Jazz Monthly.com Interview with Greg Adams

“Jazz Monthly Feature Interview” Greg Adams

Smitty: Joining me at Jazz Monthly.com is one of the most dynamic trumpeters in the business. I just love his horn playing. You no doubt remember him from his days with Tower of Power, those fantastic records during that time. No doubt you remember the beginning of his solo career with great records such as Firefly and Hidden Agenda, and you’ve got to hear his latest offering; it called Cool To The Touch. It is fantastic! Please welcome the man with the golden mute, the fantastic and so talented Mr. Greg Adams. Greg, how ya doin’?

Greg Adams (GA): Great, Smitty. Glad to be here.

Smitty: Yes indeed. Man, I love this record, wow. It’s got some great tunes. What a creative book of music; there’s some straight, there’s some smooth, there’s some dance, there’s some pop…I mean, there’s a lot of diversity with this great record.

GA: Thanks. It’s the fourth record and you always try to top your last one, and I’m real happy with it. It was a nice mix of songs. Usually I co-produce with my songwriting partner, James Wirrick, but he and I produced half the record and then I produced the other five songs on my own and wrote with other writers on this, so it was like we really changed it up. It was nice. It spelled a nice refreshing change, although I wasn’t unhappy about my last three records at all. It’s kind of healthy to try to reinvent.

Smitty: Oh yes. Man, that’s the creative spirit, you know?

GA: Yeah, yeah.

Smitty: Absolutely.

GA: We’re real happy with the outcome.

Smitty: Yes, when I first put the record on, I just found myself kinda snappin’ my fingers and kinda be-boppin’. I said, man, I love that mute!

GA: Yes, it’s kind of a trademark sound of mine. Obviously you probably noticed the horn section behind me on the first cut, “Felix the Cat.”

Smitty: Yes. Man, that is a poppin’ tune, I love that groove. Well, I bumped into you just recently. You were sitting in at Spaghettini’s in Los Angeles. I remember that day. It was a beautiful day.

GA: Right, absolutely. It was Althea Rene, right?

Smitty: Yeah, Althea Rene and I were there, yeah. You remember that?

GA: Oh yeah, she’s a great flute player. As a matter of fact, we’ve kept in touch and I just spoke to her, oh, maybe a couple weeks ago, and just seeing what she’s up to, keeping tabs on her. I think she’s a great talent.

Smitty: Yes, she’s a fantastic musician, I tell ya, and I just love her whole personality, her whole vibe.

GA: Yes.

Smitty: Boy, wouldn’t it be nice to mix that flute with that great horn of yours? That would be sweet.

GA: Well, you never know. Stranger things have happened.

Smitty: Yes indeed, my friend. So, now, talk to me a little bit about “Felix the Cat.” Why that tune? I mean, I love it, but how did you come up with doing that one?

GA: Well, you know, it’s kinda funny. The usual setup for the kind of work I’m known for and writing and arranging for horn sections that we’ve played with everybody under the sun with over the years, is usually two trumpets, two trombones and maybe three saxophones, and I just thought if I could put together a saxophone quintet, it would be behind my muted trumpet, and it would be kind of a cool texture, so I got out the old phone book and I called Richard Elliot and Boney James and Mindi Abair and Eric Marienthal and my saxophone player in my band, Johnnie Bamont, and we put together this little power saxophone quintet.

Smitty: Yes, powerful stuff.

GA: Two altos, two tenors and a bari….and put it on “Felix” and the title cut “Cool To The Touch,” and we kinda played off of each other, trumpet against saxes and stuff like that, and it came out really good, and also on that track is Vinnie Colaiuta, who played with Sting and he’s played with a lot of people. And Leland Sklar, who plays with Phil Collins, he’s played with everybody too. They’re all old friends of mine and so I kinda stacked the deck with this record with the people I mentioned there and also Paul Jackson, Jr. is on a couple of cuts and the legendary Tom Scott on saxophone. So we just really changed it up. It was kind of a big refreshing thing to do. I mean, I used my guys in my band on some tracks too, but I just kinda salt and peppered it a little bit with some name players.

Smitty: Yeah, man, you selected some monster players and I remember saying, boy, this is the battle of the horns.

GA: Well, and it’s funny. I’ve told people about it and they said “You got ‘em all in the same room at the same time?” And it’s funny these days because I’ve done solos on the West Coast with an artist on the East Coast that I’ve never met, I’ve just talked to them on the phone, they send the track via e-mail and mp3, and I’d go in the studio and play the solo, and we burn a disc and mail it back to them, and that’s how you do it today…. No, I got everybody in the studio this time and it was great. It was a major thing to get everybody’s schedule to line up but it came out great. We’re really happy with it.

Smitty: Yes indeed. With the invention of ProTools and mp3’s and all that, it sorta takes a little bit away sometimes. I mean, it’s a most convenient way of doing things but, boy, when you can get everybody in the same room, that’s a beautiful thing.

GA: Oh yeah, it’s kinda old school. Good school, you know what I mean? And that’s the whole thing. ProTools is a great thing, but then again, we use ProTools.

