we can utilize when harms happen, because we
are gonna harm each other that's right. We're we're really
messed up, you know, most of us are really just
by the time you get to the point of leaving.
Speaker 3 (01:04:46):
Your house and seeing another person, you already messed up.
Speaker 2 (01:04:49):
So I mean important too, It's just that's here we are,
you know. So yeah, I'll just add that I wish
that for my community and musicians. I wish that for
my community, my family, and the community of folks I
work with in Portland, and it really just anywhere there's
humans who have the POTENTI the harm. I wish for
(01:05:10):
us to have a more robust, like I said, pallette
of tools and skills, and there are a lot of
people who are tirelessly cultivating those practices, you know.
Speaker 3 (01:05:21):
So it's not like we're in a void. They're there.
Speaker 1 (01:05:23):
It just.
Speaker 2 (01:05:25):
The images of car serial response is what we see
the most often. So I think the knee jerk reaction
is to go to that.
Speaker 1 (01:05:33):
It's our default.
Speaker 3 (01:05:34):
Yeah, it's a default.
Speaker 1 (01:05:37):
So much more I want to talk about, but I
don't do it another time. Thanks so much for making
the time. We put links in the episode description to
Milton Esperanza's collaborative album and also the two playlists featuring
some of our favorites from both Milton Nastrumento and Esperanzis
Spaulding and again. To see the video version of this episode,
(01:05:58):
visit YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast and be
sure to follow us on Instagram at the Broken Record Pod.
You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken
Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing
help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is
Ben Holliday. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries.
(01:06:19):
If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider
subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription
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ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple
podcast subscriptions. And if you like this show, please remember
to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app.
Our theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.
Pushkin. A month ago at the Grammys, Alicia Keys gave
a beautiful speech while accepting the Global Impact Award. Part
of her speech was dedicated to the women producers who
power the industry, women like Patrice Russian, Missy Elliott, Linda Perry,
and others. This was top of mind for me when
(00:35):
I sat down with Esperanza's faulding at the Blue Milk
Club in New York, where she was in the middle
of a residency, not only because she just produced a
gorgeous new collaborative album by the unheralded Brazilian genius Milton Ostumento.
Na'turally called Milton and Esperanza, but she's self produced just
about all of her own projects from the very beginning.
Esperanza and I talk about why she's been producing herself
(00:58):
from the jump in this episode, what it's been like
working so closely with master mentors like Milton Nostrumento, but
also Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock, and Espernza tells me
what she views as the rocky begins and in her career.
This is broken record, real musicians, real conversations. If you'd
(01:23):
like to watch the video version of today's episode, visit
our YouTube page, YouTube dot com slash Broken Record podcast.
Here's my conversation with Esperanza Spaulding.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
He's just such a fan girl for He's not even
gonna he's not gonna own it, like he's cool, he's cool.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Yeah, he's probably playing it cool.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
I think so because he knows they're gonna roast him
about it all the time.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
That's so funny. Cool. Yeah. No, but I'm happy. Uh,
I'm happy this work out to do too though, because yeah,
I'm like, uh. As soon as the album got announced,
I was like, you gotta be kidding me. This is
the most amazing thing I've ever heard.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
That's what I also felt, this is the most crazy
thing that I've ever heard. When when his son asked
me to produce it, So yeah, is that.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
The origin of the visit. So it's going to be
more you producing a Milton.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Well when the in the same moment that his son
was like, oh you should produce this record, he said
it should be Milton and Esperanza. He kind of he
framed it as like, oh, it'll be a duo project.
You know, you and him should do this project together
and you produce it. And I mean I when you
(02:34):
revere somebody's work that much, it can almost it felt
hard to almost like insert myself into the like pallette
of sounds. You know, maybe I felt an initial temptation
as a producer. It's just kind of like I just
want to bring stuff together and just you know, bask
(02:56):
in the glory of your songs, in your sound. He
Milton and his son were like, no, no, you know,
we go do it together. It's gotta be it's gotta
be your stuff too. It's got to be what you
want and that so that that actually made it scarier,
I think, because ooh, it's kind of like, hmm, can
(03:18):
you it's almost like a challenge to the to the
mentee or the younger person, like can you stand by
what you've developed at this point in your musical life,
you know, and consider it a contribution to the same
global cannon of music as your you know, mentor.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
And because that's that felt like the that feels.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Like it's always the invitation with every next generation, like
you can't just keep you know, revering and bowing to
and like, oh, you know, holding on this like silver
holy platter.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
I don't know, the works are the ones.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Before you like you have to sit in and live
in and find out about what you've made inspired by them.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
You know, it was initially just maybe so to be
just you producing a Milton record, but then it's sort
of no, it.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Was he always his son always framed it as you
produced a record, and it's going to be you and him.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
I just found that scary, you know.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
As a conceit of like, oh, it's going to be
both of our music or both of our kind of
you know, esthetic voice or presence on the album. I
felt intimidating as a conceit as a producer, and also
ass like a person who's so inspired by him and
(04:36):
feel so affected by his body at work, you know.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Yeah, I mean you collaborated also very closely with Wayne
Shorter with the albums dedicated to Did It Feel? I mean,
I guess and are you are you just not used
to are you not yet used to working so closely
alongside your your hero or is it just never Is
that something you just never grow accustomed to when you
(05:00):
revere people When.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Yeah, I mean, when you put it like that, it
sounds like there's just this long line of people a
on the level of Wayne and Milton that like you
could go, you know, like, oh, and the next.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
You'll go work with. To me, those two people are
like my number one and number two.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
It's not in any hierarchy of order, but really in
the uh in the history of music that's affected me
that I've loved most deeply and studied the deepest. Wayne
and Milton are it, you know, So this weird kind
(05:42):
of like timing, I guess of working so closely with
Wayne for a decade, approximately a decade on this opera project,
and then in the year that Wayne passes this project
with Milton coming up that I don't know what to
(06:03):
say about that, even I think that's the first time
I maybe said that sequence of events out loud.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
And I don't know what to do with that.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
I don't even know how to process that, because you know,
I know these humans. You know, they are people that
I love and revere as as folks. You know, people
that I know that I talk to and call and know.
And also they are the two of the profoundest musicians
to ever walk the earth, just period, and and the like,
(06:34):
the circumstances that conspired for me to even know them
and to even meet them connect with them, and then
get through. These projects are just ridiculous, like it's it's unbelievable.
