Jazz Monthly.com Interview with pamela williams

“Jazz Monthly Feature Interview” Pamela Williams

Smitty: I’m so excited to welcome back to JazzMonthly.com an incredible musician. She has so much cool and her latest project is evident of that. It is a beautiful celebration of great music from some of the most fantastic entertainers that ever touched the stage, Dionne Warwick, Burt Bacharach, and Hal David. It is called The Look Of Love. Here to talk about this great record and her marvelous career, please welcome the incredible Shanachie recording artist, Ms. Pamela Williams. Pam, how ya doin’, my friend?

Pamela Williams (PW): I’m good, I’m good.

Smitty: Excellent. Well, I am totally digging this new record. It’s a great celebration of the music of Dionne Warwick, Burt Bacharach and Hal David. And when I first heard what the content was, I said “What a great idea, what great music,” because we don’t hear anyone covering this music, especially the way you have. Wow, this is incredible stuff.

PW: Thank you, Smitty.

Smitty: Talk to me about this whole evolution of doing these wonderful songs, and arranging them the way you did was just magnificent.

PW: Thank you. Well, I had wanted to do this Burt Bacharach project for about ten years now and I think that they’ve always been some of my favorite songs. Whenever I’m painting and doing artwork, I would always put on Dionne Warwick, and her collection is….I’m like “Oh my God, these songs, when I hear them, they make me feel so happy and so wonderful inside, the melodies are wonderful, just a group of really uplifting songs,” and I thought it would be really nice to just be able to do these songs over on saxophone and to do them in a jazz style, a contemporary jazz style, and do different arrangements. I didn’t know how I was gonna actually go about changing the arrangements because I’m like “wow, they’re so classic and timeless the way they already are. I mean, I’m gonna have to really dissect these to really do them over.”

Smitty: Did you grow up listening to these two great entertainers, their music?

PW: I guess when these songs were out I was a little girl because I think they came out in the sixties? I remember that my parents used to listen to these songs a lot and I really didn’t get back to really start listening to these songs again until back in the nineties. I went to the record store and I saw, oh, Dionne Warwick’s Greatest Hits, and I picked up the CD and I just fell in love with it, and I’m like “Oh my God, I remember these songs.” I hadn’t heard them a lot. I remember them from being really young, but maybe it’s the memories that they brought back because I remember my parents had a house in Philadelphia and they would always play those particular songs and I still remember those songs from when I was a little girl, and maybe it was a happy time of my life so that’s probably why I wanted to do these songs over.

Smitty: Nice. Well, what I really love about it is you didn’t lose that old school feel of the songs, but you put some great arrangements in there for the saxophone and they blend so well.

PW: Thank you. It was really challenging, because when I started working on the project, I knew it was gonna be a challenge to come up with different arrangements of stuff that’s just already great, and I thought, well, if I’m taking on the challenge in doing this, I’ve gotta make them different and interesting enough where people will still like them as much as they would like the original recordings, and I didn’t want to lose too much of the essence of the songs, so it was quite challenging.

Smitty: Yeah, they were doing some pretty incredible stuff back then, weren’t they?

PW: Yeah, yeah, and it’s karma because it’s like Burt Bacharach was able to take these free flowing sounds that makes you think that they would be easy to do, but these were complex arrangements where the song might be 4/4 for one part of the song and then the time will change right in the middle of the song to 2/4 and then it would go to 3/4 and then it would go back and forth, and I’m thinking, okay, I gotta rethink this whole thing. (Both laugh.) There are some different elements going on here that just listening to them casually I wasn’t picking up how things were changing so much in these songs.

Smitty: Yes, and it shows the talent of these two great artists, Dionne Warwick and Burt Bacharach, doesn’t it?

PW: Definitely. What a great musical marriage between the two of them.

Smitty: Yeah, just beautiful, and I think you captured that and I think it will remind the audience of that because you mentioned memories of growing up with these songs. I think it will evoke a lot of memories for the listener when they listen to these great songs and the beautiful arrangements that you’ve added to them. I mean, it takes us back and then it brings us forward at the same time.

