Smooth Jazz Now

Boney James - Artist of the Month For September
September 1, 2004 - It's a great time for Boney James. The saxophonist has just released his first totally self produced album 'Pure' which just had the highest chart debut of any James CD. He is also our 'Artist of the Month' for September. We talked to James on August 3, the day 'Pure' was released and we covered a lot of ground from his sensual style of playing to old school chums who helped guide his early contemporary Jazz taste. Read part one of two of our interview with Boney James.

John Beaudin - Hi Boney! How are you man. I know you just did a little radio gig at the Wave in L.A this past Sunday. How did it go?

Boney James - Yeah, I did two hours. I picked all the songs and it was actually super fun.

John - Hey, what's going on with you Smooth Jazz stars are you trying to take away all our jobs? (laughing) Dave Koz has his thing, Chris Botti does the chill thing, and I know Jeff Lorber was doing some radio as well as Eric Marienthal.

Boney - Well, as you know I've done a little of it but it's not really my passion to do radio, I'd much rather play the saxophone. (laughing)

John - This time around with the new album 'Pure' you're the sole producer for the first time. So are you a good multi-tasker?

Boney - Producing to me is just an extension of performing and it's a role that I've been slowly assuming over the years. As I become more and more sure of my music and how I wanted songs arranged and how I wanted the players to play so I just slowly evolved. So I thought lets see just how different this one does sound. For instance in doing radio hosting it does take a little bit of the focus away but it's all fun. Being a recording artist is a lot more complex job than just being a saxophone player.

John - Sure and I think that goes for most jobs unless you've lived it yourself one truly has no idea what it's really like.

Boney - Exactly.

John - You're music has touched me because you have that classic R&B feel in your tunes which was a stepping stone for me getting into Contemporary Jazz and Smooth Jazz but your sound is pretty damn current.

Boney - Well, that's a beautiful thing. We're probably similar in that we both grew up liking a certain kind of music. You know that's what got me interested in Contemporary Jazz also. I was not so much into Jazzers like Charlie Parker but bands like Earth Wind and Fire and Stevie Wonder who were also incorporating Jazz into their music, that love that I had for Pop and R&B music continues to this day. That's why I like to stay current because there's great things happening in music these days and I just find it exciting to incorporate that into the stuff that I'm doing.

John - It's been a three year wait for this new album. Tell me what was on your mind going into the making of 'Pure?'

Boney - I think whenever I start recording a new record the main thing that I'm focusing on is to just have really good songs (laughing) that's all it comes down to for me. After that I narrow down all the songs that I've been writing for however many years it takes then I'll find the ones that are still connecting with me personally. It's all about trying to arrange and produce them and give them that sound that makes it exciting.

John - Of course you're well known for putting a little sensuality in your music and I know that people respond to that.

Boney - Yeah, you know that's the kind of music I like and it flows fairly easily out of me. I am a very passionate person and I joke on stage that my favorite subject besides music is sex and they go pretty well together. (laughing)

John - I liked the tune '2:01' is that AM or PM? Are you a night owl?

Boney - (laughing) That particular record kept me up a lot later than the others. I'm really kind of a morning person and I usually would work during daytime hours and at supper I'd call it quits and live a semi normal life, you know unless I was on the road and playing in clubs. For this record I built a studio in the back yard and I got so involved in the music that I was staying up until 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning. I think that affected some of the moods on the album and that track in particular has a late night vibe.

John - Did you build a separate building in the back yard for the studio?

Boney - No, I converted the garage in the back yard into a recording studio.

John - You and Chuck Loeb with the garage studio.

Boney - Oh, he did that too? (laughing) I didn't know that! Chuck is a very nice man and a great player.

John - On '2:01' you have a nice crispness on the bass drum.

Boney - Thanks, that particular track is a very complicated loop that my writing partner put together. He's very much into techno and ambient music so he took all those elements and put it together. It's just a drum loop on there that was unmixable it just was the way that it was. Thanks for noticing that though. It makes me feel good. (laughing)

John - How far back did your desire go to producing an entire album yourself?

Boney - Well, when I first started making records I hooked up with Paul Brown as you know and he and I really got our careers started together. He was an aspiring record producer and I was an aspiring recording artist and as our collaboration went on and on I started getting more involved in the production and I started getting co-production credit right around the time I released my Christmas record. I think that was 1997.

John - You've been co-producer on your last four or five records anyway.

Boney - Yeah, that's right the last five but on 'Pure" it's just me and it just seemed like the right time quite honestly. I just felt like I knew what I wanted it to sound like and I knew at this point how to do it.

John - How was the record company with it?

Boney - Well, there was a process to convince the record company to trust me with the budget. They have a tendency to not want the artist to go off on their own but luckily things worked out.

