“Jazz Monthly Feature Interview” Marcus Miller

Smitty:  When you talk about bass players, you must include my next guest.  He is a master of the thick strings, he’s a Grammy award winning artist, he’s just released a fantastic DVD that’s called Master of All Trades, and he knows how to break you off a piece of that.  If that’s not enough, he is the host a jazz great cruise in the summer of 2007.  Please welcome the incredible and amazing Mr. Marcus Miller.  Marcus, how you doin’?

Marcus Miller (MM):  What’s going on, Smitty?  How you doing, man?

Smitty:  I’m doing great, man. What’s up with you?

MM:  Man, I’m doing good.  It’s nice to be on and it’s a pleasure to talk to you.

Smitty:  Likewise, the pleasure’s all mine as well. Thank you. I’ve got to tell you how much I am totally digging this great DVD.  Now, I’m going to say this because in 2006 I have seen a multitude of DVD’s and they’re all great, but I’m gonna get in trouble for this, I know, but this is the best DVD I have seen all year.

MM:  Wow, thank you, man.  Nice of you to say that.

Smitty: You’re welcome and I mean that from the heart because the quality of the video, the camera work, the entire production and I must give some props to American Treasures and the Knitting Factory for what they did.  They did a masterful job.

MM:  Yeah, yeah. They did.

Smitty:  How did the whole idea of the DVD come up?

MM:  I met a guy named John Cross, who said he was into making videos. It took me a while to take him seriously, but he kept coming at me for about a year, saying “Marcus, I really have a great idea for you on a DVD” and finally I said “Look, if you’re serious about it, let’s start talking seriously.”  And we did, we had a gig at the Knitting Factory in L.A., which is a nice club, and he took it from there.  He just filmed the show and he took it another step further; He talked to me for a while and then went with a camera and interviewed everybody in my life.  I mean, from when I first learned how to play the bass, to my family, Roberta Flack and Bill Withers, Stanley Clarke, Herbie Hancock…it was unbelievable….so he really did a fantastic job.

Smitty:  Yes he did and I saw Luther Vandross on there….

MM:  It may have been Luther’s last interview.  I was working on Luther’s last album, the Dance With My Father album….

Smitty:  Right.

MM:  And John said “Look, you’re working with Luther.  You think Luther would mind if I stick a camera in his face?”  And I said “Well, he probably would, but since it’s for me, he’ll probably do it.”  And he did, so I’m just honored, just honored that people would sit there and talk about me. It’s a little uncomfortable to watch the DVD because everybody’s talking about me.

Smitty:  (Laughs.)

MM:  But it’s really nice.

Smitty:  Yes it is.  And they didn’t just talk about you.

MM:  (Laughs.)

Smitty:  Man, they praised you.  I mean, they put you on such a great level in terms of your musicianship, who you are as a person, and I think it was beautifully done, and my hat’s off to John for the extraordinary job he did.

MM:  Yeah, yeah, mine is too.  (Both laugh.)  It was very well done.

Smitty:  Yeah, it was great to see your dad on there and he talked about your grandfather and those humble beginnings.

MM:  And nobody can mistake my dad because I look just like him.

Smitty:  Yes you do.

MM:  When he walks into the club, they don’t even ask who he is.  They just find him a good seat. “Hey, Mr. Miller.”  (Both laugh.)

Smitty:  Man, that is so cool.  And, not only was this such great production of the DVD, but the band…you couldn’t have chosen better musicians to do this DVD because these cats put on a masterful show.

MM:  Yeah, it was a really good band.  Poogie Bell played drums and Patches Stewart was on trumpet, Roger Byam was on saxophone, and keyboards was Bruce Flowers and Dean Brown played guitar.

Smitty:  Yeah, man.

MM:  Just a really good band.

Smitty:  Yes it was, and what a selection of songs!  Whoo!  One of my favorites was the Miles (Davis) tune “So What?” 

MM:  Right.  (Laughs.)

Smitty:  That was a smoking track and then you followed it up with “Scoop,” and the audience just went crazy.  I’m just a little mad at you because I didn’t know you were doing this and I would’ve loved to have been there.  (Laughs.)