PW: Oh, well, that’s what I wanted to do. I like the way you put that. (Both laugh.)

Smitty: And like you said, they’re classic songs. I mean, like “You’ll Never Get To Heaven If You Break My Heart,” “The Look of Love,” “I Say A Little Prayer,” and you know my favorite on this magnificent record is, Track 7, “Walk On By.”

PW: (Laughs.) Well, Precious [Iglesias] is gonna be happy to hear that.

Smitty: (Laughs.) And when I first heard this song and then I found out Precious was singing this song, it’s like “Oh, I can’t believe it, no, no, no.”

PW: (Laughs.)

Smitty: But the interplay is what’s so remarkable. The interplay of your saxophone and her voice is just totally amazing, and the melody, I mean, it’s just one of the most beautiful songs I’ve heard in a long time.

PW: Wow, thank you, thank you. I have to definitely convey that to her.

Smitty: Yes, and sometimes when you know a person or you’ve been around them and then you hear their talents, it just makes it even that much more remarkable, and I just can’t say enough about this great arrangement of this song because I’ve heard it before and I’ve heard renditions of it before, but I have to say—and I don’t do this often—but I have to say this is the best rendition of this song I have ever heard.

PW: Really?

Smitty: I’m not kidding, and when I say that I really mean it because I’ve heard a lotta music. (Laughs.)

PW: Okay, okay. (Laughs.) You’re not just saying that because you’re one of my favorite people? (Laughs.)

Smitty: Exactly, exactly, yeah, and thank you for saying that but, yes, I love this song, and I wish I had a dime for each time I’ve hit repeat. (Laughs.)

PW: It’s so funny because I had wanted Precious to do—I wanted one of the songs to be a vocal and we wanted to show off, like okay, which one do we pick to be the vocal song? Because, I mean, there are so many great ones and all of them, any one that you would want to do.

Smitty: Of course.

PW: And one day I was in the studio working on “Walk On By” and Precious was like “Well, let me just go in the recording booth and let me just put down like a scratch vocal and let’s just see what it sounds like” and so she put down a scratch vocal and I was like “I like that.” I was like “I think this should be the one.”

Smitty: Yes, you nailed it! It’s breathtaking. When you really analyze what’s happening, it’s just that much more amazing because she shows such great range of voice that I didn’t realize she had, and I have listened to this song so many times but each time I sort of dissect the song to see where it goes and how far she reaches to capture this song and, I tell ya, it’s fantastic.

PW: Thank you.

Smitty: I just hope that everyone gets to hear, not just this song, but the entire project, but that one stands out for me because, once again, I have fond memories of listening to this music too as I was growing up and to hear it again and to hear it with such great arrangements is just a beautiful thing for me.

PW: Thank you very much. That makes me feel really good.

Smitty: Oh, you’re so welcome.

PW: (Laughs.)

Smitty: But I also noticed too that you did some beautiful things with the arrangements in that you allowed the saxophone to talk and to accompany the music in such great fashion. It’s like the sax has a voice all its own and the music is sort of like the background singers, and I think that’s a remarkable thing to capture when you’re doing a project like this.

PW: Yeah, and we often speak of that song as just like we’re having a conversation. And even the guitar player, you know, it’s like we’re all having a conversation because in the beginning I come in and then Precious comes in with her vocal and the lyrics, I’ve always loved the lyrics. The lyrics are classic.

Smitty: Yes.

PW: And classic lyrics of a heartbreak, right?

Smitty: Yes indeed.

PW: And then it changes back to a funky groove where the saxophone almost sounds angry when I come in. (Laughs.)

Smitty: Yeah, yeah.

PW: And then the guitar, you know, me and the guitar player, it’s like we’re having a conversation, and then Precious is singing the lyrics and she’s all heartbroken. (Laughs.)