So all that to say, no, I'm not accustomed to
working with people like Wayne Shorter and Milton because there
(06:57):
aren't people like Wayne Shorter and Milkon. They are both
so singular, and yeah, I getting to know both of
them in the different ways and the different journeys that
brought me to both of them have have just been
miracles of my life, you know what I meant. And
when the opportunities opened, or the invitations really i'll say,
came for me to work with them, I just said yes,
(07:21):
what not.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Really asking like am I am I ready for this?
Am I equipped to do this?
Speaker 2 (07:25):
I said yes? Because I love them? You know, how
could you say no? And that's what I can say
about that. So yeah, also with also, I don't want
to like conflate the two of them because working with
them with their own very distinct journeys and projects and pretexts.
But it's really something. So it's like a.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Perpetual kind of.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Sticks boob like dual state of existence where you're like, okay,
this this person in front of me, we got.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
This work to do. We're just trying to figure out
the key for this song or like that, you know, whatever.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Is the detail in front of you, and then the
other part of you is like, oh my god, this
is Milton. Not to mental, you know, just trying to
actually stay present and not swoon and like faint at
the immensity of your hero sitting in the room with you.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
You know, so I imagine the like focusing on the
details and just the task at hand is definitely the
way to just get your mind out of the fawning
and the yes.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
One step at the time.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
And also, I mean, you know, since we're talking about
the record with Milton, Milton is a very kind and
generous person. You know, he makes it easy for you
to be around him, like if he likes you, if
he's messing with you. He makes it easy for you
(08:55):
to just be in space. You know, he's telling stories.
He's he's telling them like something will happen with the
song or in the room that reminds him of a story,
and then he'll tell you a story and make sure
you understand, you know, the punchline. And so felt it
felt very like you know, familial to be in the
space and create and and the we had work to
(09:16):
do you know what I mean. Like, he's a person
who is very specific about what he's put into his
songs and why, you know, down to like the voicing
of a chord. And you know, here I was saying like, oh,
I'm gonna, you know, re harmonize some things, like do
these little arrangements and this and that, and.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
He was cool a lot of the stuff that I propose,
and he.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Would get so specifical like oh no, wait, wait, wait, no,
that chord has to be that those notes, because it
really felt like there's like a poetry to how he puts.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
The songs together.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
And because I'm not the poet, I don't know why
he put that chord there instead of one that maybe
sounds similar, but he does. And so it was it
was deep to learn about that specificity of his craft
that he's like, no, this, this chord has to be
right because it's doing something, you know, in the logic
of the whole thing. And that was like a great
you know lesson too of that that like kind of
(10:18):
standing up for the specifics and then also being flexible
to the new voice of somebody else who's hearing something
new with what you.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Made there is I mean it's it's fascinating to hear
that there's these certain details that he feels and need
to be there because he has such a I don't
even know how to I wouldn't know how to describe
his music other than that, you know, and there is
Maybe it's just because they collaborated and I conflate them
in my mind, but Wayne and Milton both have this
(10:47):
to me ineffable quality to the music that's just so
beautiful and so you know, just to hear that you're
there and there are these sort of key Yeah, there's
these things that are key to him and key to
what he does. I mean, do you feel like you
understand those things better now?
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Boy?
Speaker 3 (11:07):
What I can? I I don't know if it's understand but.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
I maybe feel the his archetype as a creator more
as a poet than before. I mean, I remember asking
him once about his songwriting process. I think I was
swooning over some lyrics and it's like you know how, but.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Like how did you do that?
Speaker 2 (11:36):
It was some image in a lyric, like did you
did you see that image first and then write it?
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Like?
Speaker 3 (11:43):
How how did you you know? What?
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Was?
Speaker 3 (11:46):
What was that process? I think I was asking more
about like what was the creative process?
Speaker 2 (11:51):
You know, did you sketch it? Was it somebody else's
idea or a story you had in mind, or you know,
like how did you craft it? And he just said,
I'm a poet, you know, that's that's what I do,
you know, And that landed at that time in relationship
to like the construction of narrative and a song and
(12:15):
beetting a little bit closer to that singularity and that
specificity around the music. The musical elements are like, Oh,
I'm not a poet. I don't identify as a poet,
but I can appreciate that craft where like there's a
science as a math, like what the sense soial image
(12:35):
that you want the person to receive, you know, like
their imagination has to put your symbols together, and there's
like this like chemical reaction of like imaginative chemistry where
like oh they get the sense loyal image, and it's
like it's got to be those words and that sequence
and that part of the poem. And I I think
(12:57):
I perceive him doing that with all the parts, all
the parts, the tambore of his voice, what register he's
singing in the instrumentation, the texture or the harmonic progression.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
The intro, the outro.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
You know, he's doing that kind of like architecture, you know.
And I do think, I mean, I don't want to
conflate them either Wayne and Milton, because there's such distinct
singularities and that intentionality, that care into the minutia, that
(13:33):
care of the minutia is something that Wayne definitely embodied
in practiced down to he wrote every note of his
symphonic score is by hand now with pen, with pen,
so you know, the whole score, all the instruments in
(13:54):
the symphony. He wrote every note, every single note in
stem and line and sharp pen a hand. And the music,
the symphonic music he was writing always had like.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
A big theme, you know, a big ooh.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Story or feeling or idea, and he would be writing
into the note in that passage of the music. It
would it would be some aspect of the larger theme,
you know, So he'd be writing into the note like
the intention of that part.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Of the music, like with his hand from his heart.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
He'd be you know, like imbuing the note head with
that that idea, just the way he just everything. Yeah,
he would he would be like thinking about it and like, yeah,
this I want I want this third violinist, I want
this obo's to like feel this right here. So I'm
gonna I'm gonna write that in to the to the
to the phrase, and I mean then you zoom out
(14:54):
and you're like, Okay, a twenty five minute symphonic piece
that this person wrote, and every single note that he
wrote is like imbued with this this like message and
prayer or intention for the player is It's just it's
mind boggling. It's like a whole ecosystem, you know. So anyway,
(15:14):
they're both their own singularity, and maybe that depth of
care and thoroughness is something that we could say, you know,
I've witnessed in each of them, you know, in their
own in their own ways.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
It's interesting too, because you know, I guess you know,
sometimes I think there's the temptation with things with with
music to just think that things just are like all
I mean, there are playing I think happy accidents that
occur in music making, but not everything is like some
there are like I mean, there are some things that
(15:50):
are are intentional and specific to these people that they
they go out of their way to imbue, you know,
their music with when do you think.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
About when you talk about happy accidents.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
It makes me think of, well, yes, there are lots
of happy accidents, and it's like.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
What do you do with those happy accidents?
