Jan. 7, 2025

Allan Harris: A Jazz Legend’s Hard-Earned Lessons (Best Of)

Allan Harris: A Jazz Legend’s Hard-Earned Lessons (Best Of)
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Season 5

What does it take to make it as a world-class musician—and then become a mentor to the next generation? In this Best Of episode, we revisit our conversation with award-winning Harlem-based jazz vocalist and guitarist Allan Harris, who Tony Bennett once called his favorite singer.

Allan shares the stories behind his career journey, from seeing a life-changing Jimi Hendrix poster as a kid to navigating tough lessons on stage that helped shape his sound. We explore what it takes to connect with an audience, build a career in music, and transition from band member to bandleader.

Whether you’re a musician, a fan of jazz, or someone looking for inspiration on your own career journey, Allan’s story offers timeless lessons on resilience, mentorship, and finding your unique voice.

🎧 Tune in for:

  • Musical Inspirations: How a chance encounter with Hendrix's music changed Allan's life.
  • Mentorship Moments: The tough-love lesson that fueled his career.
  • Finding Your Voice: Tips on storytelling through music and working a room like a pro.


To discover more episodes or connect with us:



Chapters

00:02 - Becoming a Masterful Musician

12:39 - Musical Inspiration and Mentorship

16:10 - Lessons From a Music Mentor

21:36 - Musical Growth and Self-Discovery

32:35 - Journey of Musical Growth and Evolution

45:20 - Navigating Music Mentorship and Influence

55:50 - Mastering Artistry

01:03:32 - Discovering Alan Harris and Kate's Music

Transcript
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00:00:02.805 --> 00:00:08.881
How does someone learn to become a talented musician and then master the art of being a great band leader?

00:00:08.881 --> 00:00:11.569
And once you've done that, how do you break through?

00:00:11.569 --> 00:00:20.923
We'll explore the answer to those questions and beyond, during this best of edition of no Wrong Choices, featuring critically acclaimed musician Allan Harris.

00:00:20.923 --> 00:00:23.949
We'll be back with new episodes in early February.

00:00:23.949 --> 00:00:29.568
I'm Larry Samuels, soon to be joined by my collaborators Larry Shea and Tushar Saxena.

00:00:29.568 --> 00:00:36.953
Before we kick off, we do ask that you support our work by liking and following no Wrong Choices on your favorite podcast platform.

00:00:36.953 --> 00:00:41.012
Now let's get started with our original setup of this great conversation.

00:00:41.012 --> 00:00:45.112
Larry Shea is the only member of this show with a music degree.

00:00:45.112 --> 00:00:49.848
You are undoubtedly the right person to set up this conversation, so take it away.

00:00:50.149 --> 00:00:54.789
You know, every once in a while I have to pull out that music performance degree and show you guys right.

00:00:54.810 --> 00:00:55.411
Today's the day.

00:00:56.500 --> 00:00:56.920
That's right.

00:00:57.262 --> 00:00:58.805
Next to the meteorological degree.

00:00:58.805 --> 00:00:59.628
I have the music.

00:00:59.628 --> 00:01:00.771
No, I did.

00:01:00.771 --> 00:01:06.343
I studied music in college and it was a love affair of mine and unfortunately I had to quit.

00:01:06.343 --> 00:01:33.605
It was drums, percussion, specifically, but I played a lot of jazz music in college pops, bands, things of that nature and it was a thrill and it's something I miss to this day because of player somebody who was so dedicated to his craft and had to wear the business hat and the marketing hat and shred in his basement and figure out exactly how to master his instrument.

00:01:33.605 --> 00:01:41.391
It takes a lot of dedication and I know there's a lot of people out there who are super interested in getting inside the mind of a professional musician.

00:01:41.391 --> 00:01:45.608
This is your opportunity and it's pretty exciting to talk to a guy of this caliber.

00:01:45.789 --> 00:01:52.052
Yeah, I mean, as you said, shay, I mean we're going to learn a lot about how this is not show friends, it's show business.

00:01:53.361 --> 00:02:17.997
I grew up listening to folks like Charles Mingus, jack Teagarden, wynton Marsalis these are just a few of the names that kind of just pop into my head who have, like, influenced me, and I still listen to the to this day uh, so the opportunity to listen to a man, uh, to get to speak to a guy like Alan Harris is, you know, it's kind of, it's kind of once it's not once in a lifetime, but it's a very, it's a very rare opportunity to speak to an artist of this type of caliber.

00:02:17.997 --> 00:02:23.265
Caliber, especially, someone who is so high up in this, in the field of, uh, you, american standards.

00:02:23.265 --> 00:02:25.889
You know they're, his mentors are who are who else?

00:02:25.889 --> 00:02:42.885
But you know Tony Bennett, you know Frank Sinatra, nat King Cole giants in the field, giants who are, you know, who are so ingrained in the American standard and the American standards book that you know you can't think of a single song out there that these men have not, at one point, at one point or another, put on an album.

00:02:43.045 --> 00:02:58.608
And this is the type of caliber of artist that we're talking here today with Alan Harris, yeah, and for me, as somebody who has seen him perform multiple times I've heard him tell his story on stage I'm now looking forward to hearing him tell his story on a podcast.

00:02:58.608 --> 00:03:01.008
So with that, here is Alan Harris.

00:03:01.008 --> 00:03:11.050
Now joining no Wrong Choices is the award-winning Harlem-based jazz R&B musician Alan Harris, who Tony Bennett once referred to as his favorite singer.

00:03:11.050 --> 00:03:13.301
Alan, thank you so much for joining us today.

00:03:13.622 --> 00:03:14.906
Oh, thank you for having me guys.

00:03:15.326 --> 00:03:25.747
So, as a world-class musician, you know you always have that moment, that light that goes on when you're a child perhaps, or you hear a piece of music or something magical happens.

00:03:25.747 --> 00:03:32.429
Do you have that magical musical memory from your childhood or something that pointed you in the direction of this career path?

00:03:32.661 --> 00:03:42.608
I have a myriad of them, but one that really, really stands out and I think is a little juicier than the other ones I have is what age are we when we're 10 years old?

00:03:42.608 --> 00:03:43.049
What age is that?

00:03:43.049 --> 00:03:43.610
What grade is that?

00:03:43.610 --> 00:03:44.772
When you're 10 years old?

00:03:44.772 --> 00:03:45.655
What age is that?

00:03:45.655 --> 00:03:47.447
What grade is that when you're 10?

00:03:48.862 --> 00:03:51.550
I want to say it's like fourth grade, yeah, fourth or fifth grade.

00:03:52.131 --> 00:03:57.451
Okay, it was around that time I was about 10 years old.

00:03:57.451 --> 00:04:04.022
I was coming home from school, which was two blocks where I lived, with a Catholic school called St Matthew's and it was raining.

00:04:04.022 --> 00:04:15.873
And on my way home I had to pass by a barbershop called Cook's Barbershop and he cut all the kids of color hair in the neighborhood and if you didn't have any money what you do is sign a book and you pay.

00:04:15.873 --> 00:04:17.254
The parents would come in and pay.

00:04:17.254 --> 00:04:18.475
He was a wonderful guy.

00:04:25.160 --> 00:04:26.242
I remember walking in there, the jukebox.

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It was a typical barbershop, very stereotyped black guy sitting around reading newspaper, listening to records and listening to a jukebox and pontificating on what was happening during that time in the late 60s.

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And as I walked past I saw a life-size poster on the picture window of the barbershop which you usually put things up there, and it was a man of color, tall and lean, in a light-skinned buckskin suede jacket with fringes.

00:04:53.906 --> 00:04:55.451
He was playing a white Stratocaster.

00:04:55.451 --> 00:05:15.829
He had a psychedelic headband, big fro, and he was looking out the poster the picture had looking from behind, looking out over this sea of faces, this big field of white, black, yellow faces didn't matter, and they all had their mouth open and dancing in the poster and the top of it said Jimi Hendrix live at Woodstock.

00:05:15.829 --> 00:05:17.244
And it just blew my mind.

00:05:17.244 --> 00:05:31.293
Yeah, yeah, I know it blew my mind as I was sitting there I'm listening to the music coming out, because they were playing Purple Haze and all these elder men of color in there were just bitching and complaining.

00:05:31.701 --> 00:05:34.990
I remember one of them said I knew him when he was playing with King Curtis.

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Then he went over there to England and started to play that white boy shit, turned up the blues real loud and I remember him throwing the album cover on the floor of the barbershop and Mr Cook came outside and said come on inside, get out of the rain.

00:05:48.689 --> 00:05:52.946
And I picked it up and just studied it and he said you want this record?

00:05:52.946 --> 00:05:53.788
I said yeah, I'd love it.

00:05:53.788 --> 00:06:04.505
I took it home and I wore that record out and I think that was the impetus for me to really want to be an entertainer and a singer and a guitarist to the point that I am now.

00:06:05.646 --> 00:06:15.053
But you're obviously I mean obviously, you're a renowned jazz aficionado, a jazz vocalist, jazz guitarist, and Hendrix is a rock icon.

00:06:15.053 --> 00:06:20.358
Did you want to, did you initially say, okay, I want to be a rock god like Hendrix?

00:06:21.740 --> 00:06:22.120
No, not really.

00:06:22.120 --> 00:06:27.500
It wasn't that I wanted to emulate him, hendrix no, not really.

00:06:27.500 --> 00:06:28.343
It wasn't that I wanted to emulate him.

00:06:28.343 --> 00:06:29.346
I was enamored with him as everyone else was.

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In all the genres during that time, whether it was Motown or country or jazz.

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Everyone was enamored with Hendrix not because of his playing but because of what he brought to the table as a man of color in the industry.

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He was the first man of color that I looked at and most people of color looked at, as he didn't skin a grin.

00:06:52.089 --> 00:06:55.442
He wasn't sitting on a stump doing a blues which I like, of course.

00:06:55.442 --> 00:06:57.206
He made those he made.

00:06:57.206 --> 00:07:00.180
He didn't make any excuses about what he was on the stage.

00:07:00.180 --> 00:07:09.329
He just was a warrior on par with Clapton and all of them, with Jeff Beck, and he was just a monster to me and it affected my psyche.

00:07:09.329 --> 00:07:22.355
It empowered me to venture into this world of music, a little more strong than just being a wonderful jazz artist sitting behind a microphone doing standards from the songbook to people.