MM:  Oh, yeah, yeah.  Well, you know, the first one’s always difficult because you’re just working so hard to make it happen and then everyone’s on your case.  “Man, how come I wasn’t invited?”  So the next one, man, I’m gonna make sure everybody gets invited. We’ll make sure we do it right.

Smitty:  I totally understand. We’ll talk a little bit more about the DVD, but I don’t wanna give too much away because I think everybody needs to go out and get this DVD because there are too many reasons why you should add this one to your collection.

MM:  (Laughs.)

Smitty:  You know what I’m saying?  Because, man, when I first started getting into the concert portion of it.

MM:  Yeah.

Smitty:  I said to myself, if a person cannot dance at all, he will learn how.

MM:  (Laughs.)

Smitty:  It was that funky, you know what I mean?

MM:  (Laughs.)

Smitty:  This DVD will make you busta move at the Library!

MM:  Yeah, come on, man.  Get your dance on, man. (Laughs) Oh, that’s nice. I put off doing a DVD for a long time just because I wanted to make sure we did it the right way and I’m really happy with the way it came out, and then the songs that we chose, they were just really the songs that we had been doing on tour that whole year. I like to do my original songs.  I like to do some songs that you might not expect to hear, like a Miles Davis song from 1959 or something like that. And what else is nice is that Lalah Hathaway came in and did a cameo for me, Raphael Saadiq came in and did a cameo, so it was pretty sweet.

Smitty:  Yes, and it was great to see them. And you kinda jumped in there with the vocals, man.  (Laughs.)

MM:  Oh yeah, I’m not gonna hurt nobody with this, you know?

Smitty:  (Laughs.)  All right, I gotta ask you this because I’m not sure everybody knows that Marcus Miller plays a mean saxophone.

MM:  (Laughs.)

Smitty:  Man, talk a little bit about when you first started playing the saxophone.

MM:  My first instrument was the clarinet and then I started on saxophone a couple of years after that when I was probably 12, so I actually played those instruments longer than I played the bass.  It’s just that I picked up the bass about 13 or 14 years old, I just connected to it and that was that, but I never stopped playing the horns, and when I used to write music for David Sanborn or Grover Washington Jr., I always played the sax on the demos just to mess with them.  (Both laugh.)  Grover would be like “Now, who’s playing the horn?  Tell me that’s not you, please.”  (Both laugh.)  I said “Yeah, man.”  He said “Well, okay, I like the song, I’ll use the song on my album, but you can’t play anymore saxophone.”  (Both laugh.)  It was always nice to mess with him like that.

Smitty:  Yeah, man, that keeps it fresh too, you know?

MM:  (Laughs), exactly, exactly.

Smitty:  Yeah.  Now, on the DVD, you talked about your first bass and you talked about your second bass and your third bass. However, this all happened in a relatively short period of time.

MM:  Right.  Correct.

Smitty:  I love this story, talk a little bit about that and what happened.

MM:  Well, I had a couple of beginner basses, but my first real, quality bass was a Fender jazz bass that my mom bought me and it cost $250 out of the case, which was a whole lotta money back in 1975-1976. And I had it for a while and I left it on the side of my car when I was packing my equipment one day and drove off and left it and somebody picked it up and never bothered to return it to me so, as you can imagine, I was pretty upset, told my mom, and she went out and pulled another $250 out and bought me another one and I proceeded to leave that in my car two weeks later and that one was stolen out of the car. So now I’ve lost two basses and I wasn’t really sure whether Mom was gonna give me anymore money to get another one, but she did, and that bass that I have now is the one I’ve been playing for like 30 years and it has such a great sound to it.  It’s like I’ve been getting recognized as much for the sound on my bass as much as the notes that I play on it, so I think God had a hand in getting me the right instrument in my hands even though I was a bonehead in the way I went about it. Everything seemed to work out okay for me.

Smitty:  Yeah, and I’m sure you would certainly say to everyone that moms are special.

MM:  Man, I couldn’t thank her enough and when they (Fender) finally decided to make a Marcus Miller model bass, they based it on that bass that she bought me and she was the first person that I called. I said “You won’t believe this, but this bass that you finally bought me is now the prototype for a whole line of basses that Fender is making,” so she was pretty thrilled to hear that.