Speaker 2 (16:10):
You know that that, to me is where the brilliance
happens because there's so much happening real time when you're
playing or improvising or composing. Even you know, Wayne needs
to always say composition is improvisation slowed down? So yes,
these things were like, oh emerge, yeah, I know he's
full of Yeah he was like he would say playing
(16:35):
is compositions sped up? And composition is soloings slowed down?
But yes, these miraculous your hand you're trying to play
one voice and like ooh your hand falls and another
ways like oh okay, that's interesting.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
But you know what's compelling.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
I guess where the like brilliant slides in any artists,
Like what what you see in that the potential that
you recognize in the quote unquote happy accident and how
you how you shift it, you know, how you integrate it.
And on the record, you know, we on the Milton
and s Bronza record, we really wanted to do this way.
Short song one You Dream because of course we were
(17:12):
thinking of him, uh, from son up to some doown,
you know, being in Brazil with his dear friend, and
Leo Genovese was there, and Leo was very close to Wayne.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Actually, the last.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Grammy Wayne won, he won with Leo Genovese. It was
the first time that two jazz instrumentalists shared the same
Grammy for Best Jazz Performance. Yeah. Incredible, Yeah, incredible player,
incredible composer. So yes, So we're in this room, you know,
and all of us in the room had had some
(17:46):
kind of a connection to Wayne.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
He had departed.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
In his own last words, he said, I'll be back soon.
I gotta go get a new body so I can
continue the mission. So we're all just you know, with
that immensity of his influence on our life and being
in the studio with Milton and wanted this song, and
(18:10):
I had done this whole arrangement. I spent weeks prepping
it and it was not working. It was just not working,
and I could feel it and I could own that
it wasn't working. But we just wanted to do it
so ad you know. So we're like we keep, you know,
carving at it and trying to rework the clay.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
It's just not happening. And then we like stopped. I
felt so defeated.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
I was like, ah, the night started remembering or hearing
Wayne's voice like, you gotta have fun. You know, it's
suposed to supposed to have hell of a good time.
You know, in everything, you're not having fun.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Why do it? You know?
Speaker 2 (18:56):
And it's kind of like we started sharing these like
quotes and things that we had heard, you know, remembered
him saying or doing.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
And then we.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Like threw the arrangement away and we said, let's just
go for broke. You know, let's just let's just play it.
You know, the melody is alive in us, and we're
gonna like let whatever tumbles out.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
There's this line from a great poem that the.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Police tumbled out of the back of a van like oranges. Anyway,
it's like that feeling of like, you know, it's just yeah,
just telling out whatever gravity is working on you, the
forces of the world working on you.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
Let it go.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
And you could say the whole song, the whole song
is like this unfurling cascade of happy accidents. Because we
didn't have like an arrangement in mind, you know, we
were in real time, responding to the cascade of you know,
encounters from what each of us was playing that felt
(20:00):
fun or felt good. And I feel like that what
ended up on the record is this beautiful portrait of
like when when you when you usher in, are you
steward or you you trust? The kind of chaos of
many brilliant people pouring out, you know, the ingredients for
(20:23):
happy accidents to happen sequentially through the song.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
We'll be back with more from Restaurants Spalding after the break.
I think, you know, it's like that. That was one
of the things. You know, Quincy Jones just died too,
and that was one of the things people kind of
talks about with him in terms of just the way
he arranged sometimes was like just getting people who were
(20:49):
really good at what they did and you could trust
and just let them go. And I guess that's a
similar thing, like if you have players who you know,
you know, bring a certain thing to the table. It's
like what I'm doing with.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
The exactly that's one of good producing is well, I
guess you can because sometimes you're run in to produce
and it's already a group of people that you don't
you know you don't necessarily have history with but I
like the agency and the it's almost like a composition
(21:23):
of people. You know, the composition process starts with the
people of just what you said, you know, how the
chemistry of the folks work. You know, kind of like
the chemical reactions of these group of people. And you know,
I mean Quincy was definitely a master that, but all
great band leaders that's what they're doing, you know, that's
(21:44):
I remember. I mean I think about like Terryln Carrington,
who's a phenomenal producer, phenomenal producer, phenomenal arranger, drummer, yes,
a band leader, all the things.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
And it's like she can see, she can like foresee
miracles between players that I think most people wouldn't give
the opportunity to to flourish. And she particularly kind of
has that. I like the potential of young musicians. You know,
it's like maybe they're not quite there today, but she
can like sense or smell like, but if I bring
(22:19):
them into this band with that person, that person, you know,
that gift, that thing that they have is gonna open
up and flourish in the right you know, chemical reaction
with with the other parts that are here. And that
is maybe a easy to miss superpower.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Do you think you have that?
Speaker 3 (22:38):
I may, but I don't. I don't have a lot
of opportunity to find out because I play with the
same people. I have been so.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Lucky to encounter these players through my life that are
just you know, just gems, just so who like Leo,
like folks in this band, Eric Dude, Matt Stevens, Morgan Gharrion,
Justin Tyson, Corey King.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
You know, these ones.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Who I just know, like I just I trust them
so deeply and to the point where I also know
they won't let me jump off any cliffs that I
can't fly back from, you know what I mean. And
that's also people that can give you like honest critique
and honest feedback. So I'll say, maybe I have that skill,
(23:32):
but I'm not putting myself in the circumstances to flex
that musclefully if it's indeed there. Yeah, okay, I will
find out, maybe you.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Kind of from the beginning. I've just been producing your
own records.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Yes, I've been producing my record since the first record
and in I guess two thousand and six six, WHOA.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
That's weird.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Yeah, well, I guess I produced them two thousand and
five and it came out in two thousand and six,
twenty years ago.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
That's shocking. WHOA, what do you put it like that?
Speaker 1 (24:10):
To find a point on it.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
I'm like, WHOA, is that true? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (24:17):
And that's I don't want to say that's easier, but
I feel.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
It's a It's a really different.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Creature when you're producing in a way that's ushering someone
else's vision, you know, into fullness. I have immense respect
for the producers who do that for a living.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
You know, I can't imagine producing your very first record
is any easy because you're kind of like, I mean,
now you know what to expect of yourself in a
situation going into produce another artist you might not know.
That's like, but like so, I mean in the sense
of your first albums, and you're kind of like an
unknown entity to yourself in some ways in the studio.
