With the release of my new recording, Swingin’ Love Songs, coming this week, I find myself thinking about friendship, and about the importance of keeping an open mind. You never really know where creativity will come from, or which person who crosses your path might change the direction of your life.
I’ve been making music for as long as I can remember. When I was seven years old, my mother forced me to sing “Blue Velvet” at school. I wasn’t so sure about it at first, but then I discovered that I really loved singing. She tried to teach me piano too, but with my mother hovering over me, I quickly decided that wasn’t going to work.Then my great-aunt Tede gave me a guitar, and that changed my life.
It’s funny, when you begin as an instrumentalist and later become a singer, standing onstage without that instrument can feel almost naked. Singers are musicians too, of course, but when you’re accustomed to having a guitar, piano, horn, or whatever your instrument might be between you and the audience, putting it down is a whole different experience.
I had some extraordinary teachers along the way. One of the greatest was Tony Bennett. Tony took me under his wing and was incredibly kind to me. He told me that I was still singing like a guitar player. So I put the guitar down. I learned from Tony how to stand there with my arms at my side and allow my voice, and the lyric to carry the message.
Tony Bennet’s portrait of me
Then I did 19 dates opening for the great comedian Alan King, and he gave me another kind of education. Alan would actually watch my show and take notes. He’d come back afterward and say, “Kid, you sound a lot like Nat King Cole. You ought to tell the audience that right at the beginning so they know what to expect.” The funny thing was, I had spent years trying to run away from Nat King Cole.
Early in my career, being compared to Nat could almost feel like a death sentence because there were so many singers trying to sound like him. I even got a review in the New York Post with the headline “The Man Who Would Be Cole.” I wanted people to hear me!
Years later, when the Kennedy Center asked me to do a concert celebrating Nat King Cole, I finally acquiesced, and discovered how much I enjoyed it. I stopped running from the comparison and began appreciating what an extraordinary compliment it really was.
But I have always been a songwriter too, and over the years I wanted more and more to express that part of myself. I’ve worked with some great producers like Brian Bacchus and Kamau Kenyatta. Both Brian and Kamau produced many of Gregory Porter’s recordings. But Kamau and I worked together on my all original album Kate’s Soulfood, telling the story of my Aunt Kate and her restaurant behind the Apollo Theater. As a kid, I watched people like Duke Ellington, Sarah Vaughan and Marvin Gaye walk through that door, pick up their food and head back to their dressing rooms. Those memories became part of my music.
Which brings me back to Swingin’ Love Songs. These songs came to me through my old partner in crime, Eddie Montilla. Eddie and I go way back. We had a recording studio together, played together for years, and he remains one of the funniest men I have ever known. When Eddie first called me about a recording project he wanted me to sing on, I didn’t take him too seriously. Then I heard the music. Wow. It was right up my alley.
The songs had been written by Ike Joseph, with arrangements by Eddie, and I flew down to Miami and recorded nine of them. Later, we brought the project back to New York and worked on it with some of my favorite musicians so we could properly mix and master the recording. And then Ike died.
Suddenly, we lost our direction. There were questions about the rights and what we should do with the project, and eventually we put the recording away. And basically forgot about it. More than twenty years passed. Then one day my wife Pat was cleaning things out and found the recording. She put it on, and we both had the same reaction:
Oh my God.
The music sounded wonderful. It didn’t sound dated. It sounded alive. We looked at each other and realized: It’s time. So we went to work, and now Swingin’ Love Songs will finally be released on August 28.
There is something especially beautiful to me about these songs finally finding their way into the world. Ike was a wonderful songwriter. The melodies are beautiful, the lyrics are beautiful, and Eddie’s arrangements still swing. Miles Okazaki sounds wonderful on guitar, and I was delighted to rediscover that Russell Farhang, the original violinist in Cross That River, and my old friend Jon Flaugher, the bassist, was on the recording as well. Plus two beautiful horn players… Jesse Jones Jr. on alto and Hayes Greenfield on tenor graced the recording.
There are still a couple of mysteries. To this day, we have not been able to identify the pianist or drummer on the original sessions. It’s making me crazy! I’ve called everybody I can think of, but so far, no luck. Finally, we decided that a little mystery shouldn’t stop the music from being heard. And maybe that is what this whole journey has taught me. Stay open. Stay curious. Hold on to your friendships.
Listen when somebody brings you a song, even when you’re not sure you want to hear it. Because you never know which recording, which friendship, which unexpected phone call, or which forgotten box sitting in a closet might lead you somewhere you never imagined.
Next, I’m heading west. I’ll be in California for the Western Arts Alliance conference, and on September 11 I’ll be doing a showcase at Piedmont Piano in Oakland, CA. I hope to see many of my California friends out there.
Oh and on September 10 at 1:00 p.m., I’ll be at KCSM Radio in San Mateo for a concert that will also be broadcast, so you can listen wherever you are. We’ll be sharing music from Swingin’ Love Songs, and after waiting more than twenty years for these songs to be heard, I can’t tell you how good that feels.
Until next week, I wish you peace, and keep listening. You never know where the music might take you.
For Grammy members only, here’s my For Your Consideration Page link.
Allan
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