Tana Yonas live in conversation with Jazz is Dead’s Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad.

In 2011, Grammy Award winning trumpet player Nicholas Payne wrote, “Jazz died in 1959. There may be cool individuals who say they play jazz, but ain’t shit cool about jazz as a whole… Jazz is haunted by its own hungry ghosts.” The controversial post quickly racked up hundreds of thousands of views and sparked an international debate in the jazz community.

More than a decade later, jazz lives on, and is actually experiencing something of a revival, largely fueled by younger audiences who are rediscovering the iconic catalogs of legendary jazz artists while a new generation of musicians infuses fresh ideas and sounds into classic jazz traditions.

Founded in 2017, Jazz is Dead has played a crucial role in the recent revival. Informed by hip-hop and vinyl culture, the global movement honors the legacies of “rare records and the artists who created them” through live concerts, visual media, and new recordings captured at their Linear Labs Studio in Highland Park, California. “A love story,” the project has featured forgotten artists from around the world including Brazilian composer Arthur Verocai, french jazz-funk group Cortex, and Ethiopian musician Mulatu Astatke as well as new artists like Irreversible Entanglements, O Terno, Apifera, and Takuya Kuroda.

This summer, Jazz is Dead have joined up with the LA Phil to bring three remarkable concerts to the newly renovated Ford Theater in Hollywood: A celebration of the Mizell Brothers on August 28; a night of Brazilian Samba Soul with Marcos Valle and opening performances by Azymuth and Brainstory on September 17; and the Ghanian legends Ebo Taylor and Pat Thomas for their first ever US performances together on October 9.

For tickets to Jazz is Dead at the Ford Theater: https://www.jazzisdead.com/news/jazz-is-dead-at-the-ford-2024

To celebrate the launch of Jazz is Dead’s summer residency, In Sheep’s Clothing’s Tana Yonas, aka Passionfruit, spoke with Jazz is Dead’s Ali Shaheed Muhammad (A Tribe Called Quest) and Adrian Younge at a special live in conversation event at The Ford. Below, an edited transcription of the first half of their conversation, which focused on the innovative jazz-funk productions of the Mizell Brothers.

Tana Yonas: When you started Jazz is Dead in 2017, did you anticipate that we would be here, not only on the Ford stage, but just bringing to life so much great music?

Adrian Younge: When we talk about the notion of being here, it’s rubbing shoulders with the people that created the records you love that you never really thought you’d ever be able to meet. Me and Ali are like brothers now, but there was a time before I even knew Ali that he was one of those people. Before we even go forward, what it’s really about is kind of beyond the talent. It’s a spiritual connection. There’s people that you love who’ve inspired you, but when someone asks, “What is it like to do a concert with this person or make music with this person,” it’s weird because that stuff doesn’t matter as much as just becoming their friends.

Did we ever think that we would be here? I think we all have individual dreams of what we all want to do and our life’s mission. I think as far as the people that we’ve been able to really engage with and work with, that starts with our partner Dru (Andrew Lojero). He’s the one who really makes the connections with these people, and we all play our part in this. It’s been crazy to be here, but at the same time, we really don’t know where we are. We know we’re somewhere, and people say things like, “Yo, this is special” and all that, and we know it is, but we don’t really understand what this all is yet, to be honest with you.

Ali Shaheed: That’s a very good question, Tana. I think about one of the earlier moments I had with Adrian was at his record store when it used to be in the Arts District. They had so many records on the wall. I don’t remember why I was there that day. I don’t know if Adrian had a book signing happening, but there was always so many great community events happening at Adrian’s store. I had a moment of bonding with Adrian looking at all of these amazing artists [on the wall]. I remember saying to him, “Adrian, pretty much most of the people on this wall, they’re not here anymore, but we are here because of them.”

Seeing everyone here now reminds me of that moment because music to me began from a communal perspective with my family and sitting around listening to records. When you ask, “Do you think that we would come to this point?” No. Did I ever think I would be sitting here with you, Adrian, and all the wonderful people out there, friends and new friends to listen to music? Absolutely not. I never even saw the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. That’s just still blowing my mind.