(24:59):
As much as strange or someone you're producing got to
be scary, it had to be weird.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
The truth about that.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
First record is I wasn't planning for that to be
some sort of like representation of me as an artist,
you know, at that time in my life in music,
I was playing all kinds of records.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
I was playing.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Anybody and everybody's record because I was in school and
you just your make a record left to right. You're
going down to the studio from the two am to
six am recording session. You just here's here's playing and
doing things. I have made a lot of little demos
for myself, and you know, when this label called ava
A y v A approached me like, hey, you want
to do a record with with you know, just a
(25:40):
project that you have, I was like, cool, I had
this little you know, I don't want to say whatever,
but just two of the many dozens of people that
I was doing projects with.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
It was and Francisco Mela and yeah yeah, but I
mean it gets twenty years ago, like we didn't.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Know who A and Francisco I was gonna become their
teachers and students in Boston. So I was like, hey,
you guys, you want to get in the studio, will
make a record for this Spanish label like cuckoo cool?
Speaker 3 (26:08):
I mean it really didn't.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
It didn't have like gravitas, it didn't have like weight.
You know, we have been doing tons of gigs around
Boston with various configurations with you know those two folks,
and so we just went in the studio, played some
of the stuff we play, played some improvised stuff.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Yeah it was, and I'm thinking like this is going
to be some little like niche record from this niche
label in Spain.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
The end next kind of like thank you.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
That was a nice little archive of this band, this
Boston local Boston project.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Cool, like what's next? You know?
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Then I have played a song by a phenomenal Argentining
composer called I'd heard a version that Lilyanarrero and Juan
did of this song called that, which is on the
record thank you. I love that song and also check
out and Lillian Nearreo because their version. Anyways, at a
(27:06):
Spanish management company there happened to be a man from Argentina.
So when this teeny little label was looking like shopping
the album looking for you know, promotion, they shopped it
to this other Spanish company and they're like, ugh, no,
you know, we're not taking projects like what little just
this free jazz stuff like whatever. But then one Argentina
(27:28):
guy was like, wait, what why is this girl?
Speaker 3 (27:30):
Why is this black girl in Boston?
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Know this Argentina composer and just because of that, this
company reached out and they were like, okay, who are you,
what are you doing?
Speaker 3 (27:41):
Kind of thing?
Speaker 2 (27:42):
And then that was the only album that I had
made technically, so that became my first record, you know
what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Yeah, so and way you didn't expect it to be
like a college card or.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Even looking back, I'm like, that is just okay, yeah cool.
If it's almost like, oh, if you can.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
I think my beautiful face helped. But I was like,
if y'all can listen to that, I guess I give
you anything.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
I've listened to that, your first two records a long time, okay,
really good, really good, because I feel like the artists
sometimes you get like a narrative, either maybe you've you
embraced a certain narrative or people overlay a narrative, and
I feel like that sometimes, or if I were to
just think about it, like so, I feel like maybe
the narrative is like that you've stretched out a lot,
(28:29):
and you obviously had, you've done so much, but like
but that that those are kind of more just straight ahead,
just kind of funny. But really but when I put
them on, I was like, WHOA. I was kind of
surprised at actually how good they really are. Yeah, yeah,
I thought you're not great.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
No, but I hear you. Yeah, I was twenty years.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Old and needs to be discounted. I don't think I.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Receive it, and hey, hallelujah, that's a I do think.
I do think of the ways you can come into
the music industry. Just looking back now from that perspective,
it's funny.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
It's funny, it's kind of like cheeky. It actually matches
the truth of my personality. It's funny that the first
record was just like weird, random kind of avant garde
trio free thing with these two black Huban men who
were way freakier than musically, way freakier than what's even
on that record. Like, I like that.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
There's something kind of like trickstery about that being the
first calling card. And in a way, you know, when
when anybody wants to say like, oh, you know you're
taking it too out or like you know, do that
s side of the STU be like, no, there's a
precedent here here for being you.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
Know, on the edge.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Yeah, would you do you think you would have if
you if you had known that that was gonna be Oh,
I would.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
Have done it completely different.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Of course, do you think you would have overthought it
or do you think you have done different stuff?
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Would you have done? Like looking back, what do you
think you would have done?
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Look him back, look him back. I would have put
my songs, like my own songs on it. I would
have sung more. I would have had arrangements, you know,
more like horn arrangements and vocal arrangements, and oh, I'm
sure I would have done especially if there was the
(30:21):
lack of oversight like there was, because it really was.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
It was the sweet It.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Was like a father son duo who ran this whole album,
and it was very there was like free artistic license,
like it was really just like here's the funds, just
bring us a record, like whatever you want to do.
And it was a short timeline, so I was like,
all right, who's who am I?
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Who am?
Speaker 2 (30:44):
I already have a thing with oh YouTube, we've been
doing gigs all you know all season.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
Let's go in the studio real quick.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
It's kind of the classic way. I don't know, that's
a great way.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
I feel like that was like representative of the like
the portrait of the artists and then the.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Not the problem because I like the second record, Esperanza.
But what I'll say.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Is then other people's money and agenda was wrapped up
in the album I was making. And so I will
never dismiss or disregard the incredible support and work that
that first kind of swath of like my team did
for me. They fought for me so hard and all
this stuff. That's like I mean, of course that's my
(31:28):
hard work and my great music. But like all these
opportunities that keep you know, tumbling talk about tumbling out
from those early days of my career are really thanks
to you know, the devotion and the like hustle and
the whatever was.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
Driving these men you know in the industry who like
you know it was it was Montuno Productions, and it
was Dave Love, and it was Concord Records.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
It was John Burke and Mark Wexler, and you know,
these ones who like they saw like ooh, we know
what to do with this. It was that kind of
like I'm gonna say, they saw the commodity value, and
it's not to I'm sure they cared about me as
a human on levels. And they're in the music business
and their dubs to sell music and artists as Amadie
(32:14):
and and I remember having these conversations with the label.
My first album came out on Heads Up, which hadn't
yet been purchased by Concord, you know.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
A KA universal.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
Then they're there, whatever you call it, the overarching companies, university, conglomerate,
thank you. I think it is SO or parent company
or whatever. So I remember, you know, I had I
wrote a lot.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
In those days.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
I had like so many songs, so many arrangements, and
I remember the head of the of the label be like,
but we have this grid. You know, you have to
the songs have to fit in these categories on the grid,
and so you can't put that a grid. It was like,
you know, songs that have this vibe, songs like a
(33:03):
ballad like and it actually became of a joke between
me and musicians like old, don't mess up the grid.