John - On one hand I can understand the record company they always have to look out for their investment but you've been more successful than most in your career. This gigs not exactly new for you. (laughing)

Boney - (laughing) Well, you know there's sometimes fear of losing the investment sure and listen they don't want to mess with a successful formula. Paul Brown and I had what some people would call a successful thing. I just really wanted to expand you know? I think my records are successful because they're always evolving so this was a natural step.

John - I know that you went through a painful experience when your older brother died. I too lost my older brother. I know that you used that energy and put it into something positive - this album!

Boney - Well, thank you. Grief is a process and I don't know what else to say about that.

John - I hear you. I understand. You've been with Warner Brothers for 9 albums. Not a bad track record considering we see a lot of acts bouncing around with many small labels trying to find stability.

Boney - My label has changed so much through the years. Since I signed it's been through 4 different regimes. Honestly, the period we're in right now is the most exciting because they actually don't have a Jazz department anymore and I find myself just in the mainstream Warner Brothers Community and I have a new A&R guy who doesn't just work on Jazz. He works with Seal and Steely Dan and there's more of an acceptance that I'm sensing for my music as an artist rather than just a Jazz artist. So I'm kind of excited the way it is right now.

John - On the new album 'Pure' I also like 'Thinking About Me,' I like the funkiness of it, I like the retro feel of it and the Hammond B-3 is always a cool thing. I sub-titled that tune the 'Lets get the DJ off his lazy ass tune.'

Boney - (laughing) Yeah, that's a live track with Pino Palladino on bass. I recorded it live at Electric Lady Studio in New York then I took it home and just layered and layered it.

John - Was there a particular artist that was influencing you?

Boney - I was listening to a lot of Sly and the Family Stone and realizing just how dense those tracks were and I wanted to try to recreate some of that so there's three different bass players on that and really there's a lot there and it all comes together in this huge wall of sound.

John - I hear you had a drum loop on the track originally but changed your mind and put on real drums, right?

Boney - Originally when I wrote the song it was just going to be an urban adult kind of thing but once the song was finished I thought that this song deserved some other kind of feel so I just re-cut the whole thing and I think that's where the great energy comes from.

John - Ok, you have this new album, you've been away for a little while so get ready for this question from everybody… Why a three year gap?

Boney - (laughing) Well, I don't know if it was completely intentional. There were those changes at the label and I think I went through some changes. The record did take a little longer than I thought it would and when the record was turned in the label wasn't in any hurry to release it. (laughing) They had just fired so many people, I think a thousand people, and that was around the time I turned the record in. So that added another six months or so to it but it's all turning out for the best. I think this is a great time of the year for the CD to be out.

John - I just talked to Peter White a little while ago when he was just releasing his new 'Confidential' album and I asked him how he felt when first releasing an album and he said he feels trepidation because he's putting himself on the line. How do you feel since I know today is the release day of the album?

Boney - Yeah, today is the day. I'm fighting the fight and I think it's the natural human response to get all caught up in expectations about the future. I don't think fear and anxiety are productive at all. I feel those feelings come up and I work on getting rid of them by staying busy and staying in the present. I keep my focus in those situations on my work or other people and other things in general. I just don't try to get all caught up on what's going to happen to this album because it is out of my control. (PURE, Boney's brand new album debuted @ #9 on the R&B album chart and @ #66 on the POP chart - Boney's highest album debuts EVER!)

John - Another great kick ass driving song on the album is 'Here She Comes.' I can see a speeding ticket in my future with that tune on the car stereo!

Boney - (laughing) Well, I love driving and listening to great speedy music too. That one really flowed out of me. That one was also one of the very first songs that we put on the record and I was really happy the way it turned out.

John - Have you ever stopped and thought about the tracks that got you here? I remember secretly enjoying early contemporary Jazz listening late at night to whatever U.S. stations I could pick up in New Brunswick but retrace the tracks for me. How did this love for instrumental music start for you?

Boney - As a teenager my tastes were eclectic. I listened to Motown, thing like Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder and of course Earth Wind and Fire was a huge influence on me and then simultaneously I was listening to Grover Washington Jr, Pat Metheny, Weather Report, Chick Corea and things like that.

John - I'm curious though were the bulk of your friends into the Metheny, Grover Washington stuff?

Boney - Oh sure. We would all get together and hang out in my bedroom and listen to our LP's and sure we all loved this stuff. Let's see, we listened to Jeff Lorber Fusion, Ronnie Laws was a big one as well as Spyro Gyra. The mid seventies was the heyday for this kind of music.

John - Did you get access to this stuff on radio or was it mostly through friends?