00:07:22.355 --> 00:07:25.910
He stretched the membrane in my mind, a membrane in my mind.

00:07:26.500 --> 00:07:27.665
So how did you get started?

00:07:27.665 --> 00:07:32.749
You had the inspiration, you had the vision, you had the role model, so to speak.

00:07:32.749 --> 00:07:33.985
How did you start?

00:07:33.985 --> 00:07:36.208
My mother was a classical pianist.

00:07:36.480 --> 00:07:39.245
You know she was from Hamlin, north Carolina, and she moved to New York with her family.

00:07:39.245 --> 00:07:41.942
Of course it was a conduit diaspora.

00:07:41.942 --> 00:07:42.141
Everybody.

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If you had money, it was a conduit diaspora.

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Everybody.

00:07:43.903 --> 00:07:46.666
If you had money, it was during the Harlem Renaissance.

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If you had money, you'd send it back home to people, and who could ever make it back up north?

00:07:51.952 --> 00:07:54.475
They had a place to stay until they got on their feet.

00:07:54.475 --> 00:08:00.689
My mother was a recipient of that, plus being a prodigy.

00:08:00.689 --> 00:08:04.108
She was the first graduating class of performing arts and she wanted me to play piano.

00:08:04.108 --> 00:08:06.288
She was a strict tactician, believe me.

00:08:06.288 --> 00:08:08.324
Basically she was.

00:08:08.324 --> 00:08:13.646
She bought it on cruelty back in those days and, yeah, she really did.

00:08:13.646 --> 00:08:24.449
She wanted her son to be neoclassical and every one time I was listening to a blues record, a Muddy Waters, and she freaked out, said I'm not going to have no son of mine sitting on a damn stump singing that Muddy Waters she didn't want you to freaked out.

00:08:24.470 --> 00:08:33.125
I said I'm not going to have no son of mine sitting on a damn stone singing that damn song Can you believe that I know, but there was a foil.

00:08:33.145 --> 00:08:44.201
I had a person in the household who was her sister, who was an opera and blues singer, and I used to go upstairs to her place where she had it she had the top floor and listened to her records.

00:08:44.201 --> 00:08:49.203
Anyway, she brought a friend of mine Dwayne Morrison was his name.

00:08:49.203 --> 00:08:51.291
I remember in the third grade he bought a guitar.

00:08:51.291 --> 00:08:53.445
I'm not a player, but I was enamored with it.

00:08:53.445 --> 00:08:57.610
I used to go over to his house and play Peter.

00:08:58.193 --> 00:08:58.313
Gunn.

00:08:58.333 --> 00:09:00.601
Gyrate, in front of the mirror, in front of all my friends.

00:09:00.601 --> 00:09:06.583
My aunt, for my birthday, bought me a guitar and she hid it upstairs because she wanted my mother to know that I had it.

00:09:06.583 --> 00:09:18.587
And after seeing that poster with Jimi Hendrix, it really prompted me to not just pick up the guitar and rock and roll, but just to study it more diligently until my mother found out about it.

00:09:18.587 --> 00:09:19.751
But that's another story.

00:09:20.679 --> 00:09:21.923
I'm always fascinated with that.

00:09:21.923 --> 00:09:39.460
So you kind of I mean, if you really do want to look at it, you did have the best of both worlds right, because you need the tactician stuff, the discipline right that your mom's classical training maybe gave you, and then you also had your grounded roots in man I just love this and I need to do it for my life, right.

00:09:39.500 --> 00:09:56.846
So you kind of did have the best of both worlds there did have the best of both worlds there, along with that moment of discovery, picking the guitar and empowering myself from just that one moment in the rain looking at that picture on the window.

00:09:56.846 --> 00:10:01.842
I also had the benefit of spending weekends every now and then at my Aunt Kate's.

00:10:01.842 --> 00:10:18.750
My Aunt Kate had a soul food restaurant at the Apollo Theater, right around the corner from the Apollo Theater, called Kate's Soul Food, and if you Google or look up Jimmy Smith's album called Home Cooking, he's standing in front of it and I'd go up there on Sunday with them Back in those days, you know a kid had to.

00:10:18.750 --> 00:10:30.673
I don't know how you were raised, but you know I was basically my family's indentured servant until the right was passed along to someone else.

00:10:30.753 --> 00:10:39.402
Right you know the old adage that if they would give you until you pay rent, until you, you know, until your name is on a mortgage, just shut up.

00:10:39.402 --> 00:10:39.982
That's what it was.

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That's it.

00:10:40.363 --> 00:10:41.264
So I grew up there, right.

00:10:41.264 --> 00:10:41.966
So I grew up there Right.

00:10:42.167 --> 00:10:46.455
So I grew up there with my aunt and some other relatives my mother, for Sundays.

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It wasn't called brunch at that time.

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I don't know where that name came in the fold, but for people of color it was just called going to eat on a Sunday afternoon and I would go up there with them and sit there on one of the stools and watch a myriad of stars come and get their food between their shows, because back then stars performed the apollo and they did five shows a day.

00:11:13.565 --> 00:11:14.648
Wow, wow, yeah, I know.

00:11:14.648 --> 00:11:17.738
And children got in matinees on sunday for free.

00:11:17.778 --> 00:11:40.392
So before the call came for me to go with them uh, next door, the policy of the matinee I would sit there and watch Sarah Vaughan or one of the Temptations come in, or Duke Ellington would come in and they'd all have robes on, or whatever Jerry Butler, clive McFadden, and they'd get their favorite dish that my aunt knew what they wanted and cooked for them.

00:11:40.392 --> 00:11:45.980
They'd take it back to their dress rooms, which I never was privy to and I just was enamored with that cook for them.

00:11:45.980 --> 00:11:47.480
They take it back to their dress rooms, which I never was privy to and I I just was enamored with that.

00:11:47.480 --> 00:11:58.442
And then then couple that with me going to see them an hour later and seeing the same person I saw on the hair wrapped up because everyone conked their hair back then and robes.

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I'd see them in these silk unbelievable outfits and ruffled shirts, singing these Motown songs or Sarah Barman come out, or Ella Fitzgerald.

00:12:07.128 --> 00:12:15.446
So I had that to uh, to straddle the rock and roll, roll, um influences that I was going through.

00:12:16.028 --> 00:12:16.469
Alan, can you?

00:12:16.469 --> 00:12:17.625
Can you run through?

00:12:17.625 --> 00:12:22.546
So you mentioned Ella Fitzgerald can you run through a list of the people that would come through?

00:12:22.546 --> 00:12:24.750
That would blow our minds Well what would blow what?

00:12:24.770 --> 00:12:27.297
Can you run through a list of the people that would come through that would blow our minds?

00:12:27.297 --> 00:12:28.559
Well, what would blow what blew my mind?

00:12:28.559 --> 00:12:39.254
I can just take you just from a child of 10 to 12, which I was at the time and what perked my interest, and I can't speak for your audiences, but maybe I'm sure there's something they can glean from it.

00:12:39.254 --> 00:12:45.812
One of the few of the artists that really blew me away was Jackie Wilson.

00:12:45.812 --> 00:12:52.285
For one, seeing Jackie Wilson perform was just something out of Cirque du Soleil going at a chicken shack.

00:12:52.285 --> 00:12:55.664
It was just amazing what he did with his voice and everything.

00:12:55.664 --> 00:12:58.168
Little Anthony, imperials, of course, the Temptation.

00:12:58.168 --> 00:13:00.609
And then you would see.

00:13:00.609 --> 00:13:06.005
You would see maybe Arthur Prysock or Jerry Butler.

00:13:08.083 --> 00:13:09.428
I never got to see Sam Cooke.

00:13:09.428 --> 00:13:10.962
That was a little bit before my time.

00:13:10.962 --> 00:13:18.966
What else, oh?

00:13:18.966 --> 00:13:20.530
This is in my mind even to this day.

00:13:20.530 --> 00:13:30.995
My mother's not with us anymore, but I remember sitting there a half an hour prior to walking around the back of the restaurant to go to the Apollo.

00:13:30.995 --> 00:13:35.051
We went in the back way because she knew them.

00:13:35.051 --> 00:13:41.393
I remember my mother, my aunt and all the other women who were in that little bevy with them.

00:13:41.393 --> 00:13:43.884
Let out a yell, a scream.

00:13:43.884 --> 00:13:46.572
That was almost something from the Lawrence of Arabia.

00:13:48.625 --> 00:13:49.730
It was pretty daunting.

00:13:49.960 --> 00:13:50.904
Now you got to bear in mind.

00:13:50.904 --> 00:13:58.947
I'm watching this woman who's very neoclassical, graduated from performing arts, very stoic in that I'm watching her lose her mind and scream.

00:13:58.947 --> 00:14:02.205
And they scream, oh, marvin, and Marvin Gaye walks in.

00:14:02.205 --> 00:14:12.432
Oh my God, I know, I know, it was unbelievable my mother turned into like a 13-year-old little girl on the banks of the Mississippi and Memphis somewhere.

00:14:12.432 --> 00:14:13.595
I couldn't believe it.

00:14:13.595 --> 00:14:14.982
My mother, she was.

00:14:14.982 --> 00:14:15.583
They were gone.

00:14:15.583 --> 00:14:18.671
Oh my God, marvin Gaye, I was screaming.

00:14:18.811 --> 00:14:19.692
This is my mother.

00:14:19.940 --> 00:14:20.059
Like.

00:14:20.059 --> 00:14:22.602
I said the woman who used to whoop my butt, like I said, the woman who used to whoop my butt.

00:14:22.602 --> 00:14:23.524
I was just blowing my butt.

00:14:23.544 --> 00:14:25.126
Who never wanted you to listen to Muddy Waters?

00:14:25.126 --> 00:14:29.491
Marvin Gaye was his kryptonite that was okay, go, figure Go figure.

00:14:29.692 --> 00:14:30.653
You know what I mean.

00:14:30.653 --> 00:14:36.130
I know how dare she, how dare that woman, how dare she.

00:14:36.130 --> 00:14:37.100
But I remember.

00:14:37.100 --> 00:14:43.413
But this was really funny because my father was a very upright guy.

00:14:43.413 --> 00:14:48.230
He came from Pennsylvania, he did rodeo and that my father was wild.