Wait now we can't make sure. Don't think he's going
to get you. And and this is, oh, you know,
where's the hook of the song. I was like, hook
of the song. Don't you know what kind of musician
I am?
Speaker 3 (33:20):
I don't know hooks and whatever.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
So I at my little twenty two year old self
I remember this like icky kind of tug of war
with these humans who had more experience than me, were
older than me, saw me as a kid who hadn't
know what I was doing, and were really putting a
lot of pressure on me to make these decisions about
the music that was gonna get end up on this record.
(33:45):
And I did fight and push, but it was a
tug of war. So that means there are compromises that
I felt like I had to make because these were
the money people and the folks who knew the industry
and I didn't know.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
Of course, their ultimate agenda.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Was like you know, you have you had the potential
to be big in jazz, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
I was trying.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
To no, because you would never say that to somebody,
you know.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
And I don't know if my brain would have registered
the depths of.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
You know, the power dynamics at work there with all
these like white businessmen who were seeing this like young
you know, I didn't. They were my representation and my
label and my you know, so here I'm this like
little young, like naive critter who's just like I just
gonna make neat songs, you know what I mean? I
don't think I could have comprehended the layers at work
(34:33):
there in the whole dynamic.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
But they could.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
They definitely could comprehend the layers of potential and you know,
you know, income potential and commodity potential and brand potential
and all the things.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
So all that to say.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
From June Joe to then the first album like it's
to Esperanza, it's a great album.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
I'm like, Wow, yes, I can stand by it, and
I feel very aware.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Of the compromises down to the budget was what it was,
which wasn't great, and so for the engineer to really
do the great engineer to do the job, they wanted
producer credit, you know, and stuff like that. And you're like,
(35:20):
I don't know what that, but you know what that meant,
you know what I mean? Like I wasn't paying attention
to that part of the contract negotiations. My manager was
doing it, who was also friends with the label, who
was friends with the you know what I mean. So
you're not tracking this at twenty two you don't know
how the music industry works yet, and I'm not This
is not a SOB story.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
I'm so grateful everything that happened happened.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
It just it just is what it is, and it's
things like also how I think like labor gets invisibilized.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
I think, especially.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Early on for the sake of you know, people want
to cut the of the narrative or a cut of
the credit or a cut of the whatever. And you know,
I'm sure the people in the room will tell you
the musicians produced that record. I produced that record. I
chose the music. You know. It was like, but my
name's not on there as a producer, you know what
(36:12):
I mean. And and there are elements in that record
that I roll my eyes about now because there were
decisions made for the grid. You know, for someone in
the industries talking about jazz music as industry, it's like
a joke. For some people, it is their industry and
(36:32):
that's how they pay their mortgage, and so.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
It's doing a thing a lot of them for error.
So maybe that's so I guess that's where the grid
comes from.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
I guess that's where the grid comes in.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
It's just I now, at twenty years later, am clarified
that then it was about what it's still about for
me now, which is you know, putting your the sounds
that you're hearing into the world.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
That's the assignment. That's what I think the assignment is.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
And I say no when the option is, hey, you know,
put this thing on this record that's going to live
in the world forever for the sake of potential. I
don't know, like it could go further quote unquote, or
you could sell more. You know, I'm always gonna say
(37:28):
no if it's either or between that choice or the
representation of what we heard. You know, what the musicians
like felt, heard, saw and were able to craft in
a way that someone else.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
Could hear it and see it.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
Do you think there's more truth in that spending more
time getting exactly what you hear in your head, or
in just getting out what you can in the moment. Well,
I I.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Don't mean what we heard in the sense of like
a tyrannical you know, it must be it must match
exactly the image of my brain.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
That's not what I mean by what we heard. I
mean what's true.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
You know, and what we heard can encompass what happened
when we started with the sketch.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
But these five people in a room whoa found another thing,
And you know, it's more about the truth.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
It's more about telling the truth of who we are,
you know, and the we is the humans who have
dedicated this time to be doing this and nothing else,
to create this thing called music that is so mysterious.
And I think I feel so holy. And I don't
mean it in any particular denomination or a religious paradigm
(38:44):
or cosmology, but you know, I think whatever the word
holiness is trying to speak to of a of a
something that is possible or is amongst us in this world.
I feel the presence of this thing that I would
use the word holy to describe that emerges when people
(39:07):
are making music, and that thing that, like you use
the word ineffable earlier, that like feeling or who our
presence is the thing that I want to share.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
That to me, that is.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
The thing worth efforting to carry it, to give, to give,
to give, to give it to each other, and to
give it to somebody who's gonna take some of their
time out of their life to listen to you.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
Like that's a bit. I think that's a big ass deal.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
Like your attention, your time, that's all you have, and
we don't know how long any of us are going
to be on this earth. And like a human being,
another human being that I don't even know that doesn't
even owe me anything, like I'm not even their family, being.
Speaker 3 (39:53):
Like oh yeah, okay, cool, Like I.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
Will dedicate some of my time, some of my attention
to this thing that was created. I feel it's our
responsibility to just try to just deliver who that holiness
that we can conjured, conjure a company usher through us.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
And and I think.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
Somewhere I knew these things at twenty, but I didn't
have the confidence to fully advocate, and I wanted to
honor the investment other people were making in me, so
I made a lot of like eye rolling concessions. But
now people like that around, So now I said that
(40:47):
I can stand by the last few and be like, yeah,
that's what we meant. That's exactly what we meant.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
But it came from It's interesting to though that those
compromises did come from a good place in you, in
that like you're like, at least it came from I
just I just want to honor that these people are trying.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
To yeah, and just be getting tired of arguing or
just being like, well, that's what we gotta tape. That
person can't come back to the studio, so Let's make
the best with what this is.
Speaker 3 (41:13):
You know.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
And also, you know the contract that you signed coming
into the world to be an artist isn't like everything
I do will be perfect. I just was watching this
beautiful excerpt of an interview with Maya Angelou last night,
who's talking about recognizing that she's a being in process
above all else. She's a being in process, so she
(41:37):
doesn't try to affix herself to any version that worked
in the past, and nor is she even fully committed
to stating this version of who I am. What I think,
what I'm giving is final because we're in process. And
I feel it's really important for musicians of all ages.