But the music connects us and we bonded because of our fascination for the like-mindedness of these amazing artists. I was a fan of Adrian, and Adrian’s a fan of me. So it is a beautiful exchange of energy. To know that you guys would come out and sit in this beautiful place to listen to some vinyl, that says a lot about what we do as artists, but more so what we all do together as humans. That’s the best way I can answer that.

TY: Unfortunately Larry Mizell couldn't join us tonight, but I feel like there are some similarities in the way you two produce music. One thing I noticed is how you immerse yourselves in a cinematic world musically. I was curious, when you two first met and talked shop, did you find similarities in how you actually produced music or thought about your musical language?

AY: Absolutely. I started seriously making music in ’96 when I got my first sampler. When I was sampling all these records, I realized that the records are inspiring me more than the derivative music I was making. So I said, “I need to learn how to play instruments and learn how to record these records and go on that route.” But from my point of view, the music I was creating was really from hip-hop. And who’s the best hip-hop group? This guy was a part of it. So, this scope was starting to be provided.

When I was young, let’s say 10, 11, 15 years old, if somebody said to me, “Yo, do you love jazz?” I didn’t even know what jazz was. You know what I’m saying? I was listening to hip-hop, but I was starting to understand the jazz that I like is through people like Ali because they were starting to sample these records that hip-hop kept alive. It’s interesting because I always say that when energy is created, it never really dissipates. It moves somewhere. So the energy of a lot of these records fell into the hands of all these hip-hop producers and they started making something new with it and started connecting modern audiences to the past. What Jazz is Dead has done is kind of kept that going because it’s all from the vantage point of vinyl, but more so that ear.

I got my guy back there [points to the back], Andre Torres, who, if you guys don’t know, founded my favorite magazine of all time, Wax Poetics. What’s crazy is that when we met, I was already reading the magazine. It’s just all these like-minded people coming together. We just did the Cortex show in Berkeley. I mentioned this on stage: “Yo, this is strange because these are all of our tribes. Everyone here, we’re all weirdos because everyone out there is normal. They’re listening to the radio, they’re doing all the normal stuff that they’re supposed to do. What happens is that it’s us weirdos that find that energy that’s not necessarily part of that whole Top 40 thing. We’re trying to preserve things that are timeless.” What Wax Poetics was doing was jotting down all the information for all of us vinyl heads, and we all kind of came together. Looking at the shows, looking at the people that came through, it’s all the people that are looking for this timeless music.

So then, fast-forward, when we get to actually meet with these people, we’re all speaking the same language, and whether these people are 60 to 70 to 80 years old, we’re all 20 years old in the studio. When we do it, we do it in a way where there are no computers. There is no, “You made the album that you’re known for in ’73.” There is no, “It’s 1978 and you must not make that cool jazz stuff. You have to make disco and I like disco, but you have to make this disco.” There’s no trying to fit in. It’s not 1985 and you got to change your cool ’72 sound to whack ’85 sounds. It’s like, “Yo, let’s go back to that time when you were free to do exactly what you wanted to do.” That’s what we’ve been doing, and what’s happening is that that’s what they’re doing on stage too.

You have people in their seventies or eighties performing for tens of thousands of people around the world that didn’t have that opportunity to do it before hip-hop created that vantage point that said, “Yo, these are the records that we love because of these kind of parts, these drum breaks, these basslines.” When we think about Mizell Brothers, they really pioneered the way that we mix and the way that we do things, because again, everything that we’re doing is from the vantage point of hip-hop. I’ll close in saying, in my life, my favorite hip-hop clubs I ever went to didn’t play any hip-hop. If you understand what that means, you’ll really understand what Jazz is Dead actually means.

TY: Adrian, I know you have a background in law and then I read that Larry Mizell has a background in aerospace engineering, which got me thinking about technology and music. How do you balance the desire for technical perfection while still making a track feel alive? To me, when I hear tracks from Mizell Brothers, they all sound perfect, but so alive at the same time. How do you maintain that balance?