Smitty:  (Laughs.)  That’s cool. I hear a number of jazz bass players saying to me all the time “I’m trying to get the Marcus Miller sound” or “I bought a Fender bass because I love that Marcus Miller sound and I want to make sure that it stays alive and I wanna bring it here and I wanna take it there.”

MM:  (Laughs.)

Smitty:  So you have a lot of your peers that truly revere what you have done over the years with the great Fender bass.

MM:  Yeah, man, it’s an honor that these guys, all over the world feel that way  I’ll go into a club after my concert and hear some guy playing my bass and playing my licks.  (Laughs.)

Smitty:  Isn’t that cool?

MM:  At first it tripped me out, but now it’s just really…I’m really honored.

Smitty:  Yeah, it’s gratifying.

MM:  I saw one guy wearing my hat too.

Smitty:  Oh!  (Both laugh.)  Now you know….

MM:  That’s taking it too far.

Smitty:  Yeah, man, that’s getting out there. I know you played drums for a while and I’m sure you still play every now and then.

MM:  Right.

Smitty:  But, now, you told the story about how the bass and the drums correlate together and how you really wanted to capture that drum sound with the bass.  Talk about that whole correlation of the drums and the bass.

MM:  Well, you know, the bass to me is like the instrument that allows the drums to speak to the rest of the instruments, you know what I mean?

Smitty:  Yes.

MM:  I was so into drums, into locking with the drums, and I found myself starting to emulate the patterns of the drummer. I was working with a great drummer, Lenny White, who comes from my neighborhood in New York, Jamaica Queens, and I started trying to play his rhythms that he played on the snare drum.  I actually started trying to play them on the bass and started getting into all these complicated rhythms that were so funky and that became a big part of my style, this kind of percussive drum-like patterns on the bass.

Smitty:  I could see that so clearly….that whole interplay on this DVD because you and Poogie Bell were really doing some seriously cool stuff.

MM:  Oh yeah, and Poogie, who plays drums on the DVD, man, I’ve been playing with him since we were kids, so he knows what I’m gonna do and I have to really work to surprise him so it makes me go to a whole ‘nother level.

Smitty:  Yes indeed, man.

MM:  You know, if I look back and he’s yawning, then I say “Okay, I’ve got to step it up.”

Smitty:  (Laughs.)  Yeah, man.  Now, you talked about Jamaica Queens, The Southside.  Talk about that whole club scene when you were growing up with you and Omar (Hakim) and Poogie and all those guys.  Talk about that whole club scene and how you cats made your way through that whole time, that era of time.

MM:  Well, it was like the mid to late seventies and New York was a very special place then.  There was so much music happening, so many different styles, because no matter where you come from, everybody ended up in New York, so as kids growing up in New York, we got exposed to a lot.  Being in Queens, which is one of the New York boroughs, was really special because you had Manhattan and you had Brooklyn, but Queens had basements.  All the homes there had basements and all the kids used those basements to practice, so there was always a band.  Every block you’d walked down in Queens, there was a band practicing.

Smitty:  Wow. That was special.

MM:  So we knew every band from the sound coming up in the street.  “Oh yeah, there’s New Message.  There’s Unique Creation.”  You know, everybody had their interesting little band names. It was a beautiful scene and eventually, as we got older the really serious dedicated musicians started hanging out together, so you had guys like Tom Brown and Don Blackman and Lenny White and Omar Hakim, Bernard Wright…just incredible musicians and we were all there together and we didn’t realize how good the guys we were playing with were until we got even older and went around the world and started playing with all these other musicians.  You know, I’d be playing with a trumpet player and go “He’s good, but he ain’t no Tom Brown,” you know?  You realized that the guys that you grew up with were some of the baddest musicians in the world and so we were very fortunate.

Smitty:  Yeah, what a beautiful time.  Going back to the DVD, man, I wanna touch on one of the interviews where Herbie Hancock was talking about you.

MM:  Okay.

Smitty:  And he talked about the time when he first saw you with Miles (Davis) and he was so impressed with your musicianship that he said that the music not only fit in with what Miles was doing, but he said also you really helped shape the direction that Miles was going musically at that time.  Man, what a tribute, what a comment to make.  I mean, that’s up there.

MM:  Yeah, man.  Yeah, that just, you know, I don’t even mess with that.  I just leave that alone, man.  I can’t even deal with it.