Smitty: Yeah, see, and that’s that bang-up interplay that I’m talking about, you know?

PW: Oh yeah.

Smitty: And I really think that this song in particular could walk down any street. I mean, I really think it could cross over in so many ways.

PW: Yeah, I hope that it does. I hope that it finds its way to urban radio stations somehow.

Smitty: It really should.

PW: Even on the jazz stations, I hope if they stretch out a little bit—more of the independent stations tend to, when they like something they’ll just play it.

Smitty: Exactly!

PW: Even if it has an R&B flavor to it. I mean, it would be nice if they did pick that track.

Smitty: Yeah, I really think so because I think that will really help the audiences to really capture what is really happening with this entire great project, yeah.

PW: Thank you.

Smitty: You’re so welcome. And you produced this project, right?

PW: Yeah.

Smitty: Now, talk to me about that because you really got your feet wet with this one.

PW: Yep, as I’ve been working on my CDs since—I guess my second CD [Eight Days of Ecstasy] I started to get into the production side of my projects and I just felt that growing up, like you said, you have a great ear for listening to a lot of different music. I mean, I spent a lot of my time as a child, even before I knew how to play an instrument, I spent a lot of time really listening to music and not just listening to what the person who was out front singing or playing an instrument.

Smitty: Right.

PW: Just dissecting everything on the track. I mean, I was paying attention to what the cymbals were doing and what the drums were doing and what the bass player was playing. And for me that’s being a total listener when every nuance of the song, your ear picks it up, and I think that by doing that it helped me become a really good listener and it developed my ear as a producer because when it was time for me to work on my own material, I just remembered how I could just hear what certain instruments are supposed to sound like, and so on my second CD I started thinking “Yeah, I think this is an area that I’m really gonna develop and I know that I can do this.”

And the president of my label was a little nervous about it. It was my second project and he was like “Well, producing is a whole ‘nother ballgame. It’s not just coming to the studio with your saxophone and playing on top of something that somebody else has produced. It’s a whole ‘nother ballgame,” and I’m like, well, I’m up to the challenge. I mean, I know what things are supposed to sound like and it’s also about what feels good to me in the studio.

Smitty: Absolutely.

PW: Yeah, and people would ask “Well, how do you do that? How do you put a song together?” I’m like “I just go by what feels good to me. If it feels good to me while I’m in the studio, I think that it’s gonna go over well. I’m hoping that it goes over well.” So by the time I did my third CD, I did a lot of the production on Evolution and then when I did The Perfect Love, I was signed to Shanachie Records and right from the onset of my contract with them I had to write it into my contract that I got to produce at least four of the songs, and then on my following CD [Sweet Saxations] I got to produce at least half of the record. So by the time Elixir happened, which is my sixth project, I produced seven of the tracks, so with this one I produced everything except two of the tracks.

Smitty: Yeah, that’s true progression.

PW: It was quite a challenge and it was a lot of work, it was a lot of work, but it was enjoyable work. I enjoyed working on these songs. I had to listen to them over and over and over and over again. I’m sure everybody around here got tired of listening to them, but it was a lot of work but pleasurable work.

Smitty: Yeah, well, I’ve seen you in your studio and I could see the enthusiasm and the excitement, but talk about what you mentioned about how when the project was coming together and how it felt good. Sort of elaborate on and describe that feeling when you really see things starting to come together and it’s what you’ve dreamed of and it’s what you had envisioned and hoped for. Talk about that.

PW: Well, like I mentioned earlier that I had been wanting to do this Burt Bacharach project for about ten years and the very first track that I started working on about, oh about eight years ago, maybe seven years ago, was “Walk On By,” and I remembered I started working on the music and then I lost the track, you know, so many things have changed digitally and electronically that I think I had the arrangement on some old sequencer that doesn’t even exist anymore, so I had no reference except what I remember like from the bass line that I had come up with and it was in my head. I was laughing because it was still in my head. I was like, “Okay, when it’s time for me to sit down and start working on this project, I hope I remember this arrangement for ‘Walk On By’ because I remembered that I really liked it.”