But I want to say, especially young musicians, to stand
(41:59):
by the archive of what they give to the world,
because the archive also teaches about our evolution as creators.
You know, there's things that I've done that I ooh,
they're out in the world for every and I cringe,
you know, and it's like, well, that's part of the
archive that shows a human in process and evolution, and
(42:22):
that is that's what is interesting to me. I guess
about being on this journey of being someone who creates
that you can well, yep, That's what I was tripping
on listening to reading, and I really wanted to share
it forward.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
Now maybe I.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
Completely disagree with that, but there you have it, and
now I can show the evolution from there to hear.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
Yeah, after this last break, we're back with the rest
of my conversation with Esperanza Spalding. That's why I really
also respect like people like well, the people who are
around like I mean, I guess Miles too, but that's
more as a state, but like Bob Dylan and Neil Young,
(43:03):
who like the guys who still actively make records, but
they also are constantly just going through the archives and
releasing old sketches of things, like you know, and You're like,
it's it's really valuable. It's really valuable to hear.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
I think Mitchell too.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
I mean, I think you're kind of talking about big names,
but I think Jerry Allen was also doing that. I
just last night was listening to the Marylyn Williams Collective,
and you know, that sounds so different than Grand River Crossings,
which sounds so different than the trio work with Paul
Motion and Charlie Hayden at the Vanguard, which sounds so
different than timelines. I'm just like, whoa you know, WHOA
(43:46):
here is a person who's like letting the whatever was
however the last project metabolized like what it brought, like,
you know, letting that point to whatever's next.
Speaker 3 (44:02):
It's really possible.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
I mean Wayne Shorter is a person like that. Ess
Mental a person like that. Tarylyn Carrington is a person
like that.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
You know. Also the way Milton returned, like there's so
many there's something there's so many versions of Milt of
Milton doing his own oh yeah, you know, and I
just do like on any giving he's like that, I
love the first record, yeah, and it's like I love
all those songs.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
And then it's like sometimes I like I want to
go just hear it, like the CTI version you know,
even later or you know that is also there. It
is incredible. At what point do you feel you finally
were able to put something into the world that felt
like this is what I intended to put out.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
I really feel that Twelve Little Spells is what I
intended to put out. Like I feel like we and
Emily duplus evolution. Maybe it started with Emily du plus evolution,
but also at each point of creating or putting the
(45:08):
records out, like okay, we can really, I mean I
signed off. I'm like, okay, we can release this, you know,
so I'll say that, you know, I can stand by
them all. And I remember the feeling of Emily's Day
plus Evolution being like, you know, like nobody was gone
on this one. And also with twelve Little Spells, it
(45:30):
just felt so protected, you know, like we it felt
so much about the folks in the room were only
people who really cared about the music we were making
and really delivering like the potential, the fullest potential of
(45:51):
what these creators around this theme and this body of
work could give. And I want to leave you know,
the future open to maybe answer that question in ten
years and be like, oh, actually it was the one
that you know happened eight years from.
Speaker 1 (46:05):
Today to the May angela point of never see a
fixed yeah right, yeah, and it could be the one
so now yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
And also just because to like puncture the potential of
grandiosity or narcissistem to swell in this conversation, like it's
also like, yes, I think music is one of the
most powerful holy forces of Earth, and it's also just music.
You know what I mean, Like, it's also not that deep,
(46:34):
Like it's not like we make songs and we play
them and we put them out in the world, and
it's like just to be able to do that and
make a living, do that like good night, We're done here, fantastic,
everything's working good. You know, let's go plant a garden.
I also just don't want to get too precious or
(46:54):
too concerned or.
Speaker 3 (46:56):
I don't know, make it like a bigger deal than
it needs to be. We're just doing our job. You know,
this is my job.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
I do this for a living, and I do this
out of the deep passion in my heart that I
have for creating and for sounds and for working with people.
And like the worst thing that we could do some records,
like oh that's awful. That was all compromised for the
forces of industry.
Speaker 1 (47:21):
So it's like and right, so what that deep?
Speaker 2 (47:25):
Yeah, it'sody somebody, somebody's out there making the record. You know,
We're just one little cell in the body of music
on this earth, and that is such a privilege. So
I feel like even sometimes younger musicians will have this
kind of like almost like desperation in their voice, like
(47:47):
how do you find your voice, like how do you
how do you get into the industry, and like find
your voice and do your thing. And I can remember
that kind of like pressure, that feeling of pressure like
uh oh, you know, I gotta go do something as
a grown up now and make this thing I've invested
in work.
Speaker 3 (48:02):
And I also try to.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
Remind them like, you can't help it, you can't whatever
the hell you are whatever, even if you just want
to do Lady Gouggug covers for the rest of your
life in a club in South Korea and you know,
or whatever, do Elvis in personation, like whatever, whatever the
hell your thing is, it's gonna come out. It's gonna beautiful,
(48:27):
it's gonna be what it is. And the main thing
is are you enjoying doing it?
Speaker 3 (48:32):
Can you do it? Do you want to do it?
And just in this life to get to find a
thing like that, you're winning.
Speaker 1 (48:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (48:41):
So it's kind of like whatever the whatever you can.
Speaker 2 (48:46):
Find at this point in time, that's a thing that
you like, that you do, that you sound like, even
if you think you're faking it, great, do that and
that's great, And then make sure you call your elders,
help your friends, who have kids, you know, support folks
who are disenfranchised, pay attention to your local politics, engage.
Speaker 3 (49:08):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (49:09):
It's like kind of like, don't fill your brain with
all these existential concerns of the arts. Like you're a
human in a world and this is the job you
get to do and if.
Speaker 3 (49:19):
You just keep doing, it's gonna work.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
Don't worry, and now make sure you pay attention to
all the other stuff, because we can get very self absorbed.
Speaker 1 (49:29):
It's amazing though, how you can't just accept it's at
a young at a tender age. It's hard to just accept,
like you can know that to be the absolute truth,
and it's really hard to sometimes accept that, right because
I can remember similarly the same things, you know what,
like those feelings, it's very hard to hard and.
Speaker 2 (49:46):
We're being bombarded with the like messages of the hero
I'm using Lea Penman's phrase, the hero industrial complex, this
idea of like it doesn't count unless I'm the hero,
Like it doesn't count unless I am the star, right,
And that is a very that's that's like that's an
ominous weight. When you have a gift, you know, or
(50:09):
you have this thing that you love to do like, oh,
I love to play piano, and I really like like
I love soul music and I.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
But we don't.
