Artist Interview by: Susan Frances
Keyboardist/composer/arranger Bob Baldwin has a wealth of experiences to draw from beginning in 1987 when he was a young lion in the jazz-pop world. Fast forward to 2007 and 10 solo albums later and Baldwin has released a DVD entitled Memoirs From The Hudson featuring his live show at the Croton Point Park Music Festival in 2005. The grassroots festival which takes place in Westchester County was a way for this Mount Vernon born and Atlanta, Georgia resident to come home and show the people who raised him what he has made of his life.
“Mount Vernon has been very kind for years,” Bob glows. “Mayor Davis is a great Mayor. When he was on the way up, I did a couple of fund-raisers for him back in the 80's.”
Between the sets on the DVD, Baldwin introduces the songs along with the members of his band and special guests which includes smooth jazz saxophonist extraordinaire Marion Meadows, Latin-jazz percussionists Chembo Corniel and Café Da Silva, and singer-songwriter Zoiea. Baldwin outlines, “Chembo Corniel from New York/Puerto Rico on congas and Cafe Da Silva on other percussion. Both brought a unique vibe to the gig. I felt like Santana for a day. Heck, he sometimes uses 3 cats and everyone gets lost in the rhythm jungle.”
“I'm a New Yorker,” Baldwin identifies, “and have been heavily influenced by Latin-jazz. I've hung out with Tito Nieves, Tito Puente and Dave Valentin deep in the South Bronx. My uncle Larry Willis, a pianist, worked for years with the Jerry Gonzalez Fort Apache Band and I've seen them a few times, so I really have a working knowledge of Latin rhythms and quite frankly, I love it. Cafe is from Brazil, and they have this other thing going on down there. To me, that made the DVD come alive.”
“Gerry Gillespie was playing 2nd keyboards.“ Baldwin clarifies, “I simply didn't have enough hands to cover all of the parts of my record and he did a great job. Chulo Gatewood on bass and Skoota Warner on drums. Well, this is a funny story. They just joined the band and here they are on the DVD!!! That goes to show you that you never know what the next gig dynamic will be and you have to be ready to perform.”
“They did a great job,” he gleams with pride. “Skoota was raw as sushi and kind of plowed thru it and with Chembo and Cafe on it, they were deep into the gig. Marion was invited as a special guest because he and I wrote ‘South Beach’ together and I wanted to capture that song with a New York/Latin-funk feel and we nailed it. Zoiea jumped in on ‘Cafezinho‘. He has written a lot of my tunes on previous records, like ‘Sunrise’ and ‘Last Call’.”
Baldwin digresses to add, “If I can be very candid on this, the concert had a few challenges. For instance, my company (City Sketches, Inc.) was the producer, not the promoter of the event. The promoter had some financial challenges and the 2nd day had to be cancelled. Namely because Stephanie Mills made a lot of money that day and didn't perform. I even offered her my own personal CD and cash to get on stage and she refused. She should have just sang 2 songs and left and everything would have been cool, but she took the girl's money, refused my own money as final payment, didn't sing and left the park.”
He provides, “Phil Perry sat in her place and blew the roof off, but Stephanie created some challenges for the promoter and it became a bad scene. The event that day featured Pieces Of A Dream. We did a Grover tribute, which featured cats that played with him, including myself, Gerald Veasley, James Lloyd and Curtis Harmon. Eddie Baccus played sax. Grover discovered Pieces when they were in high school. I played with them in 1994 on a couple of gigs, so we had a history. Musically, it was a great day, but Stephanie Mills put a grey cloud over it. Nonetheless, I was fortunate enough to make a great showing of the day so people could re-enact themselves with the event, sitting on the water, the weather was awesome.“
He describes, “We captured lightning in a bottle.”
The event’s promoter, WBLS has been a great supporter of Bob Baldwin’s music. He reveals that radio has always been good to him. “I've been very supported by radio. They have a different respect level of me because I understand the gig. I got my FCC license in college almost 30 years ago. I interned under Pat Prescott, now at the WAVE-LA when she was doing news radio. She was brilliant on both sides, jazz and news. I worked briefly with Frankie Crocker, who was probably the most influential New York jock of all time and he made artists from the ground up like Frankie Beverly. Played his record for a year before it blew up!”