00:14:48.230 --> 00:14:52.390
He was from that ilk of machismo stuff.

00:14:52.390 --> 00:14:55.469
He respected my mother but she knew what bounded across.

00:14:55.469 --> 00:15:01.970
I remember going on the subway home with her and I looked over and I said Ma wow, marvin Gaye, you really like him.

00:15:01.970 --> 00:15:09.988
I could tell she was getting her head set together before she walked into the house with me and she turned to me and she says I have no idea what you're talking about, young man, let's go home.

00:15:10.349 --> 00:15:11.130
It never happened.

00:15:13.961 --> 00:15:14.904
I caught the vibe right.

00:15:14.904 --> 00:15:18.253
Then I said okay, yep, all right, okay, all right, mom.

00:15:18.921 --> 00:15:20.927
There are certain things that are off limits at all times.

00:15:21.629 --> 00:15:23.029
Oh, that was it, that was it.

00:15:23.289 --> 00:15:36.371
So, Alan, I guess my question would be you know, when did you start to take things seriously and really start to work at it, Like, when did this become a craft that you were really honing?

00:15:37.039 --> 00:15:37.321
I was.

00:15:37.321 --> 00:15:39.307
I think I was 16 years old.

00:15:39.307 --> 00:15:44.666
As a matter of fact, I know I knew I was 16 years old.

00:15:44.666 --> 00:15:51.270
I was in Pittsburgh at the time because my family had moved there, because my grandfather had a farm there and we took it over.

00:15:51.270 --> 00:16:06.613
And I used to go into Pittsburgh when I was 16 and be involved in a lot of jam sessions and I was mentored by this incredible drummer named Roger Humphreys.

00:16:06.613 --> 00:16:09.245
And Roger Humphreys played with George Benson.

00:16:09.245 --> 00:16:10.809
He played with Stanley Turrentine.

00:16:10.850 --> 00:16:23.532
He was one of those journeymen who toured for a long time and he got a family and he stayed in Pittsburgh and taught and he just really schooled a lot of young wannabe musicians.

00:16:23.532 --> 00:16:26.998
Yours truly schooled a lot of young wannabe musicians, yours truly.

00:16:26.998 --> 00:16:35.629
I remember I was in a band with him and he let me get on stage and I started to sing a few songs and play the guitar and he stopped in the middle of the song.

00:16:35.629 --> 00:16:39.806
It was a crowded evening, not there to see me but to see him and he let youngsters come up.

00:16:39.806 --> 00:16:44.988
As a matter of fact, one of the guys who was in the band is a friend of mine known for 30-something years, maybe 40 years.

00:16:44.988 --> 00:16:47.586
He's a bass player here in town called Leon Dorsey.

00:16:47.586 --> 00:16:48.206
Would you know him?

00:16:49.210 --> 00:16:54.211
No, that's okay, no no, he's an old friend of mine, he's at Berklee.

00:16:54.211 --> 00:16:56.708
Anyway, I remember being on stage with him.

00:16:56.708 --> 00:17:02.363
He called out a standard which I didn't know, but I was faking it.

00:17:02.363 --> 00:17:05.746
I was playing a little bit of R&B riffs on the guitar.

00:17:05.746 --> 00:17:22.057
He stopped 30 seconds into the song, just stopped the whole band in front of a crowded house of crowded people on a Saturday night and he said boy, you need to get off the stage.

00:17:22.057 --> 00:17:22.798
I said huh.

00:17:22.798 --> 00:17:30.808
He said you need to learn the melody and learn the song and then, when you learn your craft, then you can come back.

00:17:30.808 --> 00:17:35.151
And I literally slinked off the stage.

00:17:35.151 --> 00:17:36.662
I remember I did.

00:17:36.821 --> 00:17:38.306
I left my chords and one pedal.

00:17:38.306 --> 00:17:40.332
I had a wah-wah pedal, one of the big muffs.

00:17:40.332 --> 00:17:44.307
I left it there and came back two days later to get it and it took me a lot of courage to do that.

00:17:44.307 --> 00:17:50.282
That was a turning point where I really got serious.

00:17:50.282 --> 00:17:58.944
I really did Because I sought out those instrumentalists who played with him and they had a lot of I wouldn't say their sympathy for me.

00:17:58.944 --> 00:18:02.842
Basically they felt sorry when it happened that night because it was pretty demonstrative.

00:18:02.842 --> 00:18:05.049
Even the crowd felt bad.

00:18:05.049 --> 00:18:07.846
But Roger Humphrey was that way and to this day he laughs about that.

00:18:07.846 --> 00:18:10.067
He's 80 now and I love him.

00:18:10.067 --> 00:18:25.605
I see him in Pittsburgh all the time and I remember that was my first foray into really becoming serious, not just on my guitar but serious in my vocal prowess, and that was a turning point.

00:18:25.625 --> 00:18:26.469
That's pretty amazing.

00:18:26.469 --> 00:18:33.661
You know we, every musician has that train wreck moment or that moment of trepidation of you like, oh my god, I can't believe that.

00:18:33.661 --> 00:18:38.111
Just that just happened and here you had it so early on in your career.

00:18:38.111 --> 00:18:50.951
The courage to get back up on that stage or to go and find the real book and study those jazz standards right and get those under your belt Exactly Must have taken, you know, some real moxie from a 16 or however old.

00:18:50.951 --> 00:18:54.685
You were kid back then because that's a devastating moment at that point.

00:18:54.705 --> 00:18:55.769
It was more than devastating.

00:18:55.769 --> 00:19:02.688
It was life changing and there was a moment there I think it was maybe a month after that it took me a month to really recover from that.

00:19:02.688 --> 00:19:08.960
As I remember, I didn't even touch the guitar for three weeks.

00:19:08.960 --> 00:19:11.909
I was pretty sullen.

00:19:11.909 --> 00:19:19.192
I think what pulled me out of it was friends that I had been playing with, who they were in a band.

00:19:19.192 --> 00:19:23.009
They were doing Earth, wind and Fire and that ilk.

00:19:23.980 --> 00:19:32.048
A couple of the members in the band had played with Roger every night in a jam session and they were the ones that were very sympathetic to me.

00:19:32.048 --> 00:19:34.628
And as I heard someone, I heard you mention the real book.

00:19:34.628 --> 00:19:36.247
One of them did give me the real book.

00:19:36.247 --> 00:19:51.270
They gave me the real book and I remember going through it and learning the chords and learning the notation of it and just sitting in my bedroom by myself and going through these songs, I said I'm going to learn 10 songs and go back and just knock Roger out, which I did.

00:19:51.270 --> 00:19:58.292
I went back maybe two months later and he made me wait an hour and a half before he called me up.

00:19:58.292 --> 00:20:04.030
Literally, he knew what he was doing, he knew human psyche, he really did.

00:20:04.760 --> 00:20:11.079
I had to give him credit and he waited an hour and a half and he said you're going to come and do a song, what are you going to do?

00:20:11.079 --> 00:20:12.563
And I remember it was.

00:20:12.563 --> 00:20:14.608
Oh God, what was it?

00:20:14.608 --> 00:20:15.451
I can't remember now.

00:20:15.451 --> 00:20:20.221
You Go to my Head, yes, you Go to my Head, you.

00:20:20.321 --> 00:20:20.624
Go to my.

00:20:20.683 --> 00:20:25.451
Head and I sang it really straight Nat King Cole-ish sort of style.

00:20:25.451 --> 00:20:47.446
And that was the turning point for me, because not only did he welcome me into his little fold of artists who sat at his feet, he gave me the impetus and the courage to go further into this thing called music that's beautiful, because we talk on the show all the time about those turning moments, right, because it could have gone a lot different.

00:20:48.088 --> 00:20:54.799
You know, if you got up on stage and he didn't teach you that lesson, that, hey, you better know this melody, cause we all know the melody, right?

00:20:54.799 --> 00:20:56.708
We all know what's supposed to happen up here.

00:20:56.708 --> 00:21:14.455
And so at this point in your life, you, you're shredding right Like you're, like sitting in your house, like doing everything you can to get up to speed with where you think you need to be as a musician I know I was, until I met that wall that we all meet.

00:21:15.101 --> 00:21:17.507
Sure, there is a wall that everyone meets.

00:21:17.507 --> 00:21:19.951
And I met this wall and it didn't deter me.

00:21:19.951 --> 00:21:24.184
I didn't smash into the wall, I didn't go around it or leap over the wall.

00:21:24.184 --> 00:21:36.332
I remember standing in front of it and really analyzing what it is I need to do to become one of those bricks in the wall because I'm not going to get through it.

00:21:36.460 --> 00:22:00.289
And our case in point was it was 1975, and I had gotten an album from a guitar friend of mine by a guitarist named Pat Martino and it was a record called Joyous Lake and he was in town, a little boutique guitar shop that sat only 30 people and I'd go in all the time and play Les Pauls and Stratocasters and once a month they would have special guests come in.

00:22:00.289 --> 00:22:04.932
They'd clear out the whole front of the store out, have tables and chairs.

00:22:04.932 --> 00:22:07.645
They'd have an artist come and play wherever he was.

00:22:07.645 --> 00:22:14.541
And when Pat Martini was there, my wife, for her birthday present, surprisingly bought me tickets for it at that time 75.

00:22:14.541 --> 00:22:24.932
I was dating her and that was a turning point for me because I realized I'm never going to become that guitarist.

00:22:24.932 --> 00:22:26.057
I'm never going to become that guitarist.

00:22:26.057 --> 00:22:26.962
You know I'm going to be.

00:22:26.962 --> 00:22:30.279
You know I'm not going to be a George Benson or Pat Metheny or Pat Martino.

00:22:30.279 --> 00:22:33.472
I understand what they do, do a lot of practice.

00:22:33.472 --> 00:22:40.268
I could play a few songs on stage but I'll never become that regimented and that genius on that level.

00:22:40.268 --> 00:22:46.901
But I can immerse myself into what they do and find out what I'm about and that's what helped me.

00:22:47.622 --> 00:22:48.744
At what age was this?

00:22:48.744 --> 00:22:50.488
Roughly that age, I was 20.

00:22:50.488 --> 00:22:53.173
I was 20 years old at that time.

00:22:55.424 --> 00:23:15.573
So roughly in your early 20s did you say to yourself at some point okay, I want to go from being a member of the band to being the leader of the band well, the leader of the band happened, uh, not by um, um wrote, or it didn't happen because I planned it or set a goal.

