Lenny white here, and I want to welcome you to the iue universe podcast on this podcast. I want to invite you to join me and my guests as we discuss music, arts, science, some amazing personal journeys and everything in between.
Speaker 2:Drum Virtuoso, Mike Clark, game worldwide recognition, helping create the jazz funk daughter while playing with Herbie Hancock's headhunters in the early seventies is incisive, playing on the headhunters actual poop, garnered him international cult following, and has influenced generations of drummer. His versatility led him to a two year stint with brand x, the British jazz rock fusion band, founded by Phil Collins. With them. He recorded. Do they hurt and product to Sacramento? California native has recorded or played with jazz greats, Chet Baker, Tony Bennett. When shorter Joe Henderson, Eddie Anderson, Bobby Hutchinson, Vince Guaraldi, Woody Shaw, Donald Harrison, Albert king now record you all. Dr Lonnie Smith. Bobby Mcferrin, that Oscar Brown Jr, and the Gil Evans Orchestra. Mike and I recently sat down to chew the fat.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm here with my good friend Mike Clark. I mean, how long have we known each other? Nineteen. Seventy one or two when I met you at the both them club when you were playing with a woody shaw and Joe Johannis. Wow. That's a long time ago and I think it was that night or the next or soon thereafter that I went over to my other really good friend, a great drummer, Vips, Lauriano's house. And you were a stain there. You were staying there with you? I walked into the front room when you were there with earphones on, listening at 3:00 in the morning or something like San Francisco is my favorite place on earth. I mean, and I think it's due to the fact that I've had so many, many great experiences there in San Francisco and back in that time period was San Francisco. I mean it still is a great music place, but I mean back then it was amazing and an amazing musical place. Well, we, I was a local guy in bay area, local guy and I worked five to seven nights a week for 25 years, Bro. Playing jazz. That's great. Yeah. I mean, I never even thought about how would it be to be struggling for work. That's how plentiful it was. I'm not saying it was all, it's not like New York, but. Well, yeah, no, I mean the fact of the. You're
Speaker 1:talking about a time period where a San Francisco, you talk about San Francisco being a great musical Mecca and New York was the American Indian and but yeah, you could go across the country and spend a month, month and a half and play clubs all across the country, which was really great. I mean and, and it also help promote the music. The music permeated all of the communities all across the United States. I mean it was a situation where live music was really how people got word of mouth about artists and records and plus there was the radio, but to go to see somebody live that was really the epitome of an artist really showing their wares.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I mean, in those days, as you remember, we would work a week in a club, possibly two weeks in some places a month, sometimes six weeks you'd play and it held over by popular demand. Oh yeah, that's right. I forgot about. Yes. Hell, you'd see the side I'd play with Vince that we play a weakened or in a club at the old matador one week, you know, and by the end of the week you were burning, you know what I mean? Well, now,
Speaker 1:you know, for me it was a big difference going from coming from the east coast and come to the west coast and uh, playing the music that we played. Um, how was it for you coming from the west coast, coming back to east coast because you lived in New York for a long time after coming, migrating from the west coast?
Speaker 3:Well, for me it was like going to school, moving to New York when I was on the West Coast, I, uh, in my twenties I thought I was at the top of my game c and so on. I always had sort of a New York style. I had a little heavier groove than a lot of the west coast guys. I just did because I didn't actually grow up playing on the west coast. I grow up, I grew up playing in a lot of different places in the south, in Pittsburgh and blah, blah blah. But, um, when I got to New York, um, and I got to hear everybody night after night and play with everybody night after night, I started to really understand what I left out, you know, historically. And, um, some of the things that I didn't care for, I began to really like that initially I thought was a whole school or what have you. And then also I learned to play, uh, I sharpened my sword by playing with the guys New York. It wasn't about technique, it was just sharp. Everybody here was extremely sharp and uh, and on time,
Speaker 1:attitude, attitude, attitude, you know, you know, when I went from the east coast to the west coast, um, I, I, I actually went to the west coast, uh, with east coast musicians. Um, I had gone to a California with George Cables, Buddy Montgomery Clinton Houston. I had come out to California with Joe Henderson, a Freddie Hubbard, different situations with musicians that were prominent musicians on the east coast and so going to California, you know, the weather was different and the vibe was totally different. I mean, like you go out there and it was like we brought an energy out there or there that was a different kind of energy that you got from musicians on the west coast. I mean, I, I played on the west coast with the west coast musicians too. I mean like with Bobby Hutchinson and Woody Shaw had come from the east coast to the west coast and I played with Paul, Paul Jackson and Paul Jackson was playing upright bass. Exactly. And when I got out and played with Azteca, you know, they will hold a west coast musicians and you know, I got out there and I heard you and I heard Dave Garibaldi and Greg Errico and it was a totally different kind of thing because, you know, aside from the, the straight ahead music that I had done a, I had come out and I befriended a mike tree from right. Um, a Santana and you know, I started staying with him coming out, you know, this, this is after staying with Vince Ludhiana and man, I heard you guys start to do this thing, this oakland thing that was really totally different from me coming from the west coast. I mean coming from the east coast and man, you got to explain that for me.