He relates, “Sergio Dean, Maria Von Dickerson, Ray White are all friends of mine. People play my music because they like it, but they also know that when it comes to radio, I GET IT!! It's been a little crazy for me because if the label you're on doesn't keep the doors open, it's going to affect your momentum. I had strong momentum in 2003 with ‘The Way She Looked At Me’. Went number to #3 at radio, then the next two deals bombed. I did the radio jingle for CD 101.9 from 1998 - 2005 and people were singing it in the streets, before they flipped to the Chill Format. Me and radio are COOL!”
He reflects about the outcome of the show and the DVD, “I think that as artists, we always have to push the envelope because sometimes we can see the future better than corporate America. Making a jazz DVD has many challenges. Most labels don't support them because they have no clue how to market and don't want to work that hard. There's not a lot of markets to showcase a live DVD, so we are faced with that challenged. I had to do one so that after 10 CD's, it gave people a chance to see the face behind the music. Something the smooth jazz genre has had trouble achieving. Making this was also challenging because it had to be paid out of pocket, which is why it took 2 years to create. I see things I could have done differently, but with a budget. Hopefully next time, there will be that opportunity to improve and grow.”
He shares about the making of the DVD which is being released by NuGroove Records, “The DVD was 70% done when I presented it to NuGroove. They came in on the back end. Dave Chackler was at the event so he was already familiar with the content. I see different shots NOW of course and would make changes, but the filming was directed by Tracy Thomas and there was a floating camera by Jesse Cerami, both did a great job under the circumstances. I didn't want the DVD to go out without some explanations, so I sat by the water a few months later and chatted up each tune so people would get a feel of what the song represented in my career and my life.”
Baldwin’s DVD Memoirs From The Hudson is a collection of his favorite tunes done live from his 10 solo albums like “Cafezinho” from his album Brazil Chill, “She’s Single Ready To Mingle” from his disc Standing Tall, his interpretation of Francis Scott Key’s “Star Spangled Banner” from his album The American Spirit which was a tribute to America in the aftermath of 9/11, and “People Make The World Go Round” which he wrote and recorded with Marion Meadows for his album Cool Breeze.
Baldwin tells about his 1997 release Cool Breeze, “I was going for this cool jazz vibe. That time of recording, we were using ADATS, which looked a lot like video tape. It had a different kind of sound. I wanted to make a record that you can play from beginning to end that had little drastic dynamics. I threw in ‘People Make the World Go Round’ for good measure and added Marion on that tune and one of my faves ‘Summer Breeze,’ which are still staples in my show. People get mad when I don't play those tunes on the gig. Bahia Maria was inspired by Tania Maria and started to get curious about Brazil, which eventually was fulfilled in 2002 when I visited for the first time. My long-distance interpretation of Brazil was right on point.”
He praises, “Marion is smooth. His sound is soft, but fiery. He's got some Indian blood in him and it comes through in his playing. He's intense and a nice cat. Our birthdays are 2 days apart. His is on 12/7 and I'm on 12/9. Grover’s was in mid-Dec and Will Downing is 12/1. We all have that same type of kindred spirit and Jupiter fire. Marion is cool. We've played on several of each other's records.”
Cool Breeze was followed by his album BobBaldwin.com in 2000 which Baldwin conceptualizes, “I wanted to fuse the (web)site activity with the computer age. That explains the picture of me in the monitor. 2000 was a breakthrough year for me,” he notes. “I was able to access into some great cats. I was on the road with Will Downing and Gerald Albright. I recorded Gerald in Arizona. Located a studio on the web and recorded ‘Funkin For Jamaica’ there. Marion and Tom Browne was recorded at a friends house in Raliegh.”
“Some great magic happened that day,” he muses. “Some of the record was recorded in Atlanta at Joey Sommerville's house and some in New York at the UPPA ROOM. I was all over the map but wanted to capture all the magic I could. Will Downing gave me an intro on ‘Being with You‘, which was phenomenal. Eric Essix gave me soul guitar on a few tracks. Chuck Loeb, we were labelmates at Shanachie, jumped on ‘Never Can Say Goodbye’ at his house in New York. That's one of my favorite discs and will be a staple in the Baldwin catalog for years to come.”
In 2001, the attacks on The World Trade Center in New York City and The Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia affected Baldwin so deeply that he released two albums in 2002. Bob Baldwin Presents The American Spirit is a tribute to the American people with renditions of the “Star Spangled Banner,” “God Bless America” and other American anthems reinforced by his LP Standing Tall. Both featured jazz greats like Marion Meadows, Kim Waters, Chuck Loeb, Chieli Minucci, Will Downing, and Lil’ John among others.
