Jazz Monthly.com Interview with Mel Davis

“Jazz Monthly Feature Interview” Mel Davis

Smitty: Joining me at JazzMonthly.com is someone that I think is just truly inspirational from every aspect of life, from the music business to his personal life. He is one of the greatest examples of the true rehabilitative powers of music in every way, and I’m just so excited to have this young man here at JazzMonthly.com. He’s got a great new record out. It’s called It’s About Time. Please welcome the inspirational and amazing Mr. Mel Davis. Mel, how ya doin’, my friend?

Mel Davis (MD): Very, very good, Smitty. Very blessed, I should say. We are really jumping leaps and bounds over this new CD. I’ve always had a chance to say things I like, but this album gave me a lot more freedom because I produced this one basically by myself whereas my last one, Revealed, was produced predominantly by Ronny Jordan, which also, to me, was a great CD, but this one I think gives me a little more variety and I did a couple of dedications, one to a great friend of mine named Billy Preston, who died this year, and another great friend of mine, Jimmy McGriff, and I tried to cover both those guys to the best of my ability because there’s really no copying those kinds of legends. All you can do is emulate them and hopefully get their forgiveness if you messed up. (Laughs.)

Smitty: It’s great that you got to meet Billy before he passed.

MD: Yes, I was very fortunately to meet him. Billy heard me do his song a couple of times before he got sick and he was so encouraging to me when he said “Why don’t you do that song, man? You should record that.” And he said “We really like the way you do it,” so I was telling him “I would like for you to do it with me, Bill,” and then he got sick and same thing with Jimmy McGriff. I wanted to do his song “Heavyweight” that was on The Worm album. Jimmy had a CD back in the day by the name of The Worm and that album featured that song, “Heavyweight,” and I told Jimmy a long time ago I would like to do this song and Jimmy said “You got my blessings, man.” So with those two songs on the CD, I felt free to go even further and do my rendition of Frank Sinatra’s song “It Was A Very Good Year” unlike the way Lou Rawls did it or Frank did it. Where they did it kinda in a ballad tempo, I wanted to do it more in a pop funky-orientated way and to my surprise, the people were asking us to do it over and over in Italy last month. They were just “Please do it again! Do it again!” So we ended up doing that song three times in Italy on one set, so Ronny Jordan said “You know, you better include that on your next record, man.”

Smitty: I’m so glad you listened to Ronny, what a great musician! Talk to me about your relationship with George Benson and how you met him.

MD: George Benson, like I said to you before this interview, has been a major inspiration in my life since I was 17, and I met GB when I was 15 years old….I got to hear him play with Larry Young and Dexter Gordon at The Key Club in Newark, New Jersey, and I told him I would love to play with him one day and he said “Well, it could happen.” I didn’t see him anymore for about 15 years and I was playing at the Newark Jazz Festival in 1995 with Charles Earland, Joey DeFrancesco, Rhoda Scott, Jimmy McGriff, Jack McDuff, myself, and George Benson, and that’s when I got to really talk to him and he heard me open for these guys, and George started telling me the same thing. “Well, why don’t you record something with me?” He said “I want you to come over to my house.” So one thing led to another and like four CDs later now….it really kinda propelled me forward real fast because all the guitar players on the planet wanted to know this organ player he was playing with, whereas he could’ve used Lonnie Smith, who he used before, he could’ve used anybody, and he chose me and I was really thanking God the whole time because I had lost two fingers that were amputated and they were put back on with microsurgery by one of George’s friends who is a surgeon.

It took seven operations and ten years for me to come back and I did the albums MDRC and Mel Lennium , which were both produced by George Benson and another friend of mine named Tom Papa, and then that led to the Revealed record when George introduced me to Ronny Jordan. I had never heard of Ronny Jordan until this song “After Hours” was being played every day on all the Smooth Jazz and jazz stations across America. Ronny happened to be staying with George for a whole week and that’s how we hooked up and Ronny and I started recording together, and Ronny said “Well, man, to have your hand destroyed like that, for you to still play like that is a miracle, man!”

Smitty: That’s truly inspirational! Mel, talk about some of the things that you went through during those ten years of rehab and not being able to play because it’s obvious you really enjoyed playing music before all of this happened.

MD: Oh yeah.

Smitty: And then to have that taken away had to be hard to deal with….

