Smitty: So how different was it for you growing up in Philly and then moving to Los Angeles? What kind of transition was that for you?
GJ: Oh, well, the first thing I found out about was pedicures. (Both laugh.) I had no idea somebody else would do your toenails. (Both laugh.) So I’m telling you, that was the first thing I learned, but the other thing was going into studios where you had to pay to go into a place and set up your gear and rehearse and then tear it down and take it back with you, so different cultural things, and then the whole thing about people didn’t want to rehearse. You just had to be good enough that you could just come in and rehearse a little bit and okay, let’s go do the gig. So it was kinda different for me.
Smitty: I often wonder sometimes what it’s like when you go from one culture to another and what it takes to adjust to that and then keep doing your thing at the same time, you know?
GJ: Yeah, it was hard being away from my family, but I was so driven and so determined, and I’ve always been driven. I’ve always had a job. I always did something. I was working since I was 11, so I was selling Avon or doing something, but I always played my keyboards and I always gigged somewhere on the weekend and all that kind of thing. So, yeah, it was hard for that and then, of course, things were much more expensive, but then I was making so much more money and it just seemed like it would just last forever. I was like okay, I’m gonna go with one thing now. Okay, well, if this doesn’t continue, I’m sure I’ll be with Prince or somebody and, of course, it turned out somewhat like that (both laugh), but I did a whole lot of auditions. I counted ‘em up. I’m sure I did at least a hundred auditions for everybody from Sheila E to Jeffrey Osborne to Teena Marie, and that was a fun time too, just to have open auditions where people could come and try out and network with other people and be all dressed up, and that was fun and that kinda doesn’t happen anymore. Cats just get called. “Okay, yeah, he’ll be good for a gig. Call him,” you know?
Smitty: (Laughs.) Yeah, it takes away that fun edge of it.
GJ: It really does, yeah.
Smitty: Yeah, absolutely. So tell me, what was it like when you finished your first project?
GJ: When I finished my first project, it was a little bit out of frustration. I had been doing several projects. I had completed several CDs we call them now, but back then we were doing cassettes, and I did them on all different kind of groups: singing groups, rappers and my own group, duos and quartets, and all kind of stuff, so I have a little collection of several CDs—several collections of music that I’ve made, but once I got into the Smooth Jazz thing, I did a record called It’s About Time because it came from a compilation of songs I had written for other people and they turned them down. Nobody would use anything I was writing, and so I said “Well, shoot, I’ve got 16, 17 of these songs. I can put ‘em together and just make my own CD.” So, of course, I was my own engineer and my own art designer and all that stuff, so I did my best with it, but the songs were nice. Some of the songs were really good. I had some guest artists even back then. Andre Delano played sax for me and Cliff Brown played guitar. He’s a fantastic guitarist. He’s still in the L.A. area. And a young lady, Della Miles, a vocalist, and she sang so, I mean, some of the songs were really, really good, but they just didn’t have the arrangement and the mixing and the sound quality. You need to go in the studios and, I don’t know, five, six, seven, twenty thousand dollars to really make the record sound good.
Smitty: Yeah, absolutely.
GJ: Yes, so that’s how the first record got started, just by a bunch of rejects and I put ‘em all together and I said “Well, I’m gonna invite somebody over and let’s see what they can do with this one.” So my family was “Well, it’s about time you do something just by yourself.”
Smitty: How cool. You spent some time in Australia too, didn’t you?
GJ: Yeah, I did. I love theater and I love comedy, and I had the opportunity to work with Rain Pryor, Richard Pryor’s daughter.
Smitty: Oh yeah.
GJ: We traveled all over the States and we had actually a three-month run at the Canon Theatre in Beverly Hills.
Smitty: Wow.
GJ: So that was my first theater experience, but working with her was really, really nice, and so I got to travel with her to Australia and I brought my daughter with me and we had a really fantastic time. We stayed there about a month and, of course, I got to sight see everything there was and got to go to all the jazz clubs. In fact, we sat in, because Rain sings as well, and we sat in at a really famous club in Australia and I can’t think of the name of it, and everybody from Miles Davis to Ella [Fitzgerald] to everyone has played that club. Even my piano teacher from Berklee had his picture on the wall because they have all these pictures on the wall, and I’m sorry, I can’t think of the name of it, but it’s the only one true historic jazz spot and we went and sat in and she sang “God Bless the Child” and I played the piano and we got a really hearty applause and it was great.
Smitty: Wow. So what was it like when you performed with Bobby Womack?
GJ: Oh my gosh, what a classic hero of mine. He was so much fun. He would call me Fish. We’re both Pisces, you know. (Both laugh.) First time I came to his rehearsal, somebody needed him to move his little Mercedes, a little gold Mercedes, and he was busy working and I said “I’ll move that for you.” (Both laugh.) And I looked at him and I was like “Whoo, he’s really giving me the keys.” My long hair blowing in the wind and I was like “Oh, I can work this.” Bobby took me all around the world. In fact, I got so excited about being overseas, I went to a little Belgium café and had me a Belgian waffle and went to a little place and had me some cappuccino or something I’d never tasted before. I mean, we only had Sanka when I was growing up. (Both laugh.) I went shopping and I came back to the hotel and everybody was gone, so I had to fly back by myself. I actually took a couple trains, a couple buses, and learned a couple of languages real quick to get off at the stops I needed to.
Smitty: Wow.
GJ: See, well, they all went on to Paris. That was the next gig. So I made it on to Paris and made it on to the gig, so thank God for American Express.
Smitty: Yeah, wow. Well, you had some incredible influences.
GJ: I’ve had some…really great teacher about entertaining and about form and, I mean, my first gig was learning a 19-song medley and it was like oh my goodness. But, see, I could write music down, so I was standing over the music director’s shoulder and I just was jotting down, dit-dit-dit-dit-dit-dit-dit-dit, and by the time he was like “You got it? You got it?” I was like “Yeah.” He got up. Shoot, baby girl’s on it. But I was able to at least follow along and then get it together as rehearsals went on.
Smitty: Yeah, how cool. Well, you’ve had some incredible influences in your life, notably Duke Ellington, Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder. Talk about how they influenced you. We hear people say that all the time. “Well, some of my greatest influences are this person or that person.” But talk about how they influenced you.
GJ: Well, I think with Herbie I just liked that a lot of his songs are very simple. He’d start from the bottom and he just keeps building and keeps building and keeps building. And I think he has a very strong composition background and, in fact, that’s what I studied at Berklee. I didn’t know about Herbie’s background so much, but I just loved to write, and so that’s what I like about Herbie and I try to incorporate it in my style. Just start real simple and then just start layering and layering because that’s how I hear. I hear horizontally across. I hear all the instruments at once and then I move into the next section. I won’t hear the next section yet until I kinda get the first one down. You understand what I’m saying?
Smitty: Oh yes.
GJ: So that’s what I like about Herbie and his music, and I think that’s how he has influenced me to continue in that vein to just start simple and then really improvise, totally somewhere else if you want to, you know? So open that you can do it, leave it to your interpretation. Whatever you’re exposed to, whatever level you’re at, you can play any Herbie Hancock song, and the more experience you get, the more advanced it can become, so that’s what’s nice.