Speaker 2 (50:17):
We don't have a lot of glorified images of like
a side person or a happy producer or an a ranger,
like a person who's film scoring, they're living their best life.
I feel, particularly, maybe particularly for musicians, this is kind
of like this pressure of like, oh my god, what
do I have to do to like make it, you know,
on top, or like get my esthetics together or whatever.
(50:39):
And that feels like pressure and concern that can be
kind of a waste, you know. Yeah, And I just
wonder about musicians that are pushing themselves past the place
that they'll actually derive the most pleasure and be able
to contribute them most because of this kind of pressure
to be more, do more when and the the also
(51:03):
when we get the kind of very two dimensional representations
of the artists that we love so much, they're completely
decontextualized from their family, their community, their elders, their teachers,
their students. So it can also be really hard to
get a sense of, you know, an artists at work
in their ecosystem, and the music industry has no is
(51:27):
not interested in your long term wellness. So it's also
something about maybe what I really mean, what I was
just being mean, like, don't become a narcissist. I think
what I really mean is like, actually learning how to
cultivate one's gift in a in a healthy balance with
being available to and in accountability to your community is
(51:51):
actually the most sustainable and uh nourishing, soul nourishing way
to go about this. And you can't sustain as a
musician if your soul isn't nourished. So maybe that's that's
what I'm really trying.
Speaker 3 (52:05):
To speak to.
Speaker 1 (52:06):
You know what's interesting? I mean, you know, you're you're right,
like there aren't like we I was reading when Benny
Golson passed away. I found power, Power, Power. I found
a what do you call it? A an oral history
interview that he had given maybe in like two thousand
and two or something, and I was reading through it
(52:29):
and he was talking about Oliver Nelson going to Hollywood
to score film and TV. And you know, I mean,
sadly Oliver, you know, doesn't liver. He passes away in
They're seven seventy one, seventy two, forty forty one, forty two,
you know, like, but you think about it, like I
(52:51):
was thinking about Oliver Nelson, and it's like, here's this
person with an immense talent that I don't think unless
you really care about the music that you might not
know you're not gonna his name is not gonna you know,
fel like Duke Ellington, you know what I mean. So,
but it's like, is this guy who like had all
that talent led a band like and probably had design,
(53:14):
probably wanted to continue to bleed a band, but it's
like what was available was to go do this work
and doing filming TV. And like I think Benny's point
from remembering correctly was like people kind of looked down
on it a bit. But then also a lot of
people are going to him from work too, you know,
so at some point it's like you kind of just
you know, you do the work you can where you're
(53:36):
able to do it. Who cares?
Speaker 2 (53:38):
Well?
Speaker 3 (53:39):
The funny thing is a haha.
Speaker 2 (53:44):
You know, it's uncomfortable to admit or it's uncomfortable to
broach the subject.
Speaker 3 (53:48):
But there are the strands of desire for validation woven
into our pursuits of notoriety, right, I mean isn't that
part of what notoriety is. You have a lot of
people in your inner circle and outer circle.
Speaker 2 (54:06):
Validating the value of what you do, and I don't
know what you do with that. That can be a
very powerful motivating force that gets people practicing or finishing
that song or getting that heartbreak out into a tune
that becomes a hit that reaches somebody in the remote
corner of the world that needed to hear that song
that made them want to get up that day. You know,
(54:27):
it's like, it's not to judge the motivation, but it's
something to check out because it begs the question, like, huh,
what's going on with the musicians who are not as
attached to the external validation but are deeply invested in
the relationship with their music and deeply passionate about finding
(54:50):
and cultivating and creating and maybe don't see themselves as
ever having because of how they look, or their stature
or their class or who knows what, and it changes
across different decades, But who either are not motivated by
that potential for validation or don't believe that they have,
(55:11):
you know, whatever it is to even go achieve that
validation and instead turn that energy towards their other things,
and you know, allah the story about Oliver Nelson, and
really so many I can think of about thirty five
people just off the top of my head who are
not interested in that part of it, the external validation
(55:33):
and or maybe of their own self esteem or you know,
messages they've gotten from the industry about like oh you
don't quite fit, you know, let's expected, and how are
you going to show up? And they have thriving, economically
viable lives in music, and that's just something to know about,
(55:54):
you know, it's something to contemplate. And I think for
artists creating, I don't think we should ever shame our motivations.
Speaker 3 (56:04):
Ever.
Speaker 2 (56:05):
I don't think we should ever like shame or feel
humiliated about the shadow motivations that maybe get us from
point A to point B. But that doesn't mean that
we can't investigate them. Yeah, and once we become aware
of them, you can.
Speaker 3 (56:22):
Make decisions, informed decisions, informed decisions like ooh, am I am.
I stand up all night every night hustling.
Speaker 2 (56:30):
On this project because I just want to be seen
as being able to do or like whatever.
Speaker 3 (56:35):
Maybe is that what I really want to do? Or
is it for the money or is it for the
and do I feel do I like that?
Speaker 1 (56:40):
Is that?
Speaker 2 (56:40):
Is that what I want to be driven by or
invested in? And like there's no wrong answer.
Speaker 1 (56:46):
You want to be money In the moment, I got it.
Sometimes I'll tell.
Speaker 3 (56:51):
You right here, right now.
Speaker 2 (56:52):
The only reason that not the only reason, but the
main reason that I propelled myself forward to go like
accept this scholarship at Berkeley and moved to Boston. I
was very happy in Portland is because somebody had a
crush on went to MIT and I was like, oh, well,
I'll be in Boston, like I'll be closer, like maybe
(57:13):
you know, like worked at this whole fantasy in my mind,
and it's like, is that a petty I was seventeen
years old, you know, but hey, that motive, you.
Speaker 3 (57:24):
Know, the passion got me there.
Speaker 1 (57:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (57:26):
I never saw the person again, but I was in
Boston and my life blossomed. So it's just something about
the exercise of investigating the motives and then, like you said,
making informed decisions.
Speaker 3 (57:40):
And it's you know, when I think about how messed.
Speaker 2 (57:44):
Up and you know, sick and egotistical and womanizing and
abusing some of.
Speaker 3 (57:50):
My favorite musicians were.
Speaker 2 (57:53):
It's like, wow, you know, medicine and beauty can really
come out of anywhere.
Speaker 1 (57:57):
How do you? Yeah, how have you? How do you
square that? I guess it just managed that you don't
you do well?
Speaker 3 (58:04):
We're more than I think.