00:23:15.854 --> 00:23:16.654
That's what I want to be.

00:23:16.654 --> 00:23:42.188
I became new to the band because my synopsis and getting things done coming from the background that I have from my mother and also my grandfather we didn't even touch upon that, but I will my grandfather, his training when I was 12 to 15, working with him in the field, in the barn, whatever he.

00:23:42.188 --> 00:23:42.869
What is the term?

00:23:42.869 --> 00:23:44.085
Something no fools.

00:23:44.085 --> 00:23:44.465
What is it?

00:23:44.465 --> 00:23:45.382
Sweat no fools.

00:23:45.382 --> 00:23:46.023
What's the term?

00:23:46.546 --> 00:23:47.327
He doesn't suffer any fools.

00:23:47.348 --> 00:23:49.305
He doesn't suffer any fools and he laid that on me.

00:23:49.305 --> 00:23:52.845
I use that line all the time my grandfather loved it.

00:23:52.845 --> 00:23:54.960
I hate when he does that.

00:23:54.960 --> 00:23:57.220
He had four lines, but that was a major one.

00:23:57.220 --> 00:24:01.330
The other one was do as I say, not as I do.

00:24:01.330 --> 00:24:06.070
Or this famous one was this there's three ways to do things, son.

00:24:09.940 --> 00:24:13.265
The right way, the wrong way and my way, you know, he's that one too.

00:24:13.345 --> 00:24:31.122
So I come from a background of that where you put your nose in a grindstone when you're in your 20s.

00:24:31.122 --> 00:24:32.788
You're not really serious, but you're.

00:24:32.788 --> 00:24:39.037
Let me say I was thankful to be surrounded by my peers who were that age, who were serious my friend, leon Dorsey, I remember he was going to Oberlin.

00:24:39.037 --> 00:24:50.482
Another friend was going to Duquesne, another guy he was going to Berkeley, another guy he's going to berkeley.

00:24:50.502 --> 00:25:07.505
So I was around surrounded by those, uh, my peers, who did play r&b and blues and rock with me, but who ventured into jazz and they came back with such a knowledge of their instrument that not only do I become jealous, I became shameful at times playing with them because I wasn't up to their speed and because I noticed how they would take a.

00:25:07.505 --> 00:25:19.317
I mean, I was trying to learn this song Fragile from yes on the yes album Close to the Edge, and a guitar player friend of mine who three years prior to that I could burn him.

00:25:19.317 --> 00:25:27.847
You know I was just getting on stage and burning him Because of his acumen at going to school learning theory and that playing jazz.

00:25:27.847 --> 00:25:34.096
He came back and just said oh, alan, this is what Steve Howell's doing.

00:25:36.942 --> 00:25:38.865
I said what the fuck so that scared me.

00:25:38.904 --> 00:26:02.611
I said if just in a matter of three years he could propel himself from the arena just being on stage with me and bell bottoms and big hair and we're just jamming to Earth, wind, fire and shit like that, and just his association in studying the jazz real book, whatever you take him along that line, I better get into bed with these guys.

00:26:03.259 --> 00:26:05.008
Yeah, you wanted some of that Of course.

00:26:05.008 --> 00:26:05.568
I wanted some of that.

00:26:05.568 --> 00:26:08.612
Yes, yeah, yeah, yes, yeah, so they brought you forward.

00:26:08.632 --> 00:26:10.012
They brought me, not not they.

00:26:10.012 --> 00:26:27.201
They didn't bring, brought me forward, they kicked me forward they kicked me forward because they were speaking a language that that, unless that school and letters gave you that I was lacking, you know I had.

00:26:27.201 --> 00:26:31.808
My ear was up to par, of course, and my antics on stage was wonderful.

00:26:31.808 --> 00:26:33.025
I knew a lot of songs and that.

00:26:33.025 --> 00:26:38.928
But because of their knowledge of, they were well-read and versed in jazz.

00:26:38.928 --> 00:26:48.430
At their age, playing the album Trey Holmgren's or something from Machine Head, from Deep Purple, was nothing for them.

00:26:50.721 --> 00:26:53.263
So, alan, you're surrounded by this incredible talent.

00:26:53.263 --> 00:26:57.308
You've had so many great influences up to that point.

00:26:57.308 --> 00:27:03.855
When did you start to break through, like, what was that moment and what did that look like?

00:27:04.280 --> 00:27:13.798
I wasn't cognizant of it, believe me, because when you're 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, you know all you're thinking about is do you look good on stage, and how does that little girl down there in the front row.

00:27:13.839 --> 00:27:15.124
Look, you know what I mean.

00:27:15.124 --> 00:27:15.807
The important looks.

00:27:15.807 --> 00:27:17.256
You know I mean the important stuff, of course, important stuff.

00:27:17.256 --> 00:27:22.689
You know the whole reason you do right exactly uh, but what?

00:27:23.550 --> 00:27:24.372
what was the question again?

00:27:24.372 --> 00:27:26.963
So I don't want to go off this when did you start to break through?

00:27:26.963 --> 00:27:27.605
When did the?

00:27:27.665 --> 00:27:56.372
momentum of your career kick in when I started to learn some of these standards and I noticed that the crowd that I was used to playing to my crap my buddies, young crowd, you know where the crowd started to, um, to be saturated more with people who were a little more well-read well-read, instead of me reading, uh, tolkien they were bringing.

00:27:56.372 --> 00:27:56.893
I reading Tolkien.

00:27:56.893 --> 00:28:13.669
I was in the company of people in the audience who were reading Isaac Asimov and Herman Hesch and Sedata, who also knew who John Coltrane Love Supreme was and who also knew what Electric Ladyland was, as well as Trey Hombre's.

00:28:13.669 --> 00:28:15.586
It was remarkable, the journey that opened up.

00:28:15.586 --> 00:28:28.506
Remarkable, the journey that opened up for me the world that opened up for me just from learning how to just become a little more well-read in my genre.

00:28:28.506 --> 00:28:32.027
So that was a turning point.

00:28:32.640 --> 00:28:37.785
You have a great quote that you said, that you said I'm a storyteller through the genre of jazz.

00:28:37.785 --> 00:28:38.626
It.

00:28:38.626 --> 00:28:39.910
Was it always going to be jazz?

00:28:39.910 --> 00:28:40.731
Because it sounds like.

00:28:40.731 --> 00:28:48.286
You know, as tushar alluded to earlier, you have influences from everywhere the jimmy hendrix stuff and you know, your mom's classical stuff.

00:28:48.286 --> 00:28:49.509
Was it always going to be jazz?

00:28:51.124 --> 00:28:55.596
when I was younger, jazz was jazz me was boring because I didn't understand it.

00:28:55.596 --> 00:29:00.126
I didn't understand it, and when you don't understand something, either you run away from.

00:29:00.126 --> 00:29:08.472
Fortunately for me, I was good in so many other genres that I that there was a while where I just turned my back on jazz.

00:29:08.512 --> 00:29:12.984
I figured out, you know whatever slime family stone, but I'll just get into that, whatever.

00:29:12.984 --> 00:29:28.032
Until I started to my peers, my group started to be selective and I hungered for more knowledge, not just on the stage, not just with music, just with events.

00:29:28.032 --> 00:29:39.164
You know, people who were well-read came to my arena and introduced themselves, who were my age and who played their instruments just as well as I did.

00:29:39.164 --> 00:29:46.317
But they had something I didn't have they had a knowledge of self through self-awakening, which I didn't know at that time, at age 20.

00:29:46.317 --> 00:30:00.704
I was just still filling my oats and looking trim and whatever, and that perked my interest because I, I, I, I went on tour, a mini tour with, with a couple of guys that I had.

00:30:00.765 --> 00:30:16.326
Really I was enamored with them and they took me to a resort to make some money and at that resort that I was at, where they played, we played five nights a week, they fed us, we had a hotel room.

00:30:16.326 --> 00:30:18.029
It was near the water, the beach, it was great.

00:30:18.029 --> 00:30:21.454
But that resort was full of a lot of people.

00:30:21.454 --> 00:30:27.243
It wasn't your typical club, med, walt Disney sort of people, you know.

00:30:27.263 --> 00:30:35.895
The resort catered to a clientele whose children went to Brown, william, mary, you know, at Columbia University.

00:30:35.895 --> 00:30:45.963
They were children and people who were there at the resort who not only were well-read but they were well-versed in a lot of things.

00:30:45.963 --> 00:30:58.788
That enhanced the mind, and I don't say I was jealous, I was intimidated by them, I really was and that spurred me on to read not just read more, but just to learn my instrument.

00:30:58.788 --> 00:31:19.481
More than just listening and copying Jimmy Page licks or Herb Ellis licks or George Benson licks, I started to find out that through self-awareness and reading I could develop my own sound, which I never really thought I could, and that was a big turning point for me.

00:31:22.287 --> 00:31:42.776
Alan, I want to kind of you touched upon it just a moment ago the notion of life on the road, and I kind of want to I want to touch on that a little bit Like this idea of, as a first of all, as a young musician, life on the road obviously, and life on the road for any musician is a big key to obviously getting your name out there and honing the craft et cetera.

00:31:42.776 --> 00:31:50.846
But how has that transition now been as you have gone through your musical life, the notion of being on the road?

00:31:50.846 --> 00:31:51.910
Is it easier now?

00:31:51.910 --> 00:31:53.025
Is it harder now?

00:31:53.025 --> 00:31:57.084
Was it much easier as a young, as a younger man, or tougher as a younger man?

00:31:57.444 --> 00:32:00.813
It was that's a double-edged question.

00:32:00.813 --> 00:32:06.589
Um, I think it was easier when I was younger, because ignorance is bliss.

00:32:06.589 --> 00:32:12.981
You know, when you're young and you're just filling your oats, you're just out, you're just out there in the pasture just running wild.

00:32:12.981 --> 00:32:22.769
You know, um, as as I got older, I started to look at other things other than just being on the road and having fun and having a drink and looking at pretty girls and where we're going to go.

00:32:22.769 --> 00:32:24.265
At night there's a jam session down.

00:32:24.265 --> 00:32:29.680
We're in Philadelphia doing a show or watching these things.