Speaker 3:Well, um, you know, the only way I can explain it, first of all, you were a big influence on us too. I mean you brought out to the east coast style when I first heard you, when I, I'll explain it, but before that I just want to set this up a little bit before my, you heard us playing funk, but the way I played jazz before I heard you and after I heard you were completely different. I would just like to say, I mean, uh, you know, that was a, a, a, a big change in my playing and my understanding of everything about jazz changed after hearing you live that's real and a lot of us out there had that experience when you came out there because you were playing at the both end club and we would go there all the time to see everybody. And so, um, that was the first time I'd seen a guy that was not elvin or Tony Williams or affiliate
Speaker 1:Joe throw all of that into the hopper. I lived in New York, right at the same time. All of those guys were in New York. Right. And so I had to be able to maintain, I mean, you know, like I could, if I was good enough then I could get the gigs that they didn't do. Right. So you had to be at least on that level to be able to, you know, hang at least in New York City. And it's interesting, right?
Speaker 3:Well, when we heard you then I realized, okay, there's something new, there's a new order of things trying to break through here in jazz, you know what I mean? Because a lot of people fought a more modern style at that time and wanted a.
Speaker 1:well this was after after bitches brew. I mean, bitches kind of changed a lot of things and, and you know, doing that album was great and it changed how everybody listened and played music afterwards, but the guys were still playing some traditional, uh, they had some traditional approaches. Traditional approaches will augmented by what had happened on bitches brew, which was Kinda cool. It's kind of interesting because we were morphing thing, right,
Speaker 3:exactly. You know, like a, um, well, back to the Oakland thing, I just, the only thing I can say of course I know how to play those kind of rhythms with my hands and feet, you know, but more than that, it was an attitude. Like you said, it was a war cry of Oakland, you know, it was, we loved the, uh, the Oakland a's and um, uh, we loved Katie. I a Kia soul station. And uh, uh, we loved Everett and Jones Barbecue, so it was like a one for all, all for one, uh, type of type of thing. And those kinds of rhythms you heard were like a sort of the, uh, are signifying that we're. Yeah. Well, yeah, that's right. We're from Oakland.
Speaker 1:Well, and for those that don't know, I mean probably will announcing it now, Mike and I are actually in the process, the final process of writing a book about, uh, our experiences in the music. I guess it was in music and then it was the music business and then it became the music industry or whatever. Well, but, but um, a lot of what it is that we mentioned and talk about it will be in our book and hopefully we'll have it out later on this year, if not early next year. So
Speaker 3:yeah, I'm actually 18. Yes. I'm anxious to see everybody's, uh, you know, what they feel about that book because we're covering a lot of um, nobody's pulling any punches. We're just telling that, trying. I myself, I'm just trying to tell what I saw and heard. Right. Yeah. You know, you know, um,
Speaker 1:I mean, but it's from a position of someone who's lived through all these different musical changes and the music that, that we created back when we were creating it is the emphasis and the groundwork for all of the music that is played today. All of it. I mean, like how many times have you been sampled?
