Smitty: Yes, and we need more of that kind of feeling, don’t we? (Laughs.)
CW: Oh, always. There’s never enough and it’s beautiful.
Smitty: Absolutely! Now, you got to work with Herbie Hancock a little bit, right? You got to meet him.
CW: Yes, the first time we were paired up was for the onetime Billboard Jazz Awards that were aired in 2000 and I had a relationship already with BET, with Waymer Johnson and having done some on camera work with them in promoting Canada, and one day I just went to visit Waymer and he said “Would you like to co-host the Billboard Awards with Herbie Hancock?” And I said “Let me think about it. Okay.” (Both laugh.) I mean, I’m kidding obviously. I was thrilled to do it. I didn’t have to think one second. And so we had a ball together on camera delivering our lines and sort of clowning around on stage, and actually T.S. Monk came up to me afterwards and said “Oh, you and Herbie were so relaxed and you were having such a good time. How long have you known him?” And I looked at my watch and said “Eight hours.” (Both laugh.) Because that’s all I had known him. But we really did hit it off and that led to a duet performance that he agreed to come and do with me as part of this hour-long documentary.
Smitty: Yeah, well, your career has just been a dream for so many others and so inspiring and, once again, I have to go back to this great new project, I mean, because your producer, Jimmy Haslip, how do you get any better than that?
CW: Oh, I know. Well, this is another thing that when I was living in Europe about 15 years ago and I was studying there and I was writing music, all my musicians had the number one CD that was played every day, it was the Yellowjackets. It was always Yellowjackets music and they always talked about Jimmy and all the different members of the band, but Jimmy’s name came up more than anybody’s.
Smitty: Yeah, he’s incredible.
CW: And again, this is somebody who I have known since the beginning of my development as an artist, and I was so lucky to have him introduced to me as a possible producer. I said “Oh my goodness. I’d be so grateful.” And that’s exactly what happened. We clicked right away, we hit it off when we met, and we had all kinds—we could’ve produced three albums of songs, we had so many ideas. (Both laugh.) And then the fact that he agreed to play as well with us on the CD was just, oh, I can’t even describe it. It was such a wonderful experience.
Smitty: Yeah, well, you know Jimmy. That’s just Jimmy, you know? He’s one of the top performers, top musicians in so many ways, in so many categories, he’s just a great guy all around.
CW: It’s true and he continues to be, and he’s so supportive when we’re playing and there’s something about him incredibly positive and so musical, and he’s turned me on to even more music, like a lot of his earlier stuff that I had never heard, and it remains in the CD changer all the time.
Smitty: Yeah, he’s a great guy. Well, now, I want to talk about you as a songwriter. You are an incredible songwriter. Most notably the great song “This Lullaby” that you wrote for Celine Dion for her “Miracle” album.
CW: Yes.
Smitty: Talk a little bit about that and how that happened.
CW: Well, when I was living in Europe, I was in Europe for seven years and I had a band and then I continued after I met this great songwriter and producer in Italy named Romano Musumarra. I decided to stop performing because he needed a lyricist for his music because he started to produce a lot of songs for artists in English even though he had a stronghold for artists in both French and Italian in the pop world, and he had the number one artist in France when I met him and produced and wrote songs for Princess Stephanie of Monaco that sold millions of copies, so he was kind of like the David Foster of Europe. So I was thrilled to be able to work with him and he actually produced a CD for me and there were numerous songs. We had another song together that we wrote that was a number one hit in France with an American singer named Dana Dawson while I lived there, and so one thing led to another. I walked away, I came back to Canada to live, and we continued to write together, but I did walk away with one song that I said I want to record on my first CD called “This Lullaby” and it happened about four years ago or so.
Romano was in a studio in Paris and he met up with one of Celine’s producers who he was working on this project with and overheard that she was doing this lullabies album and he said “Well, that’s funny. I have a song that I’ve co-written with a friend of mine and I think she might really like it.” And apparently she and her husband sat down to listen to it and it brought tears to their eyes and they said “Oh, this has to be on the CD,” so it’s entitled “Baby Close Your Eyes” and it’s on this lullabies album that she recorded in 2004 [Miracle by Celine Dion/Anne Geddes].
Smitty: That’s amazing, you know, to write a song for Celine Dion. I mean, that’s gotta be so rewarding.
CW: I have to say I really did have the true chills when I heard her sing that song for the first time. (Both laugh.) I met her years ago before she could speak English, because she came to Italy to record with Romano, and so then to see her career blossom like it has and she’s just such a huge star, it’s really an honor to be a part of her career.
Smitty: Yes, absolutely. And speaking of honors, you, too, have awards of your own that you certainly are proud of. For the past two years you’ve been crowned Keyboardist of the Year at the Canadian Smooth Jazz Awards. Talk about how that experience when you learned that you had won the award.
CW: Oh, first of all, it’s a true honor, but it is such an uplifting feeling and gratifying in the sense that we as artists strive through our entire careers to do the best we can and we’re always perfecting our craft and honing in on our skills and sharing emotions with audiences, and it’s amazing to become recognized for it and it’s a real accomplishment, and in society everybody always benefits from these things because people do, in a sense, judge you by what you’ve done.
Somebody will point out, oh yeah, that person has their Ph.D. from MIT or whatever. You always can sort of stand for something and obviously in the music business it really is a great honor and it’s a sign of recognition and it makes us feel great because it gives some real quantification to what we have done. I’ve been nominated many times for Juno Awards in Canada, which is like the Grammy awards in the States, and I have never won a Juno Award, so this was really a lovely surprise.
Smitty: Yes, and I must tell you that I first heard of you through a friend in Canada, Mary Kirk. And so I started to look around and said “Oh, I love the music.” So when I heard about the new record, I said “Oh, I hope we get to do something.”
CW: Oh, it’s so great to talk to you too but, yeah, it’s really fun to know that this album is released in the U.S. and Barnes & Noble especially racking it through the summer, and it’s exciting to finally really hopefully become better known in the U.S. because my career has been predominantly in Canada and internationally but not as much in the U.S., so this is a great opportunity.