00:32:29.740 --> 00:32:31.037
I mean, the lifestyle is totally different.

00:32:31.037 --> 00:32:32.460
Right, the lifestyle is totally different.

00:32:32.601 --> 00:32:34.040
It is totally different, it definitely is.

00:32:34.040 --> 00:32:34.821
The lifestyle is totally different.

00:32:34.821 --> 00:32:35.904
It is totally different, it definitely is.

00:32:35.904 --> 00:32:49.012
And because of that, now that I'm older, the road to me now is a series of growth through, coupled with just reuniting with old friends that I've garnished through the years.

00:32:49.012 --> 00:32:51.826
And I go see them.

00:32:51.826 --> 00:32:59.905
I see how they've moved on with their lives children, houses, whatever and they come to my shows whenever town I'm in and I had that experience.

00:32:59.905 --> 00:33:05.852
I'm an older guy now and when I'm off the stage we have dinner.

00:33:05.852 --> 00:33:11.133
I'm just going back and we're all talking about what we've been doing between not seeing each other.

00:33:11.133 --> 00:33:12.743
So the road is different for me now.

00:33:12.743 --> 00:33:21.411
Unfortunately, for the younger guys in my band, I'm learning to let them run free because some of the guys in my band are 15 years younger than me in that.

00:33:22.019 --> 00:33:23.626
They don't understand why after the gig.

00:33:23.759 --> 00:33:26.249
I just want to go back to this friend's house out in the country.

00:33:26.249 --> 00:33:28.925
They don't want to go with me.

00:33:28.925 --> 00:33:33.443
Oh well, there's a jam session downtown Philadelphia.

00:33:33.443 --> 00:33:34.305
We want to go.

00:33:34.305 --> 00:33:35.546
There's a lot of chicks there.

00:33:35.546 --> 00:33:38.388
I said, okay, well, I'm going to go.

00:33:38.388 --> 00:33:41.112
You know, they got this wonderful malt.

00:33:41.112 --> 00:33:51.805
They got this whatever 16 year old malt maker or whatever it is there and they want me to try out.

00:33:51.805 --> 00:33:54.211
And then we go to their house and we're just going to talk.

00:33:54.211 --> 00:33:56.880
So the road is different for me now it is.

00:33:57.799 --> 00:33:58.563
It's fun, but it's different.

00:33:58.563 --> 00:34:04.503
So you have, you know, you get that first experience on at that gig and do you start gigging right away, you know, piecing it together with friends.

00:34:04.503 --> 00:34:10.846
Is it friends there who, hey, I need the vocalist, I need a guitar player, let's come along, there's another tour and another tour.

00:34:10.846 --> 00:34:17.744
Or were there gaps and was it hard to piece together that, that lifetime of of music that you put together?

00:34:17.744 --> 00:34:18.947
I mean that couldn't have been easy.

00:34:18.947 --> 00:34:20.188
No, it's.

00:34:20.349 --> 00:34:21.231
it's hard.

00:34:21.231 --> 00:34:26.951
It's hard if you aren't selfish with your talent, and let me explain that.

00:34:26.951 --> 00:34:29.440
I don't seem to come off as old dorsey as you hear.

00:34:29.440 --> 00:34:41.510
Um, it's hard when, when you have a myriad of your close friends, you, you know, you're young guys hanging out, you're playing music, blah, blah, blah.

00:34:41.510 --> 00:34:43.512
He's dating this chick, you're dating that chick.

00:34:43.512 --> 00:34:48.335
And it's hard when you develop past them.

00:34:48.335 --> 00:35:06.996
You develop past them musically, develop past them musically, but your heart is still with them as friends and nothing's more than just having to tell a fellow musician that they're really not good enough to travel this road with you anymore.

00:35:06.996 --> 00:35:08.306
That's the hard part.

00:35:08.306 --> 00:35:15.432
That's a really hard part, and I admire artists who can do that without harming the friendship.

00:35:15.432 --> 00:35:17.788
When you're young, you don't have to wear with all that.

00:35:17.788 --> 00:35:20.168
You just say, look, I'm just going to move on.

00:35:20.168 --> 00:35:23.648
And that was the hardest thing, because I still have.

00:35:24.521 --> 00:35:28.672
I run into friends from those days who come to my shows every now and then.

00:35:28.672 --> 00:35:39.947
Now they're older, they have children, they've gone back to school and, you know, become lawyers, whatever it is, and I see they had that longing look from the audience.

00:35:39.947 --> 00:35:41.652
When I look at them, that look of there, go.

00:35:41.652 --> 00:35:46.463
I, for the grace of God, you know and also, but then you can also tell.

00:35:46.483 --> 00:35:53.574
Behind that clouded look, there's also a little resentment of how I treated them at that time because I was young.

00:35:53.574 --> 00:35:56.527
Little resentment of how I treated them at that time because I was young.

00:35:56.527 --> 00:36:00.501
And how do you tell someone when you're 20 years old that you know it's like leaving the girlfriend or the girlfriend dropping you.

00:36:00.501 --> 00:36:07.333
You know, when you moved on Because it's all about growth with music or with the arts.

00:36:07.333 --> 00:36:22.429
You know, when you find a group of another entourage, a group of people, another mentor, another, whatever it is, and you're going to grow, you have to make a hard choice in looking behind you, over your shoulder and those who can't grow with you.

00:36:22.429 --> 00:36:29.255
Either you die with them in the sand or you move on across that hill, which I did many times.

00:36:29.255 --> 00:36:30.277
I'm still doing it now.

00:36:37.159 --> 00:36:40.286
So, Alan, as a part of that, as you pushed on to that next phase, how did you develop a stage presence?

00:36:40.286 --> 00:36:41.367
What became your style?

00:36:41.367 --> 00:36:45.039
Who were your mentors as you developed your presence there?

00:36:45.081 --> 00:36:50.713
was a number of them and there's a fence that separates some of them.

00:36:50.713 --> 00:36:51.621
I mean, there's a fence.

00:36:51.621 --> 00:37:05.146
There's the Americana Well, it's called Americana, now it wasn't back then which enveloped rock and roll, blues, a little bit of soft country, folk and, of course, r&b and funk.

00:37:05.146 --> 00:37:07.210
I mean, that was that one side of it.

00:37:07.210 --> 00:37:20.344
The other side was, the serious side, was jazz, and I started to look at the artists in both genres, in all those genres, and I started not to emulate them but to find out.

00:37:20.344 --> 00:37:31.172
Why does someone like Oscar Peterson, why would someone sit there for three hours and watch the Grateful Dead or Robert Plant sing Stairway to Heaven?

00:37:33.463 --> 00:37:41.534
I started to look at what it is that they are doing, not just capture their audience and to enthrall them, that people really can listen.

00:37:41.534 --> 00:37:45.023
Let's sit in a chair and listen to that record and go into another world.

00:37:45.023 --> 00:37:45.726
What is it?

00:37:45.726 --> 00:37:47.409
And it's telling a story.

00:37:47.409 --> 00:37:53.934
And I, and and I had no idea what that was, and bear in mind I'm 25, 26, going on 30 I had no idea what that was and bear in mind I'm 25, 26, going on 30.

00:37:53.934 --> 00:37:56.019
I had no idea what telling the story was.

00:37:56.019 --> 00:38:07.896
I just figured you get on stage, you gyrate, you know, you play your acts, you sing the song, you do all your machinations with your band and boom, you put on a great show and people clap, sweat and that's it.

00:38:07.896 --> 00:38:17.353
But I realized that you have to repeat that night after night, which is why a lot of groups burn out and they change members in the band or they just walk away.

00:38:17.353 --> 00:38:22.067
They just say, like Joe Perry from Journey, he just said fuck it.

00:38:22.067 --> 00:38:24.411
Excuse my language, oops, sorry, I'm not supposed to.

00:38:24.510 --> 00:38:32.943
It's all right, it's quite all right, we check the E for explicit Say what Whether you're smart or not, it was getting an E.

00:38:32.943 --> 00:38:34.552
Okay, explicit say what episode was it getting any?

00:38:34.552 --> 00:38:36.240
Okay, good, all right, well, look at some of these, you know.

00:38:36.320 --> 00:38:39.630
look at some of the, like barry sanders from the detroit lions, the halfback.

00:38:39.630 --> 00:38:47.326
When you look at people who are at the top of their game, when you, looking at from afar, the audience viewpoint, you say why would they my favorite group?

00:38:47.326 --> 00:38:48.347
Why did they break up?

00:38:48.347 --> 00:38:54.992
And you realize that, um, it's a growth period because after a while you become which is why I admire the Stones.

00:38:54.992 --> 00:38:57.228
They're doing the same thing for 40 years over and over again.

00:38:57.228 --> 00:38:58.947
I don't know how they do it, but anyway, that's another story.

00:38:59.902 --> 00:39:08.246
You get to the point where it's not that you become bored with what you've done, what's made you hit or why the audience comes see you.

00:39:08.246 --> 00:39:15.103
It's just that where you were five years ago with the audience, they're still there, but you've grown.

00:39:15.103 --> 00:39:16.304
You've grown.

00:39:16.304 --> 00:39:22.027
The audience doesn't know that they're still back in what they've heard you do five years ago and you did it well, and they want you to do it over and over again.

00:39:22.027 --> 00:39:39.777
And you have a choice Either you find out how to grow and take your audience with you, or you become bitter, disband your band and just wander from show to show and next thing you know you're doing Las Vegas or whatever you know.

00:39:42.039 --> 00:39:42.702
So did I answer that a little bit.

00:39:42.702 --> 00:39:47.362
Do you have a trick of the trade, so to speak, for how you connect, Like when you walk in a room?

00:39:47.362 --> 00:39:50.710
Is there something you do that grabs everybody right away?

00:39:50.730 --> 00:39:54.016
that you've learned over the years everybody right away that you've learned over the years.

00:39:54.016 --> 00:40:18.081
Well, when I'm on stage, the first thing I do is, before I'm even on stage, is I study the arena or the environment that I'm going to play in, because I make sure and I'm adamant about that, I make sure that my band as well as myself get there way before start time, and I've had band members young of course who bitch about that, you know.

00:40:18.081 --> 00:40:19.467
Oh man, the game is at 7 o'clock.

00:40:19.519 --> 00:40:20.585
Why are you getting here at 6?

00:40:20.585 --> 00:40:24.329
Because we need to feel the flavor of the room.