He stipulates, “As you can see, America is not black or white. It covers a lot of cultural tastes, Italian, Latino, African-American, European. That's America, so the music had to be approached as such. I took something as redundant as ‘God Bless America’ and ‘Star Spangled Banner’ and put a twist on it harmonically that made it okay to play that song often again. It was about the comradreship of the smooth jazz world. CD101.9 completely understood the concept and actually backed me into doing it, but the label didn't have a clue as to how to make it more mainstream. This project was definitely under-exposed!!”
When Baldwin performs “Star Spangled Banner” live, it gives his audience goose bumps. “It feels like freedom,” he conveys. “If you have ever been to a country that lacked freedom, you'll understand. South Africa just had Apartheid lifted and freedom was NEW to the young African. My forefathers had to deal with slavery. Others had to deal with the Holocaust I don't take freedom for granted, so every time I play that song, it comes out different, but it always comes out emotional. Chieli Minucci sounded great on it.”
In 2004, Baldwin took his music into the heart of Latin-jazz with his album Brazil Chill. “Rhythm attracted me to Brazil,” he alludes. “There's nothing like a Brazilian standard like ‘Wave’ being played by those cats. It has a feel to it that's unbelievable. My fantasy with Brazilian music has been a little appeased by going there and working with the cats there. Brazil is not a rich country, there's a homeless issue there as well, but when you see a kid who doesn't have a place to stay and he's got this big smile on his face, that says it all about Brazil. You can be happy with just the minimal. I love the feel of Eliane Elias. Pat Metheny spent some time down there and his music changed forever since the mid ‘90s.”
Many of Baldwin’s songs can go on for longer than the average 3-minute ditty. His dreamscape keyboard improvisations are lofty and meditative releasing a vast amount of freedom. He intones about them, “I won't let go of a record until there's nothing on it that I don't like. I don't want to play something that rubs me the wrong way after it's out, so when everything is likeable by me, I let it go.”
Coming from a lengthy line of musicians, Bob Baldwin touts his family members as well as jazz music’s greats as having an influence on his playing. “Dad was my influence,” he beams. “He taught me at age 4, taught me theory, chords, harmony and how to solo thru changes. I had perfect pitch and that was a good and bad thing. It hampered my ability to sight read fluently. I can still read, but it takes a minute because if I hear it before I read it...bad thing....I'll try to memorize it. Dad got me into private classical lessons for my technique for 7 years, but my love was jazz and anything that has a nice harmony to it. I LOVE Quincy Jones because he knows how to make good music in any environment, not just jazz.“
He injects, “In college, Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, New York Jets Joe Namath's hometown, I got hip to Gospel music and joined a choir. I'd be up there hitting these big chords and the music director would look at me and grin. I was fusing jazz harmony into Gospel. That's how the record concept came up with Tom Browne in 1988 ‘No Longer I’, but it was miles ahead of it's time. Kirk Whalum made that style come to life in the right time, almost 15 years later. My music is a culmination of straight, contemporary, funk and Gospel and I've been told that I have my own 'sound', which means I don't sound like anyone else.”
He also list luminaries who have affected his playing like “Herbie, Patrice Rushen, Miles, Coltrane, Wynton Kelly, Oscar Peterson were my influences. I would try to cop their solos and would run them at 1/2 speed until I got them. I once had the whole ‘Chameleon’ solo scripted out like Herbie and scratched out a few Corea solos as well. I must have been crazy at age 15, but it helped me understand certain nuances within the solos.”
He recalls his early musical experiences with Tom Browne as a stepping stone. “My sideman work really started in 1987 with Tom Browne, then for years in Marion's band. in 1994, I worked with Pieces of Dream when James Lloyd took a break and worked for about 3 years with Will Downing. Lately, mostly, I've worked on developing my own artistry.”
Baldwin has witnessed a number of changes in the music industry during the last 20 years since he has been involved in the business. “iTunes forced the industry to make a GOOD record, not a CD with 2 good songs on it. They got greedy and saw the publishing opportunities, but didn't focus on the content nor the consumer. The consumer got smart and said, ‘Why should I pay $18.00 (for 11 songs on a CD) too dag-gone high but the way, when for 3 songs, I can spend $3.00 on iTunes‘??? And you know what? They are right. The industry stopped making likeable music and got spanked...deservedly so. Now they have to figure out how to undo this mess they made.”