Speaker 3:Oh Bro. Well, I think I'm on last time I checked, which I stopped checking or year ago it was 24 million units, whatever that means. Right? And if you, uh, with either one of us, I think if anybody goes to who sampled who you can see for yourselves. Uh, so, um, that was at a time when everybody, all of our peers and friends knew how to play was about playing. So you just didn't record what somebody did and uh, and play over the top of it or, or wrap over the top of it. I, I'm not making a judgment. It's just what it was we played and um, so a lot of those grooves or whatever you want to call them, rhythms that those are live humans. Right. Doing that, I mean it wasn't like you'll loop for and even we didn't even do loops of our own stuff. Then you played the entire piece of music which became referred to his tracks. He used to be two. He's now their tracks and now there loops of tracks and who knows what's next. You know, I mean
Speaker 1:to you the other day mentioning you were mentioning about your schooling and you mentioned that when you played music in school, you started out playing in a Catholic school. Yes. And in your Catholic school you were playing jazz?
Speaker 3:Yeah, we, um, we weren't playing bebop but we were playing with big band swing jazz, you know, from that time period. This was in the fifties. And
Speaker 1:it's such a dichotomy because when you think about Catholic school, when people think about Catholic school to think about, you know, the nuns and people being like, really, you know, stayed in and you were playing jazz in Catholic school and then when you went to public school
Speaker 3:we played, they played marches and, and I had not be, I left the back when I moved to public school and saw what they were playing. It was. So also, it was so bad. It was so awful. The Catholic schools bands were quite good. I have to brag and I'm not a big Catholic school person. In fact, you might say I'm a recovering Catholic, but the thing is, uh, we won't go into that. But the thing is, is, uh, um, there were, um,
Speaker 1:it was at the time when Lloyd price and little Richard and personality.
Speaker 3:I'm a mailman blues. Uh, I'm okay, I'm getting going on from all this stuff here. But anyway, uh, we would try to come in the school band, we played Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, a Krupa, whatever, you know, do count, you know, whatever charts.
Speaker 1:What was interesting is that what you were playing in Catholic school was considered to be American music. Correct. Now when you went from Catholic school and started to play in public school, it changed. And so what you started to play was called out black music a little later. Yeah, like around the cylinder it gets, when does it get segregated like that? Um, rhythm and blue
Speaker 3:for my generation were, uh, I'm on for many of my generation was the background for our first kiss and our first girlfriend and our first car. And uh, this is one so and so passed away or this will someone so and so graduated. I document all of my, most of my stuff can be documented by little Richard Lloyd Price, a James Brown, Bobby Blue Bland of Wilson picket and on and on. You know what I mean? Earlier than that, my father, uh, was a jazz buff, but he loved why Noni Harris and Boogie Woogie. So like all of them. But um, I think when I first heard the term black music must have been a 60, I don't know exactly, but probably 63 or 64[inaudible] 63
Speaker 1:[inaudible] 63 was when the Beatles invaded, correct. The United States. Right. And so it was at that point that you heard the term black music right before that it was American music or just music. Music. Exactly. And, and, and it's interesting because, you know, when I think about when the Beatles came to the United States and they played on Ed Sullivan. Okay. And I heard Ringo played this beat, which was basically the twist and I had heard that beat on a Chubby checker record, but it was the first time I actually saw it. I could actually see it on tv and I could see that that was the same beat that I had heard on this record. And it's like, wow, I got to be able to play that beat because of a syncopated. And it was pretty simple, but that was a big thing for me to be able to play that beat. The coordinated, the coordinated in the play, that beer and then, you know, I went from there onto, to listening to all the music that my dad had around the house and also what was played on radio, which is the drifters and coasters and you know, all of that stuff. And also now motown had started to happen. So there was all this music was played on the radio. But then there's in my household, you know, my dad and mom listened to Ray Charles and a count Basey Lester Young, uh, Duke Ellington and you know, horace silver and all this other music. So, um, when I went to school and started to try to be in the bands, the music that we played with basically a broadway tunes like my fair lady, bye bye Birdie. Those kinds of things, you know. So outside of school is when I started to play soul, soul, the R and b jazz music, you know, I didn't really play it in school, you know, so you bring your experience from outside of school and then approach that. I mean, I used that approach to playing this music that we played in school, but I wasn't as fortunate as used to be able to play the music in a school that you, you did it in back in the fifties.