MD: Oh yeah, it was so hard. And then on top of it, my wife died of cancer. After 26 years of being married, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and she was one of my main forces of telling me “You can do it! You can do it! You can come back!” ‘Cause I was so depressed about being hurt and I really don’t have to tell you how the music industry is. Before I got hurt, it had slowed up so bad for the jazz musicians that I started R&B with different local bands and I didn’t really like that position. So I went and got a day gig operating a press and that’s how I got my hand messed up. In the whole ten years that I was trying to recover, I just ignored everybody. People were saying “Mel, why don’t you just give it up? We know you like to play, we know this is all about you, but you only got one hand now. How are you gonna play with one hand? You sing good, man, but we love you on the organ, man. We wanna hear you on the organ more.” And I said “Well, you know what?” I said “None of us are perfect.” I said “Maybe God wants me just to sing. I don’t know. I just know that I can’t play right now.” And my Uncle John told me to take the word “can’t” out of my vocabulary.

Smitty: Good for him!

MD: And I said “Huh?” He said “If I ever hear you say that again, Melvin, I’ll be finished with you!” And he was like 83 years old and he played piano with Eubie Blake, he played with everybody, he played back in the Roaring Twenties and he was telling me if he had to listen to half the people that told him he wasn’t gonna make it or to quit, he said he would’ve quit playing, he said, “I want you to learn from your friend, Ann Ruttgert.” Ann Ruttgert used to tell me “Don’t let anybody become a wet blanket in your life.” She used to say: “You see your fingers are gone and they put ‘em back and they’re not working so good. Well, anybody who focuses in on that and not your real talent are wet blankets, and wet blankets are anybody who snuffs your fire out.”

Smitty: Cleverly said!

MD: I’d never heard of that. So I learned from that. Right after that is when my brother Benson….incidentally, brother Benson and I are Jehovah’s Witnesses, so we both try to live as close of an example to the God in the heavens as we can. We’re not perfect. Nobody is, you know, except the Christ, but I really do go through life trying to help my brothers and help my sisters, and I try to carry a big heart and you do have to care for your neighbor before you do for yourself, we really do need to do that, and I found out by doing that, putting God first, all good things come to you.

Smitty: Yes, that’s very admirable. Well, speaking of George Benson, he had something very special to say about you. I’d like to just read the quote that he said about you. He said “Mel Davis has been the man to call to fill any organ or keyboard gig in the greater New York area. He has appeared on some of my recordings with a characteristic sound all his own. This powerful musician and friend deserves his place in the sun.” You know, that’s quite a quote from someone who is truly a magnificent musician himself and to recognize that in you.

MD: Oh yeah, he’s my big brother, man, and for you to notice that, that shows me where you are and GB often told me “You’re gonna find some guys out there, Mel, who are gonna like you and then you’re gonna find some who aren’t,” and he said “I don’t know the formula for success, but I do know the formula for failure.” So I said “Well, what’s that, GB?” He said “Trying to please everybody.”

Smitty: He’s right. I must say that you have been a true formula for success in that all of the things that you’ve had to endure and yet you continue to do what you love in your own personal life as well as with the music, and I think it’s beautiful and it resonates in this great new project of yours because when I listen to the title track, I can feel so much love, a lot of energy, and a lot of what you love to do, and I must say that a lot of these tracks….I love them all….and you spoke of “Heavyweight”?

MD: Yes.

Smitty: What a great rendition of “Heavyweight” that you did.

MD: Oh, thank you.

Smitty: Yes, and all the musicians that accompanied you on that track as well, and I especially love Mr. Earl Grace. What a drummer!

MD: Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Smitty: He is a magnificent drummer.

MD: Isn’t he something?

Smitty: Yes indeed. And I love “Cordon Bleu,” the Joe Sample song. What a great song.

MD: Yeah, that was Ronny’s idea because I’d never heard of it, but Ronny said about ten years ago in London there was a guitar song that everybody played, even the organ players played it, but nobody ever recorded it, and it was ‘Cordon Bleu’ by Joe Sample.

Smitty: Yeah, well, you know something, Mel? I’m really amazed at the talent of musicians playing the organ, and there’s something about the New Jersey organ players. I mean, you’re from Paterson, New Jersey. I know of another great organ player in Rahway, New Jersey. His name is Joe Kurasz.

MD: Yeah, yeah, Joe is mean!

Smitty: Yeah, and I’m telling ya, I see a resurgence of the organ in the style that you’re talking about because when I listen to people like you and Joe featuring the organ as a lead instrument, it’s such a sophisticated, nice funky vibe and it’s one that makes people wanna get up and dance, it makes ‘em feel good, and it’s something that really just sort of resonates throughout the body when that organ starts to really crank up and you really hit your rhythm stride with it. I think it’s just a beautiful instrument and I wish that more people in the industry would pay attention to this great instrument because it has so much to offer. The Hammond B3 as a lead instrument is so powerful.

