"Everything is Valid": Young Jazz Trumpeter Christian Scott's Diverse Universe
Christian Scott at the Blue Note Jazz Club, New York (10.22.07)
"I still can't tell the difference between good and bad police," explained trumpeter Christian Scott Monday night from the Blue Note bandstand before charging into "Litany Against Fear." A swelling bulwark to injustice, the song was written after Scott's encounter with a Black boy terror-stricken by the New Orleans police's unprovoked detention of the his big brother. Revealing that he too had been repeatedly culled for police line ups, Scott and band capped a six song set with drama and dexterity before autographing CDs, posing for pictures and mashing it up with members of the packed New York club. Scott, who expressed surprise at show's start that so many had shown up for the Monday night gig, played with an alacrity and aptitude befitting a man familiar with selling out venues and, indeed, secured his current record deal with Concord Music Group by playing to throngs at the Virgin Megastore in Boston, where he attended Berklee College of Music.
While the set tackled fear and loss, Scott, couched it with a good deal of humor, exhibiting a star quality that will soon be on display in the new George Clooney movie, Leatherheads. In this second installment of our interview with Scott (conducted prior to his Blue Note performance), the New Orleans native spoke to his forays in film and the entire span of his creative ventures, from his recent release, Anthem
VIBE: Back to the album out now on Katrina, where were you when Katrina happened?
Christian Scott: I was actually in New York. When the water hit the city, I was in New York. When the levees broke, I was in Boston.
So in terms of the recording of this album, was it cathartic for you in terms of reconciling all your feelings about the disaster?
The thing about it, to be completely honest with you, I'm still very angry. My feelings on it haven't really changed. I always think to myself, let's say if you and I kidnapped someone and we put them in a closet or in a room for 5,6,7,8 days and didn't give them water, we'd probably go to jail for murder or be tried for attempted murder. The government refuses to acknowledge that they didn't have the resources to do what they needed to do, mainly because I feel that they were probably scared and nervous that if everyone knew that we didn't have the resources to take care of our own that they would come over here and run us over. So it's a situation that I've been very, very angry about. The thing about Anthem is that more or less the album concept came out of me being all over the world and watching the news and realizing that we don't get the news here. They're all these socio-political, economic and class distinctions and things that I really, really don't agree with it. And I realized that there was a problem and a necessity for our generation to more or less stand up, like the kids of the sixties. The sixties was the first time when the younger generation actually was more morally fortified than their parents. I think a lot of what has happened in recent years [is that] there is another chance for this generation of young people to actually stand up and step up and take the ball and carry that ball in the tradition of people in the sixties and be like, "Look, what's going on right now in Iraq is not cool, what's NOT happening in Darfur is not cool, what isn't happening in New Orleans is not cool and we're not going to stand for it and we have to take over. This is what we need to do. It's time for us to do it and we're going to do it." But just to bring it back full circle, I think the Katrina situation was just really bad. I had friends and girls that I went to high school with that lost newborn babies because no one would bring them water. That's a problem and it makes me angry and a lot of the older musicians-sometimes I talk to guys like Terence Blanchard or Wynton (Marsalis) and Nicholas Payton and these guys from New Orleans, older guys-and they're angry about it but it's a different type of thing, it's weighted with their years. But I'm twenty four years old and I see a problem and realize that it's right now, it's my time, I'm an adult, I'm a man and I've decided I want to make an album and make music and do things conceptually that will change the way people perceive certain things because I don't want my kids to have to grow up in a New Orleans where they feel they're second class citizens. I don't want my children to grow up in a New York where they feel they're second class citizens. That doesn't make any sense to me and it's time for it to change because I'm sick of it.
You mentioned Blanchard and I'm thinking of his recent album that also touches on Katrina. Any thoughts on that?
I was told when I was younger not to listen to trumpet players of the generation that directly preceded me, mainly because I didn't want to sound like them. So I didn't really listen to him growing up but someone played the album for me at a listening party a couple weeks ago and I liked it. It's a beautiful album. I understand some of the things that he's going through. It's weighted a bit differently because he's in his forties and he has children and he's thinking about his mother and her spending seventy years at a house and just all those experiences, whereas I think with my album the concept is more about effecting change than a nostalgic sorrow but we will overcome type of thing. And it's good. I was really glad when I found out that his album was coming out right before mine came out because I think there need to be those types of alternatives to certain things. I feel like his [album] is for a certain type of listener and mine is for a certain type of listener as well. Our concept is to effect change through music. Because, like I said before, I don't want to be in the situation where I'm turning around and I'm forty years old and none of these things have changed and I had an opportunity to do something or say something about it and I didn't.
I also heard that you're going to be in this upcoming film Leatherheads? What part do you play?