Smitty:  (Laughs.)

MM:  Such a beautiful honor, man, you know, Herbie Hancock and Miles, man.  It just, you know, you can’t think about that too much or else you just get paralyzed.

Smitty:  Yes, absolutely, man, I tell you. (Both chuckle) But those are some of the beautiful things that have come out of this DVD that I hope everyone gets to see because that’s just the tip of the iceberg and that’s phenomenal in itself what Herbie had to say, but there’s just so much more there, and with all of those great accolades that they have placed upon you, you backed it up with the performance of a lifetime on this DVD.  I mean, the combination of everything is just superbly done and just a great recognition of what you’ve done over the years with so many other great musicians.

MM:  Oh, nice.  Thank you, man.  I really appreciate it.

Smitty:  Yes indeed.  Now, talk to me a little about Patches Stewart because I love this cat’s musicianship. This cat can bring it.

MM:  Well, Patches is one of the few trumpet players…I mean, there’s a lot of trumpet players who were influenced by Miles, but Patches was one of the few guys who was influenced by a later Miles.  Most of the guys you hear playing like Miles would be playing like Miles played in the fifties or Miles played in the sixties, but Patches loved Miles in the eighties.  He loved when Miles really played a lot of mute and you’ll hear a lot of that influence in his playing.

Smitty: Exactly.

MM:  And he combines that with his roots because he comes from New Orleans so, you know, he has that Mardi Gras sound, I call it, and he’s always throwing that in there, so the combination of those two influences really makes for a unique trumpet player.

Smitty:  Yeah, man.  Oh, and it’s so strong and he’s got some quick fingers!

MM:  Oh yeah.  No, he’s very talented, man, and he’s got a CD out called Blow that’s really nice and hopefully we’re gonna get to do another one pretty soon.

Smitty:  Yeah, absolutely, I love that project.  All right, you’ve got this fantastic cruise with an incredible lineup, incredible locations, and you’re hosting.  What a great honor to do this.  I mean, this is a very nice arrangement.

MM:  Oh, it’s called the North Sea Jazz Cruise.  It’s sponsored by North Sea Jazz and Michael Lazaroff, who does a lot of jazz cruises here in the States, but this one’s gonna be in Europe.

Smitty:  Yes.

MM:  We take off from Copenhagen and go to some of the European cities; Sweden, Denmark, Gothenburg, Oslo, and Hamburg and then we are going to end at Rotterdam, Holland, where the North Sea Jazz Festival’s happening, and it’s going to dock there for three days during the festival. The ship is going to serve as the hotel for all the people on the cruise so they can go check out the biggest jazz festival in the world, it’s a pretty incredible thing. We’re going to have artists like David Sanborn and they have Dee Dee Bridgewater, we have McCoy Tyner, we’re going to have Kirk Whalum…it’s gonna be an unbelievable amount of artists on the ship where you get to hang out and hear them play without worrying about where you parked your car….

Smitty:  Nice!

MM: .…after the show you don’t have to worry about those kind of things. You just go to your cabin and the ships are incredible.  They’re like Vegas hotels on the water now.

Smitty:  True that.

MM:  It’s not like the Love Boat, where there’s a bunch of shuffleboard.  I mean, there’s all sorts of stuff going on, on this Ship.  You’ll be amazed when you get on there, I stowed away on the Dave Koz cruise a couple of months ago just to see what it was like.  It really blew my mind, so I’m really excited about this. This is the opportunity for Americans who are interested in seeing Europe.  They can come and see some of the most beautiful European cities that they have to offer and at the same time you’ll get to hear some unbelievable music, so it’ll be an incredible, incredible, 13 days.

Smitty:  Yeah, and you’ve got my boy Roy Hargrove coming out.

MM:  Oh, man, Roy Hargrove’s gonna be there, we’re going to have James Carter on saxophone, man, we have John Scofield, Medeski Martin & Wood, David Sanborn said he’s going to come, so, you know, I’m working on Herbie Hancock, so…

Smitty:  Yeah, work on him hard.  (Laughs.)

MM:  Oh, you know I’m gonna work him, so don’t worry about it.

Smitty:  Yeah, man.  Well, when I saw that and after watching the DVD, I said “I gotta get on this ship.  I’ve got to get on this ship.”