Speaker 3:Well, on top of that. And my father was a drummer in a jazz buff and his record collection was a lot of, a lot of blues, but a. by that I mean, like I said, uh, you know, uh, one noted Harris Roy Brown is type of thing, but also a lot of jazz, but it was Benny Goodman and Krupa and Louis Prima and I'm a Basey Ellington. No, no bebop. In fact, um, one day he brought home, he just saw a guy with a drum set on a cover of a record and you brought it home and it was hard blakey and I'd seen art blakey picture in it in a downbeat or an interim magazine. I guess I was about eight or nine and he put that record on and we both flipped and that we've flipped read. It's still with me.
Speaker 1:Yeah. No, no, I understand that. It wasn't in my, uh, oldest memories was a, my dad taken my brother and I to birdland to Gretsch drum night. Oh. And I saw Philly Joe, a Charlie precip and art blakey. And then I went to my dad's records was a art blakey had birdland and you know. So that was one of the first records that you saw Gretsch drum night. Oh yeah. How old were you? I don't know. I must have been about 11. Oh, you know, something like that. But, but it was a real great experience to actually see the music live. I mean, it's a, it's a totally different perspective when you see the music, like when you, when you get the concept of listening to albums, you listen to the album and you close your eyes and you kind of somewhat visualize what you think is going on and what's happening. And then when you get to see it live, it presents a whole nother sensory perception and, uh, to, to, to get, to emulate that, you know, because that's the way I actually started playings emulating what I heard on a record and then getting an opportunity to see it, you know, gave me a better perception and you know, uh, in instantly fell in love with that music. And I as a kid, I listened to show tunes and Broadway, you know, you every Thursday things listened to everything, you know, that stuff that's on the radio. But, you know, I fell in love with this music that was jazz music and to be a musician in my community was really something special. You've got a great amount of respect. Being a jazz musician, you are like a God. And I happen to live down the block from a jazz club and I wasn't old enough to get in, but there was a window that you could see and I stand outside and I could look in is right by the drum set. And I got an opportunity to see philly. Joe See a whole lot of different guides for goodness like are there and you know, because my, my dad and mom were real big jazz fest and that's the music that I heard in my house all the time. Every Sunday was a big event. Basically what would happen is a family members would get together and they have food and listen to sides bring over there because we had the best record player in the family so everybody would bring this sides over and put the records on and listen and they would debate about who was cleaner, Sonny Stitt or Charley Parker and John Coltrane and France, you know, like the Beta and they'd have heated debates and, and I, you know, as a kid, I get to see that and it, it wasn't until later on that I actually understood the weight behind someone really saying that this is my guy and you know, like this is the way. That's the way the music is supposed to be, you know? Right. It took on another, another perspective, you know.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, my, um, I remember those days. I had some of that too. But I really like different, remember, uh, having people over to list the sides, right. That was the deal was a deal. And then I remember the debates, they're still going on by the way, many of them still debating over who did what in the fifties and really did this day, but I'm not. My Dad would take me to nightclubs from the time I was I guess six years old and I'm right the way up until I got to be 12 or 13. And then I got to hip. I figured I was too hip to do this anymore, but he would embarrass me because he would have you sit in all every time I know. And he paid the drummer or buy somebody a drink or give the guy the band leaders. So one night in particular. So this happened for years. So by the time I was in high school, I had a lot of. I've been playing with guys that were 30 years old. So they were telling me a lot of things to do, what not what to do and don't do this and don't do that when you're competent and blah, blah, blah. But one night in particular, I was playing at the famous door in New Orleans with this guy named Murphy, a trumpet player named Murphy Campo and I'm pretty sure. And I was about 11 and we were playing sweethearts on parade, I think, uh, and uh, uh, the guy playing base, I'm pretty sure it was Dr John. I have the picture on my wall at home, so I did an episode of trauma, May, um, Donald Harrison had me and bill some reason, a couple of the guys that he was playing with at the time and the headhunters come down and do an episode we just played for a few minutes. We played with the Congo nation is a tribe, you know. Um, uh, so donald's a big chief is, you know, in this, these were his guys, right? So, uh, um, anyway, um, while I was down there while they were filming this, there was, you know, when you're making a film, you're spending most of the time hanging around and not doing anything. So I went into, I saw Dr John sitting in a tent and so I thought he'd be really excited about this picture that I have at home and if in fact it's him, I'm, uh, I'm, I'm kind of 80 percent sure it is him. So I thought I walked into the tent and he was sitting there by himself. It was a very large tent, like you'd fit 80 people. So I go up to him, although I've met him, uh, uh, and even played a Gig with him. I don't think he recognized me, which is cool, you know, I don't, he doesn't really know me. So I introduced myself and he was like, Oh yeah, yeah, I had on it. Yeah, you guys played some crazy stuff, you know, or something like this. And then, uh, I told him, listen, I have a picture with Murphy. Campo only have, uh, uh, it's a famous door and I'm pretty sure it's you playing and I thought he would be excited and he went like this wifey.