00:40:24.329 --> 00:40:25.905
I need to feel what kind of room.

00:40:26.061 --> 00:40:27.635
An hour before they're bitching about that.

00:40:27.635 --> 00:40:28.079
Get out of here.

00:40:28.400 --> 00:40:29.405
Yeah, you'd be surprised.

00:40:29.405 --> 00:40:33.443
And I say I need the flavor of the room and they say you need to favor the room and they said why.

00:40:33.443 --> 00:40:38.253
It might be raining outside, the parking lot might be muddy and people are mad because they got to walk through the mud to sit down.

00:40:38.253 --> 00:40:44.251
Or it might be a Thursday night and the regular staff that they used to come see at the club isn't there.

00:40:44.251 --> 00:40:45.293
They have a substitute staff.

00:40:45.293 --> 00:41:00.128
Or and this has happened to me in my early development of my career, it happened just recently they might be expecting another act and get there and find out that that act is substituted by me and maybe a third of the people know who I am.

00:41:00.128 --> 00:41:01.612
Two thirds don't.

00:41:02.072 --> 00:41:05.652
So you have to actually read the audience way before you get on the stage.

00:41:06.052 --> 00:41:13.644
And I hang in the wings and I listen to their conversations, I listen to how they are and I tip one of the head waiters and I tell them.

00:41:13.664 --> 00:41:35.400
And I tip one of the head waiters and I tell them come backstage every once in a while and give me a check on what's happening, let me know who's disgruntled, let me know who I need to look out for in the audience, and just give me a feel of the playing field and you become real good at that after a while and you get to a point, where I'm at now, where I don't even need to do that.

00:41:35.400 --> 00:41:44.246
I can tell immediately when I get there the whole energy level of the place, through the workers to the staff, the sound crew, the roadies.

00:41:44.246 --> 00:41:50.585
I know the flavor of it and on that mark I alter my show to that.

00:41:50.585 --> 00:42:03.887
What show I might have done last night at Idaho Falls, you know, at Idaho whatever, at whatever Sioux Falls, here I am in Des Moines, iowa, the next day and it might be a different type of crowd.

00:42:03.887 --> 00:42:09.949
So I might do the same show but I might have to alter the songs because they are not ready to hear Happy Song on the first set.

00:42:10.731 --> 00:42:15.307
You know, it's a goddamn blizzard outside the corn crop ain't coming, that's right.

00:42:15.347 --> 00:42:27.456
You know the truck pull was canceled because the ground froze over and Trump lost, so you got to alter the show.

00:42:27.456 --> 00:42:32.307
But that comes into play of you telling your story.

00:42:32.307 --> 00:42:40.050
You telling the story and knowing what it is you're going to say, not just coming out there and becoming just the monkey with the organ grinder.

00:42:40.050 --> 00:42:44.742
And that took a while and I'm still learning.

00:42:44.742 --> 00:42:48.844
That now, believe it or not, I don't think you ever get.

00:42:48.844 --> 00:42:53.853
You know, yeah, you never actually learn.

00:42:53.853 --> 00:42:59.764
It's like crossing the Rubicon you can't go back after a while.

00:42:59.764 --> 00:43:05.509
You got to keep learning and learning your story so do you find?

00:43:06.110 --> 00:43:23.827
do you find a bigger difference between because obviously you've traveled around the globe to many different audiences, so Do you find a bigger difference between American audiences and how receptive they are to you as compared to audiences in Europe, in Asia, in the Middle East, et cetera?

00:43:26.047 --> 00:43:26.750
Oh, of course.

00:43:26.750 --> 00:43:34.829
And the big difference is this we, as Americans, are haughty, and I'm talking about arrogance, I'm not talking about bitching.

00:43:34.829 --> 00:43:35.498
We are haughty and I'm talking about arrogance and I'm talking about bitching.

00:43:35.498 --> 00:43:44.431
We are haughty and rightly so, because the majority of the music that we play has been formulated here.

00:43:44.431 --> 00:44:01.652
You know, whether it's, whatever your background, whether it's Gershwin, or whether it's British rock or just a bunch of ex-slaves in the field hollowing blues or whatever it is, it's an amalgamation of all of us in this music called jazz, r&b and country.

00:44:01.652 --> 00:44:02.452
It is ours.

00:44:05.242 --> 00:44:17.364
An old mentor of mine, a very wise man who really was a great vocal coach, told me that this music that we have, this American music, whether it's jazz, whatever, is our gift to the world.

00:44:17.364 --> 00:44:22.181
So we carry that with us, even people who don't know a damn thing about music.

00:44:22.181 --> 00:44:23.583
But they go to a concert.

00:44:23.583 --> 00:44:31.650
The American audience has almost a psychological chip on his shoulder, and rightly so, not to the point where we beat our chest.

00:44:31.650 --> 00:44:32.472
We are the best.

00:44:32.472 --> 00:44:35.226
Let's go, you know, make America great again.

00:44:35.226 --> 00:44:36.230
I keep going into that.

00:44:36.230 --> 00:44:36.831
I don't know why.

00:44:36.831 --> 00:44:41.668
We'll talk about that in a minute, that's a different podcast.

00:44:41.688 --> 00:44:42.471
That's a different podcast.

00:44:42.471 --> 00:44:46.221
Put me back, please put me back Put me back from the shore, put me back.

00:44:46.280 --> 00:44:51.025
I know we're going that way, I'll get it.

00:44:51.025 --> 00:45:06.255
Yeah, unlike most audiences and I'm talking about from south of the border to our European, to our Mediterranean folk, to Russia, to Japan the American audience takes it for granted that this is our music.

00:45:06.255 --> 00:45:08.478
This is our music and it is rightly so.

00:45:08.478 --> 00:45:12.222
It's our birthright as Americans.

00:45:12.222 --> 00:45:16.367
But on that note there's a very I wouldn't say ugly side.

00:45:16.367 --> 00:45:19.692
There's a very demonstrative side to us.

00:45:19.692 --> 00:45:26.990
When you play for an American audience, american audience, you have to prove something to them.

00:45:26.990 --> 00:45:42.269
You really have to prove something to an American audience when audiences around the world, they're just happy to see you just play american music, just play, and it it's, it's refreshing.

00:45:42.269 --> 00:45:49.590
But you have to come back to the american audience just to get a reality check.

00:45:49.590 --> 00:45:53.543
Because the american yeah, because the american audience, we are so tainted.

00:45:53.543 --> 00:45:59.972
You know we, I, we had Elvis, we had Louis Armstrong, duke Ellington.

00:45:59.972 --> 00:46:11.414
You know Jimi Hendrix, I mean everyone from Jeff Beck to whatever, from what's his name, the blind opera singer from Italy.

00:46:14.003 --> 00:46:15.351
Oh, I can't think of him.

00:46:15.371 --> 00:46:16.717
I know, but you don't talk.

00:46:16.717 --> 00:46:18.865
Oh, I know, but you don't talk about everyone.

00:46:18.985 --> 00:46:22.248
I know exactly Everyone everyone emulates us.

00:46:22.739 --> 00:46:30.505
Everybody emulates us, but we take it for granted, and so do so do we who are on stage, who are telling stories.

00:46:30.505 --> 00:46:39.771
But when you were overseas for a while which is why I see a lot of expats who are musicians who say I'm leaving America, the hell with it.

00:46:39.771 --> 00:46:40.472
They're going to treat me.

00:46:40.472 --> 00:46:42.653
I'm a black guy, I get better treatment in Europe.

00:46:42.653 --> 00:46:43.239
I'm going over there.

00:46:43.239 --> 00:46:45.927
After about four or five years they come scurrying back.

00:46:45.927 --> 00:46:47.471
Oh God.

00:46:47.471 --> 00:46:49.242
I'm so glad to be back home.

00:46:49.744 --> 00:46:50.726
Didn't you like Europe oh?

00:46:50.826 --> 00:46:52.728
Europe was wonderful.

00:46:52.728 --> 00:46:53.570
It was wonderful.

00:46:53.570 --> 00:46:54.251
We went everywhere.

00:46:54.251 --> 00:46:55.193
They treated us so right.

00:46:55.193 --> 00:46:57.903
But I need the grit.

00:46:57.903 --> 00:47:00.090
I missed America's grit.

00:47:01.059 --> 00:47:03.791
That's what it is, so we're already great.

00:47:05.583 --> 00:47:07.168
Is that what you're suggesting?

00:47:07.168 --> 00:47:10.251
Sorry, different podcast.

00:47:10.251 --> 00:47:19.353
So, Alan, I kind of want to just touch on one thing you said a moment ago about the lifestyle and how tough it is to be a musician.

00:47:19.353 --> 00:47:22.409
Like you said, this is not a profession for the faint of heart.

00:47:24.300 --> 00:47:27.210
But you know, obviously you were mentored.

00:47:27.210 --> 00:47:32.472
You were obviously mentored and you said a moment ago you have been mentored by many musicians on your coming up.

00:47:32.472 --> 00:47:34.925
Do you take that responsibility?

00:47:34.925 --> 00:47:40.190
Or how do you take that responsibility now, as obviously a senior member of the profession?

00:47:40.190 --> 00:47:43.630
Now Do you want to be more of a mentor to younger musicians?

00:47:43.630 --> 00:47:48.327
Do you want to be a hands-on or do you want to be more of an aloof kind of mentor?

00:47:51.244 --> 00:47:54.231
No, I have to be, whether I want to be or not.

00:47:54.231 --> 00:47:56.146
I'm like, dragged into it.

00:47:56.146 --> 00:48:03.751
I'm dragged into this foyer, this position of being a mentor, whether I want to or not.

00:48:03.751 --> 00:48:04.795
Why I say that?

00:48:04.795 --> 00:48:17.974
Because I'm very disenchanted and I'm very upset with what I see young artists have to experience to make their way financially.

00:48:17.974 --> 00:48:28.505
That I didn't have to do and let me reiterate, let me expand upon that a little bit I was there.

00:48:28.505 --> 00:48:33.663
I was sitting here during the pandemic, right before the pandemic, and they had the Grammys on and they had.

00:48:33.663 --> 00:48:38.771
There was a song that won the Grammys with Minaj.

00:48:38.771 --> 00:48:39.853
What's her name?