But the one thing that made me pull it back together was the bass line, and once I remembered what the bass line was, everything else kinda flowed and I loved the way it felt once it was done and then I said, okay, now that I’ve gotten that—I already knew what I was gonna do for that particular song, but what will I do with “You’ll Never Get To Heaven If You Break My Heart”? What should I do? Because Burt Bacharach really listens. He uses a lot of samba in his arrangements and so I was like, well, I wanna kinda keep that feel, but I wanna make it more R&B-ish and little bit more modern, so I just had to just get in front of the keyboard and just mess around with some different drum tracks. And once I did that, if the groove felt right, then I’d add the bass line on top of it and if it felt good. Now, one of the challenging songs for me was “Do You Know the Way to San Jose?”

Smitty: (Laughs.) Which is a great song.

PW: (Laughs.) That one I went back and forth with. I kept thinking to myself, “How do I take it from the very pop way Burt Bacharach did it and make it different? How do I make it modern and yet keep the feel and not make it sound too different?” So I tried different approaches with that, the one thing I was going to do is….I had done a track where it was kinda like I did more of a straight ahead jazz kind of groove to it and I sort of felt…. “You know, this is okay but it’s just not really there for me yet with that,” so I threw that away and then I was listening to Carlos Santana one day and I said, “I love, of course, the Latin feel that Santana has in his music, it’s just so sexy to me” and I’m thinking—and she is talking about “Do You Know the Way to San Jose?” You know what I mean?

Smitty: Yeah.

PW: Which is very Latin, and I remember saying, “Okay, it’s gotta have a Latin flavor. With the title of the song, it’s just gotta keep that kind of groove,” so then I came up with that little Santana Latin kind of funk groove for that song and I loved it. So I got excited about that. And then when I did a couple of the other tracks, “A House Is Not A Home” and “Anyone Who Had A Heart,” basically those two I just did the rendition that Luther Vandross did because I was like, you know, they’re so cold blooded the way he did them, I can’t even imagine doing them any better.

Smitty: Oh yeah.

PW: But now that was a challenge because now Luther, the way he sang those songs, he’s so smooth. I was in the studio for hours trying to play what he sang on the saxophone and deliver it the way he did and I had to rethink the whole thing. I just had to listen to what he’s singing.

Smitty: Yeah, he had such a unique delivery.

PW: Yes, didn’t he?

Smitty: Yeah, and so that’s extraordinary in itself, you know?

PW: Yeah, yeah, so those two songs were, like I said, I just basically redid what Luther did with his arrangements, but the challenge there was trying to take a song and make it just as sensual as Luther Vandross on the saxophone.

Smitty: Yeah, and that’s quite a feat because he had delivered that in such a unique and rare art kind of way.

PW: Yes. Luther could take a song and you would hear his version and some of the songs I didn’t even know somebody else had written them years before and recorded them.

Smitty: Yeah, he just took over, didn’t he? (Laughs.)

PW: Yeah. (Laughs.) I was like “Oh wow, somebody else did this song?” Couldn’t even imagine. He just made it so Luther, so unique.

Smitty: Yeah, some of the songs he did, we just started calling them Luther Vandross songs.

PW: Yeah, yeah! As a matter of fact, I did an interview with someone a few days ago and we were having a conversation about this and she was saying that “When I listened to your arrangements of these songs, it’s like they sound the same but yet they do sound new like you’ve made them your own,” and it’s like how I feel when I listen to Luther Vandross. I feel like they’re almost different songs. And she was like “So I now know I’m gonna be listening to these songs, this project, a lot.”

Smitty: Well, that’s an interesting observation because I felt the same way because you developed a groove with this record with every song and it’s your stamp, you might say, because they’re great grooves, great melodies that just really give the song another feel.