Speaker 4:That was the end of the conversation. So I, I like school. I'm like, Oh yeah, man, I hear you. Then I sculpt out of the tent, like, Jeez, that was not a good time. I know. Yeah. You know, my dad used to take me around. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Two, um, and uh, you know, I get a chance to listen to the music and, and uh, I know I remember one night we were in Brooklyn and we went to this club and uh, it was a friend of a good friend or a family named Sill Austin who played Sax. He had some hits back in the fifties, slow walk and a happy birthday, happy birthday party. And you know, he was the musical director for a lot of bands that came through the Apollo Jackie Wilson. I met Jackie Wilson and you know, a lot of people, you know, and, but this one time we had gone to, I was hanging out with my dad and we'd gone to this club in Brooklyn and I got an opportunity to sit in and it was with Lou Donaldson, now, Lou Donaldson, I had listened to because he was on that art blakey record, you know, a live in Berlin. But I got enough to need to sit it. I don't know how old I was, I don't know. I must've been maybe 1230 Hetero. And uh, I was, I was about maybe 14, something like that. And uh, I played with, with Lou and Lou man,
Speaker 5:if you don't play no bebop,
Speaker 1:you know, and I asked and he said,
Speaker 5:you sound pretty good, you know, you sound pretty good,
Speaker 1:you know, so like that was vindication to be able to continue and do that. But, you know, so I had the same opportunity, you know, like my dad would take me around to and I get a chance to at least listen to the music. That's important when you. And that's very important because it's interesting because nowadays when I see families come into a club and I see no mother and father and they have their kids with them, I go up to the parents and the kids, I applaud them and I say, thank you for bringing your kids to be exposed to this music because this is very, very important. And it's interesting also, I, uh, I did, uh, I was working with a young musician by the name of our Becker. Cautious really who is from the Republic of Georgia. And a few years ago, I mean he was, I started working, I played with him when he was 11. I was in Lafayette and he was in Lafayette and he came to the states and we played. And it was interesting because I went to a dinner party with some of his friends and his Guardian and at the dinner party was interesting to me because there were no records played. The music that was played at the dinner party was actually someone playing. It would be someone playing piano, somebody singing and playing piano. And it was a very interesting point because it was actually live music and you know, in the 20th century, in America, early on, that's the way it used to be when you go to a party, it was live music and then maybe in the fifties and sixties people start to play records that parties. And so this being like maybe six, seven years ago, it was interesting to me because I had never experienced going to a dinner party and not having records played at the Party and the music that was being performed or played at the party with actual musicians playing music. And this is something that's great. It's great for young people to experience that and see somebody play music that's not on tv because now what happens is all the music that you see is on tv and you don't see musicians playing. You see people singing, you know. So every time I see a family come in to a place for, I'm playing, I go over to them and make it a point to thank the mother and father and talk to the young kids.