00:48:39.853 --> 00:48:43.045
Nicki Minaj, megan Stallion, that's her name.

00:48:44.961 --> 00:48:47.769
And it was called it was called WAP.

00:48:47.849 --> 00:48:57.920
That was the song, and I don't know if I yeah, I didn't know what it stands for, right, yeah, yeah, and I saw okay.

00:48:57.920 --> 00:48:59.103
I said, okay, you know they, they were gonna make a dime.

00:48:59.103 --> 00:49:02.373
You know they're making millions, which is cool, I'm not hating.

00:49:02.373 --> 00:49:03.356
But then I saw the.

00:49:03.356 --> 00:49:08.688
I saw the performance that they did on stage and if you saw it, it was.

00:49:08.688 --> 00:49:10.413
I mean, I wish I had a dollar bill.

00:49:10.413 --> 00:49:15.869
I don't go to trips and eat clubs, but it was time, it was, it was similar to that, but that's what it felt like.

00:49:16.451 --> 00:49:30.487
Not just did it win a Grammy, it influenced a myriad of young artists who watched that, who figured that that's the direction I need to go into in order for me to make money and to make my mark, which was just pap in my opinion.

00:49:30.487 --> 00:49:49.733
And because of that, I have younger musicians in my band who every once in a while they'll in their free time on the tour bus, they'll play something that I'll have to turn and look at them as, and I feel like I'm my grandfather at these moments where they're and these are, and my musicians are very schooled.

00:49:49.733 --> 00:49:54.632
Some of them come from Rutgers and Berklee and New School and Manhattan School of Music.

00:49:54.632 --> 00:50:06.228
They're very schooled, but there's something that has seeped into the psyche of the youngsters now that I didn't have happen to me, and that is in order to make money.

00:50:06.228 --> 00:50:12.322
They will do anything, Anything, which really is unbelievable.

00:50:12.342 --> 00:50:28.016
Because I'm looking at these young purveyors of my craft, who are well-read, well-traveled because they're on the road with me, and who can play their ass off on their instruments, who are bopping up and down to these songs.

00:50:28.016 --> 00:50:38.840
I don't know a thing about using the N-word or whatever, whatever.

00:50:38.840 --> 00:50:46.320
So I've almost taken it upon myself to not to guide them, but just to show them that what it is that we, as Americans, have gotten to this point where we yes, there was civil rights.

00:50:46.320 --> 00:50:47.682
Yes, there was racism.

00:50:47.682 --> 00:50:47.963
Yes.

00:50:47.963 --> 00:50:51.010
Yes, Jim Crow, yes, yes, yes, yes.

00:50:51.010 --> 00:50:55.989
But underneath all that, there still was self-worth that you had inside your house.

00:51:03.920 --> 00:51:05.949
And I try to tell my musicians that even when you're on stage there's certain and you feel like some of that's faded.

00:51:06.130 --> 00:51:09.914
Not just faded, it's being washed over, like with a tsunami of.

00:51:09.914 --> 00:51:18.530
My niece said something to me that just encapsulated this and she it to me and I and I use it all the time I had to argue with her.

00:51:18.530 --> 00:51:22.942
She's she's 22 now and she said this when you're 16 and she doesn't remember it.

00:51:22.942 --> 00:51:30.347
Which, when you're 16, you don't remember what you said when you're 22, of course, and I remember I was arguing with her and she's playing this.

00:51:30.347 --> 00:51:31.490
I forgot what music was.

00:51:31.510 --> 00:51:34.443
It was blaring seven o'clock at night.

00:51:34.443 --> 00:51:35.166
I ran upstairs.

00:51:35.166 --> 00:51:36.268
She was staying with me for 10 days.

00:51:36.268 --> 00:51:42.862
I said look, daniel, you've got to turn that shit off please, just for a minute.

00:51:42.862 --> 00:51:45.494
I was going to take her to a club they were performing tomorrow.

00:51:45.494 --> 00:51:47.385
I said you've really got to turn that off.

00:51:47.385 --> 00:51:48.007
She got mad.

00:51:48.007 --> 00:51:48.722
She slammed the door.

00:51:48.722 --> 00:51:49.987
I said oh, come on.

00:51:49.987 --> 00:51:52.581
I opened the door and I said look, we need to talk.

00:51:52.581 --> 00:51:58.923
She turned to me and sucked her teeth and said uncle alan, if you're so damn smart, why aren't you really rich?

00:51:58.923 --> 00:52:00.327
And she slammed the door on me.

00:52:00.327 --> 00:52:02.311
Bam, yeah, that was.

00:52:02.311 --> 00:52:02.972
That was deep.

00:52:02.972 --> 00:52:04.983
Which, which, which?

00:52:04.983 --> 00:52:11.954
Which gave me a focus into what the youth now is exposed to.

00:52:11.954 --> 00:52:16.146
Where the kim kardashian thing, the khani west, whatever it.

00:52:16.146 --> 00:52:19.731
That is their whole mantra, their whole pillar of worth.

00:52:19.731 --> 00:52:33.449
Your worth in your youthful society that you roam in is based upon how much money can you accrue, no matter how yeah your wallet.

00:52:33.601 --> 00:52:34.559
Yeah, your worth is your wallet.

00:52:34.679 --> 00:52:36.126
And it doesn't matter how you get it.

00:52:36.126 --> 00:52:37.893
It doesn't matter how you get it.

00:52:37.893 --> 00:52:40.367
Doesn't matter how you get it, it's such an important conversation.

00:52:40.467 --> 00:52:43.789
It is frightening, so let's put the bow on that though.

00:52:43.789 --> 00:52:50.565
How do you break through and help that younger generation, because I know there's a younger generation right now listening to this podcast?

00:52:50.865 --> 00:52:50.965
who?

00:52:51.045 --> 00:52:56.155
wants to be a great musician and have the career that you've been able to have over the course of your life.

00:52:56.155 --> 00:52:57.983
So how do you break through?

00:52:57.983 --> 00:53:00.590
What do you say to that that be the mentor?

00:53:00.590 --> 00:53:06.800
What do you say to that person who is kind of lost with today's society, with what music is doing to to young people today?

00:53:06.860 --> 00:53:07.742
what do you, what do you say?

00:53:07.742 --> 00:53:09.547
Or do you have to expose them to?

00:53:09.547 --> 00:53:15.706
You have to spend time with them instead of just turning your back and saying, oh, oh, shit, whatever, whatever, do what you got to do.

00:53:15.706 --> 00:53:24.760
You have to spend the time with them and expose them to the things and the lessons and the rules of thumbs that we had to live under for a minute.

00:53:24.760 --> 00:53:31.802
Of course they're not as tough skinned as we were, because they weren't when we were growing up.

00:53:31.802 --> 00:53:34.228
I mean, I don't know how old you guys are.

00:53:34.228 --> 00:53:37.480
I can't say we're all right around 50.

00:53:37.500 --> 00:53:51.086
When you were growing up, it wasn't about, I mean, you had to go help your uncle, you had to wake up and you didn't sit at the table with a phone up to your ear and you had to whatever, and that's just an example.

00:53:51.086 --> 00:53:52.405
So that's what I'm doing right now.

00:53:52.405 --> 00:53:58.467
And I learned you can't shout at these kids, you can't tell them.

00:53:58.487 --> 00:53:59.092
This is what you need to do?

00:53:59.092 --> 00:54:01.306
We were indentured servants just like you, just so you know.

00:54:01.306 --> 00:54:02.898
Yes, you were, that's right man, yeah.

00:54:03.360 --> 00:54:04.204
Yeah, you were.

00:54:05.146 --> 00:54:09.730
Mine was the form of delivering pizzas, but it was the same concept, for sure.

00:54:09.730 --> 00:54:15.648
Mowing lawns delivering pizzas, but we all worked our butts off coming up.

00:54:17.844 --> 00:54:19.451
He said, yes, he got a star.

00:54:20.041 --> 00:54:20.666
I got no star.

00:54:20.666 --> 00:54:22.277
I didn't get a star.

00:54:23.884 --> 00:54:25.009
If I came in second.

00:54:25.009 --> 00:54:27.005
Oh, I didn't follow that.

00:54:27.005 --> 00:54:28.907
No, no participation points.

00:54:29.382 --> 00:54:30.746
No participation trophies.

00:54:30.746 --> 00:54:35.396
No, stars yes.

00:54:36.121 --> 00:54:38.206
Why weren't you in first?

00:54:38.206 --> 00:54:39.731
That's what I got, I'd get.

00:54:39.731 --> 00:54:41.905
I'd come home with a 90, why don't you get 95 it?

00:54:41.945 --> 00:54:42.467
was not good.

00:54:42.467 --> 00:54:46.505
It was never a good job it was what's next let's spend time with them.

00:54:46.505 --> 00:54:46.846
That was.

00:54:46.846 --> 00:54:47.829
That's a great answer.

00:54:47.829 --> 00:54:49.561
I mean, you got to spend the time like you said.

00:54:49.581 --> 00:54:58.028
Yeah, but you have to gird your loins because, being at the age that we are spending time with them, you have to waddle through a lot of their youthful stuff.

00:54:58.028 --> 00:54:59.893
That is really whew.

00:55:02.141 --> 00:55:12.177
Well, Alan, now that you have perspective and you've done so much as you look back across your career, we obviously did our research.

00:55:12.177 --> 00:55:17.240
Coming into this conversation, we've all seen across the river, et cetera, et cetera.

00:55:17.240 --> 00:55:21.150
Um, you know of of, you know your big projects.

00:55:21.150 --> 00:55:26.449
You know what are you the most proud of, if you're able to to to single things out, what?

00:55:26.510 --> 00:55:26.911
would you?

00:55:26.951 --> 00:55:27.452
single out.

00:55:27.800 --> 00:55:29.585
It was like one of those elevator questions, huh.

00:55:30.588 --> 00:55:31.650
Do you have a favorite child?

00:55:34.081 --> 00:55:35.706
I know it's a tough question, it's not just tough.

00:55:35.826 --> 00:55:46.088
It's I, I because at the moment of time that I did each and individual project, that's where my headset was at that time.

00:55:46.581 --> 00:55:50.666
Now there are maybe there's, yeah, there may, there is maybe one or two.

00:55:50.666 --> 00:56:03.454
I'll narrow it down to one that, even though I'm in this place where I'm at now, uh, emotionally and mentally, it's still that, even though I'm in this place where I'm at now, emotionally and mentally, it still resonates with me.