He observes, “The smooth jazz charts needs to get back into a non-singles mode and get back into playing 3 and 4 cuts on a record and drive people back into the stores. The stores create sales, the sales creates revenue, revenue creates more product and keep things from getting stale. There needs to be a better handshake between radio, artists, labels and retail. Until that happens completely, there will be this disconnect and things won't get better. In the meantime, the artists have to keep pushing for the next sound, not get complacent and have fun with the music.”
Baldwin never blames the record labels problems on free music downloads or peer to peer sharing, but on the industry’s internal policies. When the industry failed to keep jazz music new, its musicians have. Musicians have developed new genres to define their contemporary sound in addition to giving their generation of listeners a revitalizing identity. Music has always been about innovation and modern jazz artists want to single themselves out like the generations before them, which is how neo-jazz and chill-out formats were developed. Baldwin’s thoughts on this subject is what keeps his music relevant today. “I have a phrase which I'm coining, which I'll make public within the next 90 days. It fuses radio and the style of this music. In the meantime, smooth jazz sales are down and the envelope has to be pushed.”
He cites, “In the ‘90s, sales were booming for contemporary jazz and people were eating this stuff up. The last two deals I had, those labels went belly up and I had to scramble to buy back my rights. That's why I have not been mainstream for the past 3 years because the platforms I was on were unstable. Labels are flopping and flipping and consolidating. iTunes has everybody mixed up. In the 90's, there were more background vocals, more funk, more excitement, more chances! We have to get back to this,” he indicates, “otherwise, stations are going to start flippin and then we'll all be in trouble.”
He recollects, “When I worked at WCLK as a Music Consultant and had to program contemporary jazz, if it was good to the soul, I played it. There was an import from Italy from drummer Billy Cobham, new music by Jon Luc Ponty and Brian Auger. These were good records, so let people hear them. We don't have to be all over the map, but if someone takes the time to make a record with 10 songs on it, why are we just hearing one? Let the people hear the music and if it's not too late, we will be able to capture that market passionately once again.”
Even though a new generation of jazz musicians is sprouting, they never disassociate themselves from the classics like John Coltrane and Grover Washington, Jr. Baldwin was fortunate enough to have recorded on Washington’s records in the early ‘90s, and in return, Washington recorded material for Baldwin’s second record Reflections Of Love in 1992.
He reveres, “Grover was a genius, a gentleman and a lovable bandleader. People waited for years to get in the band because of his loyalty to his camp. I try to do the same thing. I don't work but about 50 dates a year, but I always get calls for people to play in the band because of loyalty. I learned that from Grover. He played on Reflections Of Love. He called me and left a message out the blue and I thought it was a prank. He heard a demo of ‘Don't Take Your Love’ from me from the album Time out of Mind and he used it on the record and that's how we started our relationship. When he would come to Atlanta, he would always put me on his list. He actually played in Peekskill just a few weeks before he died and I regret not seeing him there. Peekskill was just around the corner from my mother's house, but I was in Atlanta at that time. What a tragedy,” he mourns.
Bob Baldwin’s spirits were lifted when he played in Johannesburg, South Africa in September, 2000. He imparts about the experience, “Freedom was new, people embraced American music. We had some symposiums there and the kids are very conscious-minded kids. It was one of a great experience. I felt like I was home.”
Though Baldwin has played in every state in the USA, he would like to venture outside of North America like “Japan, more in the UK and Europe. I think once I get there, there will be repeat visits.”
Bob Baldwin is currently in the recording studio putting together his 11th studio CD which will be entitled NewUrbanJazz.com, hint hint the name of the new music genre he has developed. In the recordings he will be featuring a legendary Baldwin piano as opposed to his usual Fender Rhodes model, which he explains is provided by the famed Baldwin piano company. He tells, “I secured an endorsement with them and it has been great!! Their piano will be featured on my next CD. My CD was actually done before I did the deal, but I ended up replacing songs so I can feature that piano......gggggrrrrreat sound, and you'll hear it on the next disc.”
As a jazz musician, producer, radio host, jingle maker, and owner of his own production company City Sketches Inc., Bob Baldwin has a well of experiences to draw from and to speak of in his last 20 years as an artist and motivator. His live DVD Memoirs From The Hudson features what he has made of his life and makes it well known that jazz music continues to evolve and its artists continue to be innovators.
For more information: www.bobbaldwin.com
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