Boney - Well, I would listen to Jazz radio and now and then they would play the occasional contemporary track like the Crusaders and right away I just picked out those songs. I just loved them. I did have a few friends that introduced me to this music like there was this bass player that knew a lot about this music named Ritchie Syracus. We would just jam together and we basically got into music together. There was another guy named John Shanks who's now a fairly well known Rock producer and he and I were writing songs together when we were 16 or 17 so definitely grew lot together.

John - Well, I feel like I know your wife after watching her on E.R. for so long (Lily Mariye, she plays Nurse Lily Jarvik). How did you meet her?

Boney - We actually got fixed up by a friend, a woman I went to high school with named Sean and she was in a play with Lily and I had just moved back to Los Angeles to work in this band and I really didn't know anybody so Sean kind of forced us together and we've been together some twenty some odd years now.

Part two posted September 16, 2004

John - Dwele (pronounced Dwell -eh) sounds great on the album.

Boney - Oh yeah, he's very very talented I think he's wonderful.

John - Nice voice, I like what you did with his voice with the haunting harmonizing.

Boney - Thank you I'm really happy with that song.

John - Well, what you did with that brought me in. It made me listen more carefully. I made me wonder how you did that, how you worked with the layers. Does this stuff keep you up at night? (laughing)

Boney - (laughing) Oh absolutely. Totally! So many hours were spent on the CD and every single moment on that record was agonized over so that's why it takes as long as it does.

John - Sure it sounds great when it's finished but I think most folks have no idea how intricate the process is not to mention the ideas that spent days or weeks that in the long run didn't make it on the album.

Boney - Oh sure that happens and yes people have no idea. All those hours of work and it distills down to this little CD that you can listen to in 40 minutes. It really fascinates me. The wonderful thing about it is you can share it with other people. I know how I feel about music that I love and the fact that there are people out there that love my music and there's a sense of giving involved so it's a really wonderful thing.

John - I saw this on a message board, I think it was yours someone wrote "Pure Boney, Pure Fun, Pure Excitement, Pure Soul, Pure Delight."

Boney - (laughing) Well, that's wonderful.

John - You earned a degree in history. What ever happened to that?

Boney - (laughing) It's in the closet in the studio I think.

John - Are you still interested in history?

Boney - Well, just casually.

John - So it was once a passion?

Boney - Well, I once found it very interesting I was just more confused as to where my life was going at that point so history was my focus back then so I studied it.

John - You saved the most sensual song for the last, 'You Don't Have To Go Home.' Good tune, pure lust though.

Boney - (laughing) Thanks.

John - If that doesn't set the mood for someone, their dead.

Boney - It definitely has that vibe.

John - I know that covers in Smooth Jazz are still a big thing. The songs on 'Pure' are all originals was that the plan all along?

Boney - Yeah, it was as well with the last CD 'Ride." I was feeling that if I had the material why not have it be more of an artistic statement of my own as opposed as recreating someone else's thing although I have had fun doing covers in the past. I wouldn't rule it out in the future but lately it's been more about the songs I've written.

John - What's the most amount of tunes that you had on this album?

Boney - I think I was working on 20 songs. I did have a few thoughts and ideas by the way of a few covers in there but I didn't really want to follow that path because I had so many originals that I thought were contenders.

John - Do you remember the first time that you went on stage?

Boney - It might have been sixth grade. (laughing) It was a little combo in elementary school. I think we played a taste of honey or some other Tijuana Brass song.

John - How about the first time you went onstage as an adult?

Boney - When I came back down to Los Angeles after spending a year at UC Berkeley and I got together with this band that I used to play with in High School. I remember in this case they had a club gig that I went and sat in on and I think that was one of the real turning points in my life. Once I got up on a real stage with the lights, a serious P.A. and the audience there, it gave me such a great feeling that I've been chasing it my whole life.

John - Do you think the formats healthy?

Boney - I try not to think too much about it. I just concentrate on doing my work and trust that everything's going to turn out ok.

John - You keep your eye on the ball - the music.

Boney - Exactly.

John - What drives you crazy?

Boney - Violence.

John - Do you watch TV besides E.R. of course.

Boney - (laughing) You know when I'm on the road I don't watch a lot of television at home my wife is always watching so I'm watching too.

John - What do you do to ground yourself?

Boney - Well, I just try to lead a normal life for instance just before you called I was practicing, I try to get exercise and eat well. I just try to stay healthy with all the traveling that I do.

John - 'It's On' is another great driving tune. Are those acoustic drums?

Boney - Yeah, that's a real drummer named Teddy Campbell. That track was just done live near the very end of the project. It was kind of an after thought. It was a very simple arrangement with not a lot of overdubs.

John - Yeah, you overdubbed the sax on the chorus, right? It sounds very rich.

Boney - Yeah, exactly.

John - Thanks Boney. Thanks for the time.

Boney - Hey John, thank you for your time. Take care man.