Yeah, [it's] with George Clooney and Renée Zellweger. It's going to be cool. It's funny; I play a trumpet player/bandleader, which is kind of interesting because that's what I am. It's really cool, you know, I got my band in the movie as well and we perform this really beautiful song with the vocalist Ledisi. Her and I are playing together; we're doing this song, "The Man I Love," in a speakeasy and there is another scene where my band plays a song called my "Your Pa Ran Second Line," which is tune from New Orleans around the turn of the century, which is cool because I always love talking about my trumpet. My trumpet is the most cutting edge trumpet on the planet. It's ridiculous. In the Trumpet Herald, basically said they thing my horn is the most cutting edge and revolutionary on the planet. All the innerworkings of the instrument are completely revolutionary and different from any other trumpet. The bell is tinted. Most people, when they see an upturned bell, they think Dizzy Gillespie, but the shape of mine is very different. It's like a smaller angle, its 22°, as opposed to Dizzy Gillespie's, which was 45° and it turned a little bit later. It's this gorgeous horn and I wanted to use it in the movie but it's a period piece about the forties so I had to go and get this horn from like 1907. It had mold in it and it was nasty and I could hardly play it. I had to try and manage to play this old music and this old trumpet that was like broken and it was just a fun experience. It was a cool and I didn't realize it but George Clooney is probably the most hilarious human, literally, every time you're around him, you're stomach is in knots.
Your sound is really unique. What you do to get your sound?
I get tons of questions from young players about how I cultivated that sound and essentially it's this: most trumpet players have a very clarin, very incisive, cutting sound. I've always been a big fan of Miles Davis just because his playing has always been minimalist and no matter what was happening in context to the palette beneath his playing and the music that he was writing, his playing sort of remained the same from the late fifties all the way up until he died. The thing about it is, I wanted to cultivate a trumpet sound that I felt had never heard before. Just because, like I said before when I was a kid and I was growing up and I was going on the road with Donald, he would always tell me, "You don't want to listen to the younger trumpet players," and by younger he meant forty and under--just because they're still trying to figure out what they're going to do and by the time you get to be a man and its your turn to take over the reins and you sound like them that's going to be a problem because they're still around. I realized immediately that I needed to be identifiable and have as unique a sound as possible as a trumpet player. So the way that came about was I decided that I wanted to create a very minimalist trumpet sound that sounded like the human voice. I wanted to create a sound that sounded as much like the human voice as possible, so that's why you can hear when I play, if you listen to some of the tracks, it's kind of airy. It sounds like a whisper inside the sound. That was very hard to cultivate and the technique I use is one that no one else really uses where I play with warm air so instead of jus shooting the air out of my mouth one I inhale, I inhale slowly and I push the air down into my diaphragm and instead of pushing it back up, I let my diaphragm, more or less, relax and release the air slowly and it comes out more warm and when it gets to my throat I shoot it out. So it's warm air so the sound is a little bit hairier. The best way to describe how I came to it, you know because I practiced it for two years, it ended up being really cultivated and refined once I decided I wanted my trumpet sound to sound like my mother's voice. Once I decided that, it was done. There was no more I needed to do. It was perfect.
Who is your band for the Blue Note show?
It's going to be Matthew Stevens, the guitar player, and he's the guy that helped me define the Rewind That concept because we wanted to create juxtaposition between a minimalist trumpet sound and a very hard and driving and edgy guitar sound. Marcus Gilmore, who is the drummer on Anthem, I just think he is just one of the greatest drummers of his generation. He is awesome and I love when he plays with my band because he plays differently. I always ask my guys to play hard and more intense and driving and there is a different type of intensity when he plays with us. It's great. A guy named Luques Curtis who has been in the band since I started the band and he's one of my best friends and our bass player. Also there is a guy named Louis Fouché who plays the straight alto saxophone. Most people play a curved alto but the straight alto was made around the turn of the century. We both have very odd shaped horns. So he plays a straight alto and I play a tilted bell trumpet. Last but not least is the piano player: his name is David Bryant and he plays with us when we do our live performances but I haven't had the luxury of having him record with me yet.
Just to backtrack, when you were talking about practicing your technique for two years, daily, what was the commitment to practicing?
When I was a kid, I went to the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA), and I didn't get out of school every day until 5:30 PM. I'd do all my homework for my academic high school during lunchtime and I would catch the bus home from NOCCA and I would get home at about 6:15 PM and from probably about 6:30 PM to 11 PM every night I would practice, every day it wouldn't matter. You know the trumpet is a very physical instrument and everyone says it's the hardest instrument to play just because it hurts so much when you play. Most people don't know it but trumpet players their mouth is always ripped up. The inside of their mouth is ripped up and they're bleeding and all types of stuff just because it's such a physical instrument because technically you're just kind of forcing your mouth into a metal rod. So I used to practice like 5/6 hours a day when I was in high school and for a little bit when I was in college but usually I never have a day off or any time. I'm always either doing interviews or writing music or doing some film scoring or learning lines for parts and stuff like that. Recently, I had the luxury of doing Prince's album, his new album, and I've been trying to write some more stuff for him to hear to see if he likes it. My time is being taken up by more business so I don't really get a chance to practice much when I'm on the road so when I do have a minute I try to get in twenty minutes to an hour but never more than an hour because I never really have time.
So I have to follow up on the Prince mention. So you're going to be on his next album?
You know the album that just came out. He just put on an album titled Planet Earth
It's been a good year. I did Randy Jackson's new record. You know, the guy from American Idol. That was cool to do that. You know he's a bass player? He's playing bass and it's killing. I did his new record. For some reason, I think with the success of the first album and the way things are going I think other artists from different genres are seeing my willingness to be open and all encompassing of different types of music because I love everything. I think everything is valid and you don't have to just be a jazz musician or the greatest musician in the world for me to view what you're doing as valid if you're a human being that is expressing yourself, that's good enough for me because I love people. So we've been lucky and everybody has been grabbing me up. I have been having a good time.
Click here for Part I of the interview.
Tags: Christian Scott, Jazz, Music
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