Jazz Monthly: Yeah, but you really have mastered that to the best degree when the actual musicians are not there with you, and it’s just a testament to your style and what you bring to the stage, which is just gorgeous. So tell me now, I want to back up to Stevie Wonder because that had to be an incredible experience.
Maysa: Oh yeah.
Jazz Monthly: Just talk about the beginning of hooking up with Stevie and doing such a great year of performing.
Maysa: Yeah, well, what I did, I started off when I was in the last year at Morgan, I’m a senior, and he came to Baltimore and my best friend happened to be singing with him already. She had gone on a year before and she was walking down the street and going to a rehearsal studio and some guy asked her did she want to sing background for Stevie Wonder and she thought he was joking, but actually turned out to be a real audition and so it was really weird how it happened because she got the audition and she passed it.
She sang with him about a year and then she said that he was looking for a voice like mine, like a deeper alto voice, and she wanted to know did I want to audition. I’m like “Do I want to? Are you crazy?” And so I got to audition for him. He came to Baltimore to do a Martin Luther King celebration and I auditioned. He said I did a great job, but I asked him could I finish school first before I came to California and would he mind if I waited, and he had thought that was great. He was like “Wow.” I said “Well, my parents have sacrificed so much for me to be able to go to school, I want to know if I could just finish and get my degree and then I’ll come and start doing what I want to do in life,” you know?
Jazz Monthly: Yeah.
Maysa: What happened was it turned out to be the right place at the right time because that’s when he was doing the Jungle Fever album. Once I graduated from Morgan and I moved there in February ’91, he was just beginning that record, so I got to sing background on that album.
Jazz Monthly: Wow. Absolutely fantastic. Man, so you must have just been floating on a cloud.
Maysa: I know. I’m telling you, I always tell people that the humbleness that’s in my heart will never go away because I remember sitting my parents’ basement, saying to myself, okay, how am I gonna get from here to there? And I didn’t know how. I didn’t know how it was gonna happen. I remember talking to God about it so much, that “God, I really wanna be a singer.” Melba Moore is the reason why I started singing anyway. When I was six years old my parents took me to see her and to see Purlie, and when she came out on stage and opened her mouth, I was done. I remember that feeling in my heart, like I just have to do this. So as a teenager growing up and listening to all that great music from the 70s, and I stayed at my parents’ basement floor, and my mother would come down there and I would be asleep with all those albums around me and stuff, and I just listened to music so much and I think that’s how I stayed out of trouble.
I mean, I wasn’t interested in peer pressure and all that kind of stuff. I just stayed home learning music my whole childhood basically, so to be able to sing today and do what I do what I do and be recognized for what I’m doing and go around the world and sing to people, that’s the most—the ultimate, most beautiful gift that God has put into my life besides my beautiful parents and my son. That’s the best gift God has given me and I’m forever grateful for it and I’ll never take it for granted, not one second of the day.
Jazz Monthly: Yeah, that’s so cool. Just talk a little about some of the places you’ve been that have just been amazing to you because your music has taken you around the world, which is very—
Maysa: Oh yeah, oh definitely. Like for instance, I’ve gone to Morocco, I’ve gone to Budapest, I’ve gone to Kazakhstan, where I don’t think—they didn’t understand anything I was saying, but I was with Incognito and they were singing every word to every song, you know? So it’s like amazing. I’ve been to Russia a few times. I’ve been everywhere in the world except for India and Egypt. Those are the two places I wanna go and I’m gonna try to go there. If I ever go on a vacation in my life, those will be the places I would go.
Jazz Monthly: Wow.
Maysa: But for right now, I mean, it’s just an amazing experience because when we go, especially to foreign countries, and you think, oh, what’s the reaction gonna be? I mean, with Incognito it was different. I knew that we had sold a lot of records around the world, but when you go and do solo stuff in different countries and I go on stage and people are singing “Can We Change the World,” that’s just insane. (Both laugh.) That’s why I don’t get high. I never did drugs. I get high every time I sing.
Jazz Monthly: Yes, I love that.
Maysa: Or every time people ask me what I do for fun and I’m having fun all the time.
Jazz Monthly: How cool is that, man? Wow.
Maysa: Yeah, it’s great.
Jazz Monthly: Let’s move to the new record because—
Maysa: Mm-hmm.
Jazz Monthly: Speaking of Bluey, you did a song on there, right, that recognizes Bluey.
Maysa: Yeah, it’s called “Let’s Figure it Out: A Song for Bluey.” It’s an instrumental song that I wrote. Everything you hear on the track, I wrote it, and basically how I did that is I sang every part to my producer Chris Davis. I sang every part to him. I sang the drums, the bass, the two different melody lines, strings, everything, I sang to him, and I said “This is how I want this to go” and then I would sing it, the melody, or sing the song or I would tell him how I want the drum beat to go or the bass line. And so he did, he just put it down for me and the keyboards and then we called Nick Colionne to come play the solo for us, and it just turned out great because it’s like it shows that I can write instrumental music. I don’t just have to write lyrics songs, and also that I wanted to do something for Bluey because he’s written me so much great music over the years. I wanted to show him that I’ve been listening to him and I’ve been watching and paying attention to what he’s doing as a producer and that I get it. I mean, that’s all I want him to know, that I get it and I wanted to write something really nice for him.
Jazz Monthly: Man, that’s really sweet. It really is. And I love that song and I love Nick’s guitar playing on that track too.
Maysa: Yeah, it’s beautiful. I love it.
Jazz Monthly: He’s a bad boy.
Maysa: Yeah, he is.
Jazz Monthly: Yeah, in fact, he mentioned to me how much he really enjoyed the music and doing the music on it.
Maysa: He did?
Jazz Monthly: Yeah, he had a lot of beautiful things to say about you, that’s for sure.
Maysa: Aw, that’s cool. Yeah, he’s so sweet.
Jazz Monthly: Yeah, and I gotta tell you, one of my other favorites on this project is “My Destiny.”
Maysa: Oh, nice!
Jazz Monthly: Man, that’s my goose bump song!
Maysa: Oh, that’s good.
Jazz Monthly: I love to play that one over and over because it’s just got something that makes you wanna move, you know?
Maysa: Uh-huh, that’s good.
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