FROM THE ARCHIVES (2007): JOE SAMPLE [R.I.P.]

Master pianist JOE SAMPLE is Feeling Good about his so-titled reunion album with vocalist Randy Crawford. It's actually been thirty years since their landmark award-winning recording of Street Life. TASTY CLIPS asked the composer, who has been working on a "killer" zydeco project for five years, if he would also get back with his former bandmates The Crusaders. "It's going to take more than a phone call to spur everybody to go and reach back again and gather all of the positive stuff you were playing with," he explained. "That's not going to happen. I know that Stix [Hooper] wants to do it. We spoke about it. We did a record, but it was not with the ferociousness or intensity we use to play with. Why? Because I could tell that Stix and Wilton [Felder] hadn't been playing." And is that something that can be recaptured? "It's up to them, but you can't jive a body. It's either there or it isn't there. I realized that. I don’t' think you can stop and start over like that. My life has totally been dedicated to playing. I don't believe Stix's has or Wilton's."

Would guitarist Larry Carlton be a part of any reunion? "No, Larry wouldn't do it. Larry has not very good feelings about The Crusaders for whatever reasons." 

What was different about working this time with Randy? "Randy was young in '76. She used to like to holler and I would cringe. One of the greatest recordings that is known is Luciano Pavarotti's La Boheme from 1973. It was just an awesome mastery of the voice, control and the passion. Now people just whoop and holler for no f----ing reason. I don't get it. Randy used to do some of that." 

You've worked wonders with so many singers. Outside of the piano, is the voice your favorite instrument? "To be honest with you, I hate clichéd, monotonous voices. We can go into a guy like Kenny Rogers. To me it just sounds like he always sang the same melody He had the same little turns. What I hate today with the young black male singers, and I hear it in Michael Bolton, I hear the sound of passion. The sound of love is oooh oooh oooh ooh. Fuck you, man. I'm sorry. I don't want to hear that shit. You ain't singing shit. You are using a formula. And now they take that shirt off. They all have this moaning like someone is putting their balls in a vise. Louis Armstrong had a sound. Nat King Cole had a sound. Tony Bennett had a sound. Aretha Franklin had a sound. Stevie Wonder. Now they all imitate him. I just want to hear an individual sound and what I call the interpreters, whether it is a musician or singer. Lalah Hathaway and Randy Crawford are interpreters. Frank Sinatra. I love interpreters."

Lizz Wright? "I think Lizz lacked bar experience. What I missed in Lizz was that she's been through some grind. When I met Lizz she was focused on whatever she thought was the right way. She has this tremendous sound, but I just found not enough of 'I gotta survive passion.' And I don't think you can think about that. I think it's just something that's naturally there." 

Bill Withers? "I worked with Bill in the mid 80s and he did Soul Shadows. He thought it was a disaster. After three hours of just singing he was crushed. And I said Bill, I've been trying to tell you for three hours you got it on the first take." (laughs). 

What happened to jazz on popular radio? "There's always been a profound belief, but what I have also grown to realize is that most people find listening to instrumental music as a torture chamber. When people do not hear a voice, to them it is not music. I grew up in a period where the vocals were a small part of the performance. The big bands every once in a while they'd introduce a singer to break the monotony. Well today, when a guy raps they call it a song. They have no idea I just think there was always the line between R&B and jazz. Jazz was always looked at as an alien destructive force. Now it is even worse than ever." 

How is that countered? "Some young people are going to have to be music lovers. Listen to different things and share the knowledge." 

The white kids seem to be OK with blues and jazz. "When rock and roll really got underway in 1960 it blew the legends of blues away. The younger black kids got into Motown. There was something about blues people that was embarrassing to the black youngsters of the 1960s. I remember the black hierarchy of the 1950s instead of looking at the blues for racial pride, I think they looked at it as something that was holding us back. Of course, the British youth, they heard, they liked it, they began to imitate it. Eric Clapton. The Rolling Stones. I was more confused than ever. British bands themselves loved [the blues], but it was basically a moral wrong in the white communities to allow the white youth and especially the young white girls to be entranced or thrilled by the voice of a black man. That was a taboo. So blues was only going to make it as an underground thing and those whites who got into it had to be very very careful of not letting the other whites know that they loved it. So how do you solve that? Find white men who can sing it. Today if I was a young talented black youngster I would learn a guitar. I would become a blues singer. That's one of the most powerful things there is on the face of the earth. Why can't a young black kid take that? Because he would be totally intimidated for doing that in front of all the hip hop generation. I would say the hell with the hip hop generation. You guys are just stupid. I'd sing some blues."

Are you in a tricky place as an artist who may only be played on a college or smooth jazz station? "I made a decision in the early 90s. I'd just signed to Warner Bros. They wanted me to get a lot of guest vocalists because I could get airplay on the radio stations. I just made up my mind up I'm not doing that. I want to play the piano. Somehow I've always been fortunate to come up with something that the smooth jazz stations found appealing. They indicate or I am known as one of the creators of smooth jazz. I don't believe that on any of my previous recordings or The Crusaders recordings there was anything smooth about them. I am melodic but at the same time it was always soulful and it was always grooving. On smooth jazz, I hear a concept that they have created. All I hear on it are saxophones generally playing old R&B melodies or any melody that was previously a hit. Or I hear the vocals of a lot of these old songs. It's not really jazz. Basically I believe it really doesn't mean anything other than what they want it to be. It's now become a horn player's world. Everything is linear. One note followed by another note. Now it is an unstoppable flow of notes and you have to do that because the jazz itself has turned into a process. It isn't the joy of sharing your musical skills with the neighborhood you were born in, or having fun bouncing off of other musicians anymore. You are judged by how many notes you can play in a certain period of time. To me it leaves an absence. A lot of the young jazz players today are carbon copies of what was great in the sixties. I prefer to go back to the 60s and listen." 

As a guy who got his chops years ago in the clubs, how did you manage to avoid the traps that many artists fell into? "Just not being no damn fool. Moderation, man. I know when to cut it off and when to go to bed. My sin was I was going to be home before the sun come up."