Presented with a song like Exit Music, It's impossible to know what to add without actually making it worse. How can you play along when It's already there?
There's the soundtrack to The French Connection II'I think It's my favorite soundtrack. It hasn't been released. I actually had to go and get the film and just make a recording of it to get the music.
I was a good amateur but only an average professional. I soon realized that there was a limit to how far I could rise in the music business, so I left the band and enrolled at New York University.
In every interview I've got to explain something about being white but still being into hip hop. It's gone way beyond the musical aspect of the business. And I'm as critical about music as everybody else is.
I'm sometimes critical about other artists who come out with something different until maybe I hear the music. If the music is there, then they did their job, and I'll enjoy the CD.
My goal was to play drums, but my father made me take piano lessons. He told me I needed to learn to read music first, so I took lessons for six years. I thank God that he made me take those lessons, because it taught me a tremendous amount.
Ray had so much love of life and the music. He had so much integrity. He treated the music with so much dignity and respect. I spent four and a half years as a sideman with Ray Brown's trio. Music was his life, more so than anyone I could mention.
I think there's a natural chemistry between us as friends; and there's really no separation between the rapport that we feel when we're in conversation and when we're playing music, it's one in the same.
You know, there're no rules between Russell and I. We don't want to have to have to talk too much, because it's really precious, really special to play music.