Smitty: Oh yeah.

GA: And that’s how we make the records, then we bring in human beings to make it live because it’s great as a writing tool.

Smitty: Yes.

GA: That’s how we make songs and you can really do a nice mockup, but I’ve always thought if you’re gonna leave the drum machine in, well, let’s just make it a little loop and bring out a real drummer where you can make it feel human because there was a point where it was really getting out of hand. There were no people on these tracks (both laughing), just machines, and synth bass. So my first record was all drum machines just because of the sheer budget, we just didn’t have it. One song had Leon Chancellor on drums and it was the only song that had real drums on it and that was “Mahdi, The Expected One” off of Hidden Agenda.

Smitty: Great track.

GA: So it’s like we’ve come a long way.

Smitty: Yes indeed. All right, so tell me, man, who was cutting up in the studio? Who was cutting up the most?

GA: Oh, you mean joking around?

Smitty: Yeah.

GA: Well, you know, that probably would be me.

Smitty: (Laughs.) Oh, I know this cast of characters that you had in that studio and I know someone was cutting up a little bit and having some fun in there, you know?

GA: Out of the sax players, I think a lot of them don’t do a lot of sessions where they come in and be a section and play in a section. Everybody’s a soloist on their own right, you know?

Smitty: Yeah.

GA: And so that kind of a thing, not that there was tension in the air, but I think everybody had their game face on when they did the saxophones. I’ve played with all of those saxophonists and so they meant business. And you know, it came out great.

Smitty: Very cool.

GA: We went all around the saxes, I think, oh, maybe five or six times. We had a super long fade and I just let everybody blow, you know, play two bars, four bars, whatever, and then we just kinda picked the best ones. They were all great, but we just picked, we went through, and Eric does the last one before I come back in with the chorus on the fade, and Eric’s was so good. It was kind of an even thing, you know? The four solos, then Eric’s fifth was like “Oh, this is too good. We gotta leave this in here.” It kinda threw the symmetry off, but it didn’t really matter ‘cause that last one you hear before the chorus starts is Eric. And he and I have played together for years, and of course Richard Elliot was in Tower of Power. Boney…this is actually the first time I’ve played with him. I’ve known him for years.

Smitty: Yes, they are all very strong players.

GA: And it was kinda funny. About, oh, I would say eight years ago maybe, I got called to do a casual at a kinda snooty social club here in Los Angeles out in Santa Monica at the beach, and it was a tux gig playing standards, and I parked the car next to this young woman who was getting out of her car and was at her trunk and had black on, I’ve got my tux on, and she opens the trunk of her car and pulls out a saxophone. “Oh, are you on the gig tonight?” She says “Yeah.” I said “Hi, I’m Greg.” She says “Hi, I’m Mindi.” And I’d never met her. She was pretty easy on the eyes.

Smitty: Oh yeah!

GA: And she knew who I was, I had never met her, but she knew of my past with Tower, so she was really very nice and a great player. I mean, she’s really a fine musician.

Smitty: Yes, she is, and a great person too.

GA: Once in a while I’ll say “Oh, remember that night?” She says “Oh yeah.” It was funny because it was such a cornball gig. Oh my God.

Smitty: (Laughs).

GA: It was like something for an old fogies dance, a Christmas party or something like that.

Smitty: (Laughs) Well, the beautiful thing about that is all of you as horn players can play in any environment and just turn it up, you know?

GA: Sure.

Smitty: And that’s what’s great about this record. You could feel the strength and great musicianship of everybody, you can feel the professionalism, and that’s what makes this great. This is a wonderful record, man. You really selected some great horn players. I mean, you could pick any one of these and they can stand out on their own on any given day. On their worst day they’re fantastic.

GA: Yeah, yeah, true.

Smitty: “Bongo Baby.” That’s a nice song, but I said “I wonder why he selected this track?” It’s a great track. Is there a story there?

GA: Well, it’s one of the songs that I produced and co-wrote with Carmen Grillo, who is a guitar player who used to play in Tower of Power. And he’s also the engineer on the record and we recorded the record at his studio. And he wrote this and we didn’t have a title and a friend of mine came up with the title, another songwriter that I write with, and when that kinda came up, “Bongo Baby,” we were kinda “Well, okay, now let’s see where we can go with this.” And then we had the girls say “Bongo Baby” in the front and it kinda reminded me of an old Herb Alpert Tijuana Brass-type thing, and when I wrote the melody I said “Well, this is kinda going to a funny place, but why not?”

I’ve got a great percussionist in my band, Johnny Sandoval, and he’s a great bongo player and it was “Let’s do a little tongue-in-cheek parody of an old Herb Alpert-type style song” and we put the trumpet on and we doubled it just like Herb used to do. And it kinda took on a life of its own and it’s one of those tracks that…. I’ve done a few interviews now about the new record and everybody asks about it. They love it. They love that track. And it’s kind of like on my second CD, Midnight Morning, the tenth track was a complete afterthought and it’s called “Roadhouse.”