PW: And speaking of melodies, for instance, “I’ll Never Fall In Love Again.” Actually, yeah, that one but more so than that one, “You’ll Never Get To Heaven If You Break My Heart.” I haven’t played the melody…when it was time for me to record my saxophone, I ran in the studio all quick and I picked up the sax and I started playing the melody and I’m like “Wait a minute, this is not sounding…it’s a simple melody, but I don’t like my approach to it,” so I would come back out and I’d listen to Dionne Warwick’s vocal and how she sang it. I’m like “I need it to just flow a little bit more smooth the way Dionne did it.” She was like butter when she sang it, you know?

Smitty: Yeah.

PW: And I remember playing it over…since I recorded it again and feeling…. “I’ve gotta get this melody, the feel of this melody, right before I record it.” I remember going over it about 15 times myself until I came out with the right approach to that melody and I’m like “I’m too aggressive, I gotta lay back a little bit more and just kinda let it be lazy and slow, a little bit behind the track.”

Smitty: Absolutely. Well, you accomplished it because the melodies and the grooves are just incredible.

PW: Oh, thank you.

Smitty: Did you get curious with what instrument to use, the soprano vs. the alto and that kind of thing?

PW: Oh, definitely, definitely. Sometimes once I come up with the groove of the song and then just listen to the song itself, the original song, I could kinda in my head hear what would sound really good on the alto and what would sound good on the soprano now. Initially I had found myself playing alto on maybe eight of the ten songs and I was thinking that I gotta play soprano on this project. So when I was doing “A House Is Not A Home” I tried it on alto and I didn’t change the key that Luther sang it in so when I played it on alto it just didn’t work well for me because it was in a range that was too high.

So I tried it on tenor and then I started to wonder if it was in a range where it’s too low now because now it’s in the same key that Luther Vandross sang it, but yet I had captured that low range—those things that he did vocally I’m able to hit that on a tenor, so I was glad that I switched over on the tenor with that song. And I didn’t know like “I Say A Little Prayer For You,” I wasn’t sure if I was gonna do that one—I think I had messed around with that on tenor at first and then I didn’t like it because I thought “This needs to sound really feminine and really light and really nice.” So I thought maybe let me try it on soprano. I thought soprano was not great for that and definitely “Alfie” I had to do on the alto.

Smitty: Yes, that’s a great song too.

PW: Yeah, “Alfie”. There are certain songs—with the different saxophones, it does make a difference when you play songs on the different horns because they change the whole feel. Once you switch from one sax to the other, the whole feel of the song changes.

Smitty: Well, I know we’ve really analyzed these songs in great detail and we’ve probably talked about some things that maybe the audience may not quite understand, but let’s put it in perspective because that’s how good this record is…. that you want to talk about every aspect of it.

PW: Oh, great.

Smitty: But if someone asked you to describe the music of Burt Bacharach and Dionne Warwick, how would you do it?

PW: Oh, I would say the music to me is very magical, very dreamy, very upbeat, and, well, I gotta say, these horns, just when I hear it, it’s something about that music it makes me feel just joy inside. I just feel like it puts me in a good mood. Even the songs that are sad, like “Walk On By” is a very sad song if you listen to the lyrics.

Smitty: Right.

PW: It still makes me feel good even if like oh my God, yeah, it’s talking about, you know, “If you see me walking down the street, and I start to cry.”

Smitty: Yeah.

PW: It’s a terrible thing to sing about, but they even made me feel happy with that. It’s like “Okay, I’m not supposed to feel happy in this song but I still do.” But I just think it’s just what an ingenious way to, in a lyrical content, I think people can definitely relate to those lyrics.

Smitty: Exactly.

PW: Just like “I Say A Little Prayer For You,” I love how the lyrics start out saying that, you know, “The moment I wake up, before I put on my makeup, I say a little prayer for you,” you know?

Smitty: How sweet is that, huh?