MD: Oh yeah, oh yeah, and I really, really was amazed to know that I was on the right track when GB won those two Grammys last week.

Smitty: Yes!

MD: And my album was much like his, where it gave you a big variety of music from the first cut to “God Bless the Child” to “Breezin’” and then a swing thing with Patti Austin (“Let It Rain”), and then they did “Bring It On Home To Me” with Paul McCartney. Every track on that CD was different.

Smitty: Yes indeed, and beautiful.

MD: And that’s why it is a Grammy winner. Because everybody else was doing the same thing, playing the way they like to play but not being daring enough to try something new, and GB said “You know, Mel? I love the idea you have with every track should be different and it gives the audience a chance to pick and choose.” I believe the music should allow the listeners the right to say what they like, not the artist. The artist shouldn’t dictate to the audience what they should listen to. I believe the audience has that right.

Smitty: Absolutely.

MD: You know what I’m saying? And I believe that as a jazz personality, you guys are the best because you have not only a great Web site and a great job being a jazz personality, but you get a chance to really hear all kinds of music at its grass roots and you get a chance to also hear the public’s point of view and what they would like and what they don’t like. And that’s where I envy you guys as Jazz Personalities.

Smitty: Thank you, that’s very nice of you to say that. Talk to me about when you finally got out to where you could tour….you did some pretty extensive touring with some great musicians, some legendary musicians.

MD: Right.

Smitty: Talk about what that experience was like after dealing with all that you had gone through.

MD: Well, when I went out the first time with George Benson, that was a dream come true because here’s a guy you see on television, you see him getting Grammy awards, but I knew him before that, I knew him way before Breezin’, but to actually see your friend and mentor go up and get a Grammy and then he let me….the night he got it for Breezin’, when he came home, he said to me “Mel, did you ever hold a Grammy?” And I said “No.” He said “Go look in the car, man, and then pick it up.” So I said “Oh, I might break it.”

Smitty: (Laughs.)

MD: He said “Just hold it, man.” He said “You’re gonna be holding one of these in your own hands soon, man.” He said “You just keep writing those songs. Writing is the key,” he told me. He said “Writing your own music is the key.” And he said “Being able to cover somebody else’s songs as though they were your own.” But it was always like I was close but never a cigar. (Both laugh.) You know what I mean?

Smitty: Yeah. But you are enjoying yourself and giving the listener what they want and that’s a powerful combination. So tell me, with all of the things that you have endured over the years and now you’re still making great music, what keeps you going?

MD: Faith and what the Christ says. Putting God first, putting his father first, and believing that the God of the heavens is not going to let you down if you stay true to what the bible says and be humble and try to love your brother as you would yourself. Put somebody else first instead of yourself all the time and I believe that’s why doors open up for me. GB introduced to me to a guy to work with after I got of the hospital, I started playing with him for about ten years, and I told him “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t play these R&B gigs no more. I wanna play the organ. I don’t wanna play anymore DX7s and the Yamaha keyboards. I wanna go back on the B3.” And he said “That’s a complete waste of time, Melvin. Nobody’s gonna hire you playing an organ. I couldn’t get a record deal. I’m 60 years old. How are you gonna get a record deal?” Then when he was in Tower Records and saw my album Revealed, he called me up at two o’clock in the morning and said “Hey, I’m at Tower, man. They’ve got a big poster of you at the door. How’d you do that?”

Smitty: (Laughs.)

MD: “I got a deal with Sony.” He said “How did you get Sony to distribute you?”

Smitty: (Laughs.)

MD: “Because I trust in God. I don’t trust man. I trust in God.” And he said “But Melvin, man, you gotta introduce me to your manager, man, because I’ve been trying to get a record deal with them for 55 years and here you’re 50 years old and got a record deal with Sony. I don’t believe it, man”.

Smitty: Yes, and I really encourage everyone to take a listen to this record It’s About Time.

MD: Aw, thank you so much, Smitty, man.

Smitty: Yeah man. Mel, I can’t tell you what a pleasure it has been to talk with you. I truly believe that you’re an inspiration for so many people and perhaps people that you don’t even know, especially when they read about you and what you’ve accomplished and the great music that you are producing, and I just want to personally thank you for all that you do and thank you for spending some time with me to talk about your career, your life, and this great record. You totally rock, man! We’ve been talking with the incredible Hammond B3 organist Mr. Mel Davis. His great new record is called It’s About Time. I highly recommend this record for your CD collection. Mel, thank you so much and best of everything for you in 2007 and beyond.

MD: Thank you so much, Smitty. Thank you so much, man.

Baldwin “Smitty” Smith

For More Information Visit www.myspace.com/meldavismusic and www.tomtomrecords.com