Speaker 3:You know, it's interesting also because, you know, like we were fortunate enough to see all of our heroes play night after night, not just once in awhile. Even living on the west coast. I mean, I saw everybody a lot. Um, I could see tootie heath, I could see art blakey, I could get cute roker anybody I wanted, you know, Sunday student Sunday Rawlins, you know, believe Morgan to loaded by Wayne shorter. This is before fusion as they say. Right? I mean like, this is just your regular week when I'm not working, I have a night off. I'm going to a jazz club, so. Okay. I'm saying this to say that a lot of times when I hear and it's nobody's fault and it's not a better than a, less than or more than thing. It's a different van thing that I'm getting ready to talk about. A lot of guys who get their information from cds records, whatever. Sometimes the velocity of what's being played is much different than the actual experience. The, that's why I think a lot of times people. Yeah. When people feel maybe the blues has been left out, I'm just going to give an example. I played three nights was sonny stick and being a guy from the west coast, you know, it's different than New York style playing. Not Everybody, but I'm not saying one's better than the other or I'm just saying it's different. But um, so I, because he's a bebop or I decided to go about this a certain way, you know, and the velocity that this one man brought to the band that I was playing with. It was like all of a sudden I was transported to an organ trio. We were bashing and burning and this dude was demanding that we cook, you know? So sometimes I hear bands nowadays that didn't get to interact with somebody like that, or at least even hear them live in the music. Music doesn't fit the philosophy swing or the group or the whatever the word is. I don't, I don't even mean the time. I just mean the music itself sometimes is light compared to what it was. When. I think that's why your generation and my generation, we played the way we did in our youth because of that very fact. Like if you went to her art blakey. I'm not saying it was loud, I'm saying the wind from him.
Speaker 1:No, I, I, I agree. You know, I make my point and I'm saying no, no, no, no. Definitely is interesting because I had two experiences with blues and R and B, that debt. We're a somewhat some of, because you know, you hear records, records, you know, the velocity and how something sounds after it had been mastered and mixed is one thing. Then you go to experience at lager or something totally different. I went, my first R and b gigs was with Millie Jackson and you know, I was a jazz guy and, and my dear friend and mentor a well intervene was her musical director and he had hired me to come and play on this Millie Jackson Gig. Now I had not played R and B, I was a jazz guy. Okay. And so Weldon says to me before we says, listen, most of the stuff is played off of the high hat and you don't have to play right? So when you play off a high hat and play. So this was new for me to try to do this. And Man, she turned around and cursed me, call me all kinds of names and everything, but I got through the Gig, you know, and it's a great learning experience. Now I had played with Jackie Mclean before that and I learned the same way. I listened to Jack and Mclean records and all of that stuff. And then you go play live. And I had never played with him before and he, first time I met him was on the best and he turned around and say big foot one, two. I had never played the tune before either. So I had to learn on the gate there. And, and the fact is, you know, whatever velocity that the band leader or the or the soloist brings, you have to match that. Not necessarily saying that you have to overplay, right? But you have to. But, and I, henceforth I go two years later, I'm playing in San Francisco at the boarding house and I played with Lightening Hopkins, now blues as I had heard on records and everything was a certain, you know, 12 bar blues with and Hopkins is one of the original blues guys and it was free form, there was no bar lines. He's singing something and it would go as long as he wants to make that phrase, that's what it was. And then he would change and you know, planning out of velocity that would work for him was different than playing with any of the other experiences I had. So, yes, you do have to find, and as a musician you have to be able to rise to the occasion and play what ever the velocity that the soloists brings to the Gig and play with the band as opposed to overplaying a lot of times with young musicians today that kind of overplay things, you know?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I think if, um, you know, it's a different time in the world and I think gets to. My feeling is, my personal opinion is that, um, it's too tough of a time now to have the light shine on one person and say, look at me. This is a shift. Especially jazz. Music to me is a shared experience. While you're applying a, like you said one night, um, it's an, I love to hear a band that's having an adult conversation. I hear you, Bro.