AS: I think you have to have respect for technology and where you are in a contemporary time period. What I’ve learned is that having reverence for what came before you matters greatly. In the ’90s, the term “keeping it real” was a matter of being authentic. When you have reverence for that which has come before you, there’s a lot of information there that will lead and guide you. You take that with where you are in your own experience and what’s happening in the contemporary space to create the best art as possible. Another key ingredient is being true to yourself and knowing who you are. When you allow yourself to be that vulnerable, you can receive some of this information from the way that these songs were recorded in the past, have respect for that, and then add your own energy into it without going too far.

When you ask about the balance, it may be cool if some great creative person created a horn sound and they’re like, “I’m going to put this massive tenor saxophone, you’re going to swear on everything that John Coltrane is right here with you.” And you’re like, “Yes, give it to me.” You may trick yourself into believing, “Yes, Sir John Coltrane is in here and I’m going to use this to do my thing. It might work out.” But what we’ve learned is there’s a certain type of warmth and energy that comes from analog instruments and analog recording. No matter how far we get with technology, we have not been able to top that level of physics and electronics. So you have to have respect for that to know when you went too far. I think Jay-Z has a line that says something about putting cuts in your eyebrow i.e. trying to wild out, if you understand what that means.

There was a point in time where people were putting these cuts into their eyebrow to look good. Maybe you did, but you went too far. Someone didn’t tap you on your shoulders and say, “Come on…” It’s the same with the technology and the instruments. If you have respect and reverence for it, I think it’s easy to find a balance. You find your community because you could be somewhere else in Mars where people have a different belief system. I personally am open to technology. I’ll give you an example. The song “Brown Sugar” was made because there was a mistake that was happening in the studio with the computer, and I was the person who brought the computer into the studio, and everyone was looking at me like, “You fix it.” I’m looking at my engineer like, “Please help me fix this. I need to salvage this session.” Then Dee just happened to be playing something. I looked at him, I said, “Oh, we got it.”

I say that to say, sometimes having the extra gloss can add to the art, but you just have to know when to find a balance. It’s something that we strive towards: maintaining the balance. I think we know what we’ve been inspired by, and it is the strongest evidence of, “You should stay on that course.” I’ll give you one more example. When I’m using Serato [a DJ program where you have a laptop], and I look at the wave of an audio file of music from 2010 to now, it looks a certain way. When you go back [to music recorded before], it looks completely different. There’s the evidence of the physics of it. What we see in that wave, if we had a microscope, it would be the exact same way we would see these wave patterns on vinyl.

When you’re crossing over a certain time period, the emotion of the room shifts. The energy that I’m looking at on the wave is the evidence that there’s something different happening now. It turns to bottle popping, champagne popping, and that’s not to say nobody in here doesn’t enjoy popping a bottle, but the vibration, the energy is so different. Just trying to find a balance is where we try to stay inside of.

“My favorite hip-hop clubs I ever went to didn’t play any hip-hop. If you understand what that means, you’ll really understand what Jazz is Dead actually means.”

Adrian Younge

TY: You talking about waveforms just reminds me of the physicality of music, like sound waves actually entering our ears and causing a response. Do you think of music as a physical apparatus? Is that something you think about when you're in the studio?

AY: Unfortunately, for people like us, music means way more to us than it should. It’s kind of weird. It makes no sense, but it’s something that is just true. Music makes us feel a certain way. I mean, music to me is just as strong as the notion of love. You know what I’m saying? You could say, “Well, if love ain’t true then music ain’t true.” There’s that connection that’s just so deep and it means so much. What love is, what music is, it’s that connection, that human connection. When we’re doing Jazz is Dead, it’s about capturing human error, something a little off, something alive, right?

We’re listening to these Mizell Brothers productions today. These tracks aren’t emailed, right? They’re all in the room, they’re making it, and they’re choosing what mistakes to keep because they know the second take’s not going to be the same as the first take. We just had a Cortex show in Chicago that got stopped because there was a tornado. Everyone had the alerts on their phone that there’s a tornado. Everybody left, but they came right back in after it was over. Hey, that’s live music though. People were cool with that. They’re cool risking their life for music because we have a love, we have a connection. So, that’s what all of this music is about.

When Ali and I were recording our Gary Bartz album for