PW: How sweet, you know? I mean, how sweet is that? And I’m like lots of ladies can relate to that because it’s like you do think of people sometimes when you’re in the mirror before you get yourself together, you’re thinking of someone else, and I thought “How classy.” “The moment I wake up, before I put on my makeup, I say a little prayer for you.” How sweet.

Smitty: Yeah.

PW: And loving, you know?

Smitty: I just think that in the simplest terms that this project, every song is a turn-on. I just think it is.

PW: Thank you, thank you.

Smitty: Yeah.

PW: Because that was challenging picking the songs too because there are so many great ones.

Smitty: Yes.

PW: I’m like “Okay, which ones?” So I just picked the ones that were always my favorites and that moved me the most, and I just went with those.

Smitty: Yes, well, you made some remarkable selections and you can’t go wrong with any of them, but you selected some great songs and you did such a magnificent job with them, and I highly recommend this record for all listeners of music because this music, what Burt Bacharach and what Dionne Warwick did, they crossed so many lines.

PW: Mm-hmm.

Smitty: And they reached so many people with their music, and I think what you did with this album will certainly enhance that appeal and I think listeners around the world will embrace this project.

PW: I hope so, I hope so. I was hoping to be able to do that with this project and it is a compliment to Burt Bacharach and Dionne Warwick. You know, these songs, the way they recorded them, for me they’ll always be timeless, they’ll go down in history, I’ll never get tired of listening to them. I’ve heard them hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times. (Both laugh.) I never get tired of listening to them and, I mean, I think that’s the beauty of songs that are classic like that.

Smitty: Yes, well, I think the description on your record says that it’s a celebration of the music of Dionne Warwick and Burt Bacharach.

PW: Yeah, yeah.

Smitty: And I think that’s a beautiful way to put it, yeah.

PW: Thank you. Because so many of these songs, Burt Bacharach I know is wealthy just from people remaking his songs. I mean, how many people have done his music over? And like I said, it’s timeless. I mean, for him as a composer and an arranger, he must feel like “Wow, these people…every time somebody does my music, it’s just a compliment to me.”

Smitty: Yes.

PW: I mean, that’s how many people that these particular songs have touched.

Smitty: Yes indeed.

PW: I just looked the other day, Diana Ross has a new record out. And she does a cover of “The Look of Love” on her new project too. Did you know about that?

Smitty: Yes I did. And that’s one of those timeless songs, you know?

PW: Yeah, I know, huh?

Smitty: Yeah, in fact, I don’t remember the count now, but I was counting how many people have done different songs and that one was always a standout in terms of people doing that song, so it’s timeless.

PW: Yes. It’s so dreamy. It’s a haunting melody.

Smitty: Yeah.

PW: And it’s romantic and when you hear that, it’s a melody that sucks you in, you know?

Smitty: Yes.

PW: It takes your ears and it just pulls you right into it.

Smitty: Yes indeed.

PW: (Laughs.)

Smitty: Well, I think that will be the effect on the audiences that hear this record and, once again, I hope people stretch out and get this one and really enjoy it because I think they will.

PW: Thank you, Smitty. Thank you.

Smitty: Well, it’s always a pleasure to talk with you and it’s always a pleasure to hang out with you and you’re always so cool to hang out with and to be around, and Precious too.

PW: (Laughs.)

Smitty: And I just can’t say enough about how you have taken your great personality and your whole vibe and put it into this great record. Pamela, I wish you the best of everything with this great record and can’t wait to see you out on the road doing some of these great songs in a live setting, and congratulations on doing such a magnificent project with this wonderful project The Look of Love.

PW: Thank you.

Smitty: All right. We have been talking with Shanachie recording artist, the amazing Ms. Pamela Williams. She has a fantastic new project out. It is called The Look of Love. It is a celebration of the music of Dionne Warwick and Burt Bacharach. Pamela, thanks again and best of everything in 2007 and beyond, my friend.

PW: Thanks, Smitty.

Baldwin “Smitty” Smith

For More Information Visit www.pamelawilliamsthesaxtress.com and www.shanachie.com