Speaker 1:Right? And you know, it's interesting is that attitude that we both share is not how records are mixed today. You know, the fact is a lot of records, jazz records, the soloist is way out front. And if you listened back to the records, uh, that Rudy van gelder dude with blue note, you can hear everything you're gonna need everybody. You can hear everything because like classical music, jazz music is ambient music, meaning that you hear the full spectrum of everybody that's playing in an orchestra. You hear all the parts of the orchestra, the first violins, and not louder because they play this passage. It's a passage that they are featured in. It's not like that. You can hear the full spectrum of the total of everybody playing and that's the way when we listened to those blue note records, that's what we heard, but that's not how records of mixed today. So that attitude about what you just said, I really wished that would permeate how the records of May today. That's not necessarily the case to soloist is really loud and everybody is secondary to that. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Also the rhythm. Let's talk about that for a minute since we're drummers. Uh, first of all, agreed what you just said. Yes. The soloist is the main guy and it's like, you know, and it's like that on the stage a lot too from a. So let's say we're all, uh, a dipped basketball players. So here we are, we're all standing there at half court dribbling and one dude is making layups half court shots, hooks. He's doing all this stuff and we're sitting there dribbling. They did not for me, that's a, I can't make a record. I can. I'm capable of keeping straight time while another guy shows off. And of course there's times when it's appropriate just to play time, straight time, but for me, uh, it's much more interesting when I can hear a group that's having a group conversation and I can hear everybody's intellectual, a mind speaking to each other, and also you get the physical thrill because there's enough, uh, my problem with a lot of recordings now in jazz, I never hear the ride cymbal mixed correctly, so they mix it like a pop record. So it's a lot of kick and snare. Whereas the ride cymbal to me is the kick and snare of jazz. That's the group that's the, along with the Bass player, of course in piano player or whoever. But what I mean is you got to hear that it doesn't have to be over the top, but you should always be able to hear that. So the way rudy and those guys, whatever their secret was, you could hear everybody's contribution at all times without having to put your ear next to the speaker or turn the triple all the way up to get any symbol or anything like that. So I noticed also this, if I may just wax on here for a second longer, the sound of the drums is now law. Well, not across this, not everybody, but kind of mostly the sound of the drums I hear on jazz records is sort of folk and sort of jazz where it used to be. You could hear a jazz kit the way it was mixed, uh, not the way it was mixed the way it was tuned in, you know, now it's something in between motown and. Well that was, those were jazz sounds, kind of those ringing bass drums, those tuned up vision. But you know what I mean. Anyway,
Speaker 1:I think one of the things that has changed, uh, because uh, I've been fortunate to be able to play through a few different areas and I think the music that we grew up listening to like the blue note records and, and uh, even the pop records, you know, the Beatles records and all of those records. I think what was really something that was a really, really looked upon and really made the difference is Mike Placement and an orchestra in the classical recording where you place the mix. They took a lot of time and effort to make it right. And so that's why classical records, aside from the fact that they've rehearsed a lot, that's why orchestras, you can hear all those sounds in New Yorker Street, you can hear everything and I think somehow it got away from that. Although in the seventies when we would do it in the jazz fusion, Mike Placement was important also. And the drums, you could hear the drums and the arrangements like with return to forever, the arrangements were really important. Certain parts, all the parts have to be. It was like classical music. And so, excuse me at the approach to Mike placement was a little bit more serious and the records sounded sonically. They had Dept. um, and I think that's changed because of the fact that when smooth jazz came to soloist, acted like a vocalist. So a pop record where you would hear the rhythm, but the emphasis was on the vocalist when they did have smooth jazz was kind of a concept where you would take away the vocal and you'd have a guitar player or a saxophone player be substituted for the vocal and that's what was her, that was the most prominent thing and then you just have the rhythm and that attitude I think, uh, started to cross over and jazz records because that concept, musical concepts started to sell and they wanted to be able to sell jazz records the same way. So the concept was to have to, solar was way out front and everybody's secondary to the Solos. Interesting. That was great. Thank you. Really great way of putting also. Okay, I'll just close off with this
Speaker 3:also, you know, we're all born at different times, so we have different generations of people raised on different solemn sonically, right. And also different, uh, music. So a guy that was probably a or a girl that was raised on something that came from the eighties or nineties would have a different jumping off point of, as a producer as you would or I would, you know, the, you're fortunate, uh, in the aspect you've produced so many records, so you really have a deep understanding of this. I don't have that. I've only produced three records. You were on one, you know, like, uh, uh, I, if I wish I knew so I could just say don't put the Mike there are pleased to put the, my use this type of my. I don't have that. I just kind of get out of the cab with my symbols and throw it.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody, lenny white here again and thanks for listening. Stay tuned all summer for new podcasts coming from the IUE universe. For more information, visit our website at[inaudible] dot com. And that's spelled I y o u w e Dot Com. See you next time.