Speaker 2 (58:07):
We're all more than our shadows, We're all more than
our wounds, we're all more than our egos, and we're all,
let me not say more.
Speaker 3 (58:18):
We have a lot of qualities, we have a lot
of things.
Speaker 2 (58:21):
To give, and I don't I don't believe that, you know,
a person's folly or humanness is grounds for dismissing the
totality of their contribution. So a person who's abused women,
who has you know, betrayed people's trusts or been engaged
(58:42):
in womanizing behavior, if they can make, if they've made
some medicine that helps me identify like my gifts and
nourishes me and helps me heal and move forward in
my life, I'm.
Speaker 3 (58:53):
Going to use those gifts. I'm going to use them wholeheartedly.
Speaker 2 (58:59):
I might investigate some of their you know, guidance or
you know, testimony about what it is to be a humanist. Well,
I might look at it with like a little grade
of assault, we be like, okay, but yeah, I think,
you know, allowing that immensity of complexity and contradiction that's
inherent in being a human is an important thread of
(59:22):
like abolitionist work too, And I really like, I couldn't
call myself an abolitionist because I'm not doing the work
actively in community. But oh I'm wearing my Innocence Project sweatshirt,
which is definitely a part of abolition work. But I
feel abolition and the work of abolition asks all of
us to embrace the totality of our humanity and know
(59:47):
that we are all in process and know that none
of us are only the worst things that we've done
are the most harmful things that we've done. Yeah. So
so almost like the same way that dimensions of abolition
ask that we still consider folks who have done heinous
things members of our community that we're responsible for. Kind
(01:00:09):
of like you practice that internally with the members of
your internal community, you know, or the the internal community
of the artists or crafts people or creators or philosophers
or whoever whose work is nourishing you. You know, it's
almost like by taking in their work, they become a
part of your community.
Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
And I don't know in ways that are instructive too,
Like I feel like we have sometimes when you cast
away or write off people who have done even heinous things,
let alone just maybe morally a little off putting, like
you're almost like not almost, Sometimes I feel like it's
you're you're then casting You can learn as much from
(01:00:50):
the negative examples as the positive, and so it's like
someone's acknowledging that, Wow, maybe I'm also capable of those things.
Keeping those people as a part of your community, not
completely right in the moth, allows you to realize that
we're all sort of capable of both really amazing things
and really maybe also awful things. And how you then
make how can I actually make decisions to not do
(01:01:13):
that thing, you know, and maybe do more of that thing?
Speaker 3 (01:01:15):
Yes, and.
Speaker 2 (01:01:18):
I feel like the tricky part, Yes, I agree with that,
and I would add to it. You know, the practice
of keeping like tending community which includes humans who have
done things you don't agree with, isn't just for what
the benefit can have to you. It also says something about,
(01:01:42):
like I'm actually willing to invest in the keeping of
another human because they're another human.
Speaker 3 (01:01:49):
You know that there's not a.
Speaker 2 (01:01:50):
Contingency on a person's right to be a member of community.
And I also think about the fear that maybe that
the subconscious fear that we have around tending really complex
conflict and even what seems like antagonism because most of
(01:02:15):
us have never actually been through the cycle, like we
don't know what's on the other side of saying Like
I think about, you know, what's been happening with what
was happening a lot in a particular season in the
jazz world of these educators or band leaders. It coming
out that they had done these like really icky, not
okay violating actions, you know, towards students, like sexually inappropriate behavior.
(01:02:40):
And we're talking, yeah, in the last I was like
last decade, and this happened with a dear mentor of
mine in Portland, and what I saw happening was this
iron curtain or ironwalk coming down. It's like, oh my god,
we don't know, we actually don't know how to deal
with this. We actually don't know what reconciliation and community
(01:03:01):
could look like. We don't know what accountability and repair
could look like. We actually we have we have so
little idea that the only option on the plate is
like you have to go like by you don't exist anymore.
Speaker 3 (01:03:16):
It's like that, It's like whatever.
Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
Other connections or contributions up to that point, it was
just like you're out.
Speaker 3 (01:03:25):
And that.
Speaker 2 (01:03:27):
I agree, It doesn't matter what I think, but I'll
say just my little two cents in at all is
like protecting people who have been violated absolutely prior to
number one. And what I feel that whole response exposes
is how inequipped we are actually as humans in quote
unquote community, whether that community is an institution or a
(01:03:50):
field like jazz music, to like stay with the trouble,
to stay with the trouble and go like, actually, what
if we don't just get rid of this person? Like
what is protection and repair and accountability and responsibility actually
look like? And that like stew of questions feels like
(01:04:11):
what so scary that you're just like, ah, you know,
it's like get out. I can't. And I I wish
I hope for me and and all humans and.
Speaker 3 (01:04:22):
Folks who have been through all sides of you know, harm.
Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
I wish for us more robust palette of options, you
know that we can utilize when harms happen, because we
are gonna harm each other that's right. We're we're really
messed up, you know, most of us are really just
by the time you get to the point of leaving.
Speaker 3 (01:04:46):
Your house and seeing another person, you already messed up.
Speaker 2 (01:04:49):
So I mean important too, It's just that's here we are,
you know. So yeah, I'll just add that I wish
that for my community and musicians. I wish that for
my community, my family, and the community of folks I
work with in Portland, and it really just anywhere there's
humans who have the POTENTI the harm. I wish for
(01:05:10):
us to have a more robust, like I said, pallette
of tools and skills, and there are a lot of
people who are tirelessly cultivating those practices, you know.
Speaker 3 (01:05:21):
So it's not like we're in a void. They're there.
Speaker 1 (01:05:23):
It just.
Speaker 2 (01:05:25):
The images of car serial response is what we see
the most often. So I think the knee jerk reaction
is to go to that.
Speaker 1 (01:05:33):
It's our default.
Speaker 3 (01:05:34):
Yeah, it's a default.
Speaker 1 (01:05:37):
So much more I want to talk about, but I
don't do it another time. Thanks so much for making
the time. We put links in the episode description to
Milton Esperanza's collaborative album and also the two playlists featuring
some of our favorites from both Milton Nastrumento and Esperanzis
Spaulding and again. To see the video version of this episode,
(01:05:58):
visit YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast and be
sure to follow us on Instagram at the Broken Record Pod.
You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken
Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing
help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is
Ben Holliday. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries.
(01:06:19):
If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider
subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription
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podcast subscriptions. And if you like this show, please remember
to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app.
Our theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.
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