MM:  It’ll be nice, man.  I think there’s a whole new place to hear music on a ship. We used to think of it as something for people who are retired, but it’s a whole different thing now. It’s something everybody can check out.

Smitty:  Yes indeed.  I’ve experienced the jazz cruise scene and I totally dig it, yeah.

MM:  Yeah, yeah, it’s nice.

Smitty:  And I would encourage everyone that have the opportunity, don’t pass this up because it’s that good.

MM:  Yeah, it’s great and you really get to relax and really get into the music because these ships are so huge, they have full-size concert halls in them.

Smitty:  Yes.

MM:  You know? And they’ve got clubs and bars and there’s basketball and there’s everything, so it’s just beautiful.

Smitty:  So are you gonna shoot some hoops on the ship?

MM:  Well, you know, if I can get (Wayman) Tisdale to show up, man, then, you know, I like to mess with him if I can get a couple of shots off on him.

Smitty:  (Laughing) Yeah. I think you could take him, man.

MM:  Well, I just keep moving, you know?  Put my little man moves on him, you know, he doesn’t feel like working that hard chasing me around the boat.  (Both laughing.)

Smitty:  All right, well, we’ve got the challenge out there.  Let’s see if he can answer, you know?  (Both laughing.)  Now, give me the dates for the North Sea Jazz Cruise.

MM:  Okay, the cruise dates are July 5th through the 17th. That’s including the North Sea Jazz Festival. I’m really excited. It’s the first one that we’re going to do like this and I’m really excited about it.

Smitty:  All right.  So, now, what would you say to all of the great jazz fans out there if you had them all in front of you right now?  What would you say to them about this jazz cruise other than what you’ve said?

MM:  I’d say, “Imagine going to one of the most unbelievable concerts of your life, then after the concerts you go to sleep and you wake up in the morning, there’s that same musician eating breakfast there with you and you get to ask him, ‘What goes through your mind, man, when you’re playing a certain song?’ or ‘What is it that inspires you?’  You get to actually see and talk to the musicians rather than just go hear them play and then they disappear out of your life until next year or whenever they come back to your city.” I want you to really touch the music and really feel the music, so if you’re a music fan, it’s incredible.  The other thing is that everybody on the boat are like you. You’re going to feel like you’re a part of a big family because everyone loves the music, so it’s like being part of this beautiful family that just keeps growing.

Smitty:  Absolutely, my friend well said. I second the motion and I cannot say enough about this great cruise that’s coming up and this spectacular DVD. Now, are you working on some new music?

MM:  Working on some new music that I plan to have done for the spring so that by the time I get on that ship, I’ll have some new music to play, so….

Smitty:  That’s what I’m talking about!

MM:  I’m excited.

Smitty:  You’ve got so many things going.  How do you keep up?

MM:  I’m like a juggler with those balls juggling in their hands.  I just try not to let anything drop.

Smitty:  (Laughs.)  Well, you’re doing an exceptional job at this time, let me tell ya.

MM:  Oh, thank you, man.

Smitty:  You’re so welcome and I want to congratulate you on this great DVD, the wonderful cruise that you have coming up, looking forward to the new music, and also thanks, man, for keeping the funk alive.

MM:  Oh, you know we’re gonna keep the funk alive, you know that.

Smitty:  Yeah, man, and congratulations to everyone involved with this great DVD, all of the fantastic artists that you had on stage with you and the wonderful people at American Treasures, and the Knitting Factory. 

MM:  Thank you, man.  I’ll pass that on to everybody.

Smitty:  All right, we have been talking with the incredible Mr. Marcus Miller. He has released a wonderful new DVD, it’s called Master of All Trades and it is appropriately titled because he has mastered all trades in the music business and he has gone beyond that with a wonderful cruise, and what you see on that DVD is only just a teardrop of what you’re going to see on this wonderful North Sea Jazz Cruise.  Marcus, thanks again, my friend, and all the best to everything you’re doing in 2007.

MM:  Thank you, Smitty, and we’ll talk in 2007.

Baldwin “Smitty” Smith

For More Information Visit http://www.marcusmiller.com/ and http://www.3deuces.com/ and http://www.northseajazzcruise.nl/

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