We needed ten songs and we didn’t have ten songs and we had this kind of in the can. So we didn’t feel that it fit with the whole thread of what we were doing on Midnight Morning, but we had to have ten songs, you have to have at least ten songs, so we kinda tacked it on the end. Well, it was the biggest song off the record. It was the first single. And it went Top Ten….so go figure. I mean, it’s kind of a head scratcher. So “Bongo Baby” is kinda like in that kind of a thing. It was our tenth song and it wasn’t out of desperation, but it just turned out to be the tenth song. We needed one more song and it was there, it was presenting itself, and I was digging on writing with other people too like I said before, and so that’s how it was born and that’s how it turned out. It’s a fun song and “live” it kills.

Smitty: I can just imagine.

GA: And we get a little Latina to get up there on stage and have her say “Bongo Baby” before we start the song. It’s always a crowd pleaser. The shorter the skirt, the better.

Smitty: I’m there, absolutely, my friend. As I was listening to the record, when I got to “Bongo Baby,” it just solidified the diversity of this record. There’s a different twist and a different turn with each track.

One of my favorites on the record is the last song, which is “When the Party’s Over.” I wrote it with Nick Milo. It’s a real romantic ballad with a big orchestra, and we did something like that on the last record, on Firefly, called “Just Like Breathing,” and it proved to be such a, once again, a crowd pleaser because it’s such a departure from anything smooth. I mean, it’s very smooth, but it’s not in the smooth format.

Smitty: Right.

GA: It’s like an old smoky nightclub at 2 a.m. in Hollywood and stuff like that.

Smitty: Yeah, man.

GA: So we thought we’d take it a step further this time and really orchestrate the whole thing and it kinda was a nice thing to kinda settle down on as you exit.

Smitty: Yeah, it’s a mellow tune.

GA: Yeah, it’s just real pretty, real romantic and, idle, evokes a lotta thoughts like “When the Party’s Over.” It can go so many different ways.

Smitty: Yes indeed. Well, I must say, man, I’m really digging the record and I’m just blown away with everything you’ve done with it and with the players that you pulled together for this one, and it’s just a great project you’ve done. You’ve done it again, my friend.

GA: Oh, thanks, Smitty. Well, we’re looking for big things to come from it. It’s on my label this time as opposed to being on a major label. It’s on Ripa Records, which is a label that I started with a partner of mine in Seattle, Washington.

Smitty: Very cool.

GA: And so we’re being distributed through the Internet, CD Baby and we’re looking for a major distribution deal. We’ve got some irons in the fire. So it’s kinda like taking a little control of one’s destiny.

Smitty: And that’s a good thing sometimes to take control. I think you’re gonna do well with this one because, man, this is some fantastic music and that’s what people want. They want great music.

GA: Yeah, I agree and I think out there right now the play lists are so tight and trying to get on them is really, really difficult.

Smitty: Yes.

GA: And with the advent of so many Internet radio stations.…they’re embracing, I think, more of what people who listen or come to the shows.…they’re playing more of the music that those people wanna hear.

Smitty: I think you’re right on.

GA: And we’ve found that Internet radio has been so generous and it’s very interesting. I think it’s very cool.

Smitty: Yeah. Well, this is an opportunity for you to test some new waters and have some fun with it because this is all a part of the creative process of making music and getting it out there.

GA: Yeah, and the thing is, like I was saying about a distribution deal will come, every day it gets a little better, we’re like a new little record company, the little engine that chugged up the hill. But every day we take steps forward and eventually we’ll get noticed.

Smitty: Oh, yeah. You can’t hold this record back, I can tell you.

GA: Well, dude, I love the way you’re talking. We need to get out to everybody to let them know because that’s the thing. If people don’t know it’s out there, they may not get the opportunity to hear it. So we embrace everybody and anybody who is willing to talk to us about it, and that’s the one thing we’ve noticed is that it’s getting such great, great comments.

Smitty: Yes, and rightly so.

GA: So I’m really happy. I’m so happy that you like it.

Smitty: Oh, yes indeed, my friend. Now, speaking of that, they can get the record at www.CDBaby.com.

GA: And they can also buy it through the store that we have at www.riparecords.com. Also through my Web site, which is www.gregadamsmusic.com.

Smitty: Excellent. All right, well, Greg, I can’t say enough about this fantastic music that you have produced and I wish you all the success in the world with this.

GA: Thanks, Smitty.

Smitty: And I look forward to seeing you again, man, out there and playing live, and it was a treat to see you just recently here and I just can’t get enough of seeing you out there doing your thing.

GA: Well, thanks, Smitty. Thanks so much for your interest and kind words.

Smitty: Yes indeed. We have been talking with Ripa Records recording artist, the fantastic, the one and only Greg Adams. He has a great new record out; it’s called Cool To The Touch. It may be cool on the outside but, man, when you put it in your CD changer you’ll discover some serious heat! You’ve got to check this one out. Greg, thanks again, my friend, and it’s always a pleasure. Let’s do it again.

GA: My pleasure too, Smitty. Thanks so much.

Baldwin “Smitty” Smith

For More Information Visit www.gregadamsmusic.com and www.riparecords.com