Smitty: Oh yeah, wow.
CB: He actually wrote two of the tracks on my CD too.
Smitty: Well, we must give him some props, huh? (Both laugh.)
CB: There you go.
Smitty: As your career progressed, man, I mean, it’s been another step up the ladder with every corner you’ve turned, and you gotta tell me about Pieces of a Dream because when I heard you toured with Pieces, it was like wow, I gotta hear this, you know? How did you get started with Pieces of a Dream? How did that happen?
CB: Well, as you can imagine, my experiences with Pieces of a Dream are really special to me and you probably already know this, but Pieces of a Dream were discovered by Grover Washington, Jr. when they were just teenagers.
Smitty: Absolutely.
CB: And Grover wanted to help the next generation of young musicians, which I think is so cool.
Smitty: Mm-hmm.
CB: Well, as far as Pieces and myself, one of my three managers at the time by the name of Lloyd Remick, who was Grover’s manager and who I met through my current manager Rob Russen, had worked really closely with Pieces and decided to introduce me to them, so after I played for them, James Lloyd really took an interest in helping me as Grover had helped them, so they added me as a feature to their band and I started collaborating a lot with James and playing festivals with them, and it was just a wonderful experience and I will always look at those guys like family to me. They used to call me the newest member of the Grover Washington family, so it was really quite an honor.
Smitty: (Laughs.) Wow, that’s too cool. So now after touring with Pieces, is that when you did the new record?
CB: Yes, after touring with them, I started working on my own record and some of the tracks I worked on even before and while I worked with Pieces, so it was kind of a gradual process of writing and putting it together, but it became completed after I finished working with Pieces.
Smitty: It’s an incredible record and I must say that this record should be in the hands of everyone because it’s got some seriously cool grooves. It’s so alive and I love that horn, man, I love that horn sound.
CB: Thank you so much. Yeah, the grooves are the most important thing to me when I’m writing and especially performing live. I love seeing that type of music come alive on stage too.
Smitty: Do you like to write? Do you write often?
CB: I like to write. I write all the time but this CD was the first time I got to put a lot of my writing into the studio and get to hear it come out on an album, so I’m getting started on my second one as we speak.
Smitty: Yeah! So talk to me about when this record came to completion. What was that like? You know, you’ve got the record finished after all of that hard work, and you’re getting some air play. Talk about what that was like.
CB: Oh, it’s just absolutely exciting and it was gratifying and it was just a relief to get it done because it’s an awful lot of work. As fun as it is and as much as I learned from it, it was a lot of work, so I was happy to have it finished and just to be able to hear what the world thinks of it was really interesting to me, so it’s really been a great experience.
Smitty: Very cool. Now, you play in and around New York.
CB: Yes.
Smitty: Talk about what that’s like, the New York scene, for all the fans out there. What’s it like to perform on the New York scene?
CB: I love the New York scene. The players in New York are second to none. I play with some of the funkiest musicians I’ve ever met in New York City and there are so many of them, you are constantly meeting new people and playing with new people, and I can’t get enough of it. I love living here and working in the New York scene.
Smitty: Absolutely. I love New York too. It’s a wonderful place. So now are we gonna see more of Cindy out on tour in the future?
CB: Absolutely. In 2008 I already have some things going on, so hopefully it’s gonna be a busy year for me.
Smitty: Very cool. Do you still get to play with Pieces every now and then?
CB: I haven’t played with them in several months. I kinda went off and started doing my solo thing and they’re doing their own thing, but I still speak to them and we recently talked about a festival I might be playing in a couple of months and we might actually work something into it together, so I hope in the future that it happens again because that would be just great. I think you’ll be seeing it again, but nothing currently is going on with us as far as touring together.