00:56:03.454 --> 00:56:05.277
I think Cross the River is the one.

00:56:05.277 --> 00:56:08.114
Cross the River is the one.

00:56:08.114 --> 00:56:50.889
Musically it's not as adept as my others, of course, but what it's saying, I think it reflects my attempt to empower those, especially children, not just children of color empowered children who don't know about that history, that one part of the history of black America, which is the diaspora from the West, from the South to the West Everyone knows, from the South to the North, of course, but no one knows from the South to the West which in my opinion, was just as tantamount and just as important as that, and I try to bring that out in the show that I do.

00:56:53.581 --> 00:56:58.356
Yeah, which we've all seen online, and it's fantastic, um.

00:56:58.356 --> 00:57:00.302
I've seen you perform live a couple of times.

00:57:00.302 --> 00:57:06.139
I have not seen you do that, um, but I've certainly greatly enjoyed watching you perform.

00:57:06.139 --> 00:57:10.909
So, alan, as we, as we look forward we've talked a lot about the past.

00:57:10.909 --> 00:57:14.284
You know what's next for alan harris I'm going on to.

00:57:14.746 --> 00:57:16.431
We'll just encapsulate real quick.

00:57:16.431 --> 00:57:22.188
I'm heading to Europe for the holidays Italy and Turkey and I'm doing some of the BBC orchestra.

00:57:22.188 --> 00:57:23.666
I'm doing a tribute to that.

00:57:23.666 --> 00:57:30.568
I'm narrating and singing with the BBC orchestra a tribute to Charlie Mingus, which is pretty daunting.

00:57:30.568 --> 00:57:31.650
Oh, it's great.

00:57:31.650 --> 00:57:35.820
I did it earlier in the year and it came off really well.

00:57:35.820 --> 00:57:37.822
But now I have my teeth sunk into it.

00:57:37.822 --> 00:57:42.282
I've had months really bury my heart into it, so I'll kill it and I have that.

00:57:42.282 --> 00:57:53.206
Then I come back in January, I gather my band together and we do a cross the river tour, you know, interspersed with some jazz stuff.

00:57:53.206 --> 00:58:01.927
You know, february 3rd until the beginning of April I'm doing a whole thing from Cleveland to Lafayette, louisiana, for Texas.

00:58:01.927 --> 00:58:03.748
So I'm starting that why?

00:58:03.748 --> 00:58:05.128
Because I'm prepping myself.

00:58:05.128 --> 00:58:08.130
I just got five weeks at 59th Street Theater.

00:58:08.130 --> 00:58:11.271
Oh, wow, I did, it just happened like two days ago.

00:58:11.291 --> 00:58:11.951
They want me to go in there.

00:58:11.951 --> 00:58:12.871
Congratulations.

00:58:12.891 --> 00:58:13.431
That's great.

00:58:13.431 --> 00:58:17.773
They're not better players, they're just better personalities on stage.

00:58:17.773 --> 00:58:20.414
We can deliver the songs and the story.

00:58:20.414 --> 00:58:21.434
That's incredible.

00:58:21.434 --> 00:58:41.746
Well, alan, you know your your story is amazing.

00:58:42.121 --> 00:58:53.340
Your journey has been, um, you know, surreal to see from the outside and to, I guess, experience a little bit through this conversation and through your performances, and you know we can't thank you enough for joining us.

00:58:53.360 --> 00:58:54.581
Thank we can't thank you enough for joining us today.

00:58:54.581 --> 00:58:55.780
Thank you for this moment with you.

00:58:55.780 --> 00:59:07.666
This is really nice and I don't want to seem real Marcellus here, what it is, but it's nice to talk to men of letters for a change.

00:59:07.666 --> 00:59:24.092
It really is I appreciate that Usually when you're doing these, when I do interviews, whatever I'm usually dragging the interviewer along, because they're set into one sort of format, which is nice.

00:59:24.132 --> 00:59:24.512
Thank you.

00:59:24.512 --> 00:59:38.416
What an incredible opportunity that was for us to talk to somebody who is such a master of their craft whatever the craft may be to be so deep and have so much experience.

00:59:38.416 --> 00:59:53.786
But to talk to an artist of that caliber was really quite the experience Touche as somebody who is also a passionate musician, similar to Larry Shea, as we talked about off the top.

00:59:53.786 --> 00:59:54.929
What are your takeaways from that conversation?

00:59:54.949 --> 00:59:58.447
I'll tell you this, I was surprised by a couple of things.

00:59:58.447 --> 01:00:10.362
One, obviously, was the journey, uh, from you know the young musician and this notion of you know being having his worst moment and his best moment, kind of being almost the same thing.

01:00:10.362 --> 01:00:21.387
You know, being thrown off stage by a mentor and then being kind of called back on stage by that same mentor relatively soon after, relatively soon afterwards, and being told look, you have to improve it.

01:00:21.387 --> 01:00:36.092
It takes a, it takes a lot of guts to first of all get thrown off stage and then understand what you did wrong and then have the courage to return and say, okay, I can, I can, I can, uh, redeem myself.

01:00:36.092 --> 01:00:40.829
So it takes a lot of courage to do that and we talk about courage a lot on this when we're doing the podcast.

01:00:40.829 --> 01:00:42.367
So it takes a lot of courage to do that.

01:00:42.681 --> 01:00:51.952
But the one thing that really struck me was, you know, he's become something of a I don't want to say reluctant, but he's become a mentor by default in some ways.

01:00:51.952 --> 01:00:58.900
Right, that he feels this obligation to mentor the younger generation of artists out there.

01:00:58.900 --> 01:01:19.528
And not everyone has to do that, not everyone feels they need to do that, but he feels that he has a real calling, that he has to do this Because, as he said, that a lot of this younger generation of musician, although they have a lot of skill, the to have the, the, the value system, in some ways may, might have got a little bit of ride.

01:01:19.588 --> 01:01:27.621
That was that's what really struck me yeah, you mentioned a bunch of interesting stuff there, specifically getting kicked off stage when he was, you know, first starting out.

01:01:27.621 --> 01:01:32.947
That could have devastated and put a wall up in front of any other, you know it probably would have devastated a lot of people.

01:01:33.007 --> 01:01:33.489
I mean, what a?

01:01:33.550 --> 01:01:37.059
difficult, you know, learning lesson this guy had so early on in his career and it could have gone a lot of people right.

01:01:37.059 --> 01:01:39.208
I mean, what a difficult learning lesson this guy had so early on in his career and it could have gone a number of different ways.

01:01:39.208 --> 01:01:52.440
But it does seem like in the conversation he talks a lot about how a lot of those obstacles seem to be his inspiration for just getting better right To just finding himself in his heart and where he wanted to go as a musician.

01:01:52.440 --> 01:02:07.112
And I think there is that eureka moment as an artist where you do have to figure out I mean he talked about the Pat Metheny stuff he was never going to have the chops that certain guys had right, but he knew how to do what he did well, and boy did he.

01:02:07.112 --> 01:02:08.362
I mean, look what he's become.

01:02:08.461 --> 01:02:18.023
But it just goes to show you you don't have to shred like Pat Metheny, you don't have to, you know, sing like so-and-so, you just have to find what you do as an artist.

01:02:18.023 --> 01:02:19.206
That's what art is right.

01:02:19.206 --> 01:02:42.909
It's looking within yourself, and he talked so much about it looking within yourself and finding what it is that you do well and what you can entertain people with, what's going to last, and when people think of you as an artist, what will give them that feeling of wholeness, right, like damn like this guy knows exactly who he is and he just rocked my world, and when I talked to Alan Harris, that's how I feel he rocked my world.

01:02:42.969 --> 01:02:43.572
It was wonderful.

01:02:44.019 --> 01:02:53.407
Yeah, and picking up on that, I think a little bit about the stage presence aspect, meaning, how do you find your voice, how do you work your way into the crowd?

01:02:53.407 --> 01:02:55.126
How do you learn to work a room?

01:02:55.126 --> 01:02:58.324
And the you you know work your way into the crowd.

01:02:58.324 --> 01:02:59.106
How do you learn to work a room?

01:02:59.126 --> 01:03:01.936
um, and you know the story of tipping the, the lead waiter in a bar or restaurant to get a feel or a vibe.

01:03:01.936 --> 01:03:03.380
So smart it was incredible.

01:03:03.380 --> 01:03:04.443
How did he refer to it?

01:03:04.443 --> 01:03:06.710
The the fragrance of the room.

01:03:06.710 --> 01:03:07.411
What did he refer?

01:03:07.492 --> 01:03:15.583
it was beautiful, right, exactly right, great, but but that trade craft and to figure out how to just how to do stuff like that.

01:03:15.583 --> 01:03:21.610
I mean, this is a veteran who we just spoke to, who was nice enough to share some of the tricks of the trade.

01:03:21.610 --> 01:03:28.670
So you know what an incredible opportunity for us, and we hope that all of you enjoyed the conversation just as much as we did.

01:03:28.670 --> 01:03:32.190
Alan, thank you so much for joining us on no Wrong Choices.

01:03:32.190 --> 01:03:43.804
For those of you out there who want to get to know Alan better check out his website at alanharriscom, and I encourage you to listen to two recent albums Alan Harris Live at Blue Llama and Kate's Soul Food.

01:03:43.804 --> 01:03:44.726
They're really great.

01:03:45.047 --> 01:03:52.434
On behalf of Tushar Saxena, larry Shea and me, larry Samuels, thank you again for joining this episode of no Wrong Choices.

01:03:52.434 --> 01:04:02.431
If, after listening, you've thought of someone who could be a great guest, please let us know by sending us a note via the contact page of our website at norongchoicescom.

01:04:02.431 --> 01:04:09.563
While there, please be sure to check out our blog and explore other great episodes while signing up to become a member of our community.

01:04:09.563 --> 01:04:14.842
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01:04:14.842 --> 01:04:18.751
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01:04:18.751 --> 01:04:30.682
We'll be back with new episodes in early February, leading in with a group of highly accomplished women, a CEO, super doctor and Broadway production stage manager for some very popular shows.

01:04:30.682 --> 01:04:39.927
In advance of that, always remember there are no wrong choices on the road to success, only opportunities, because we learn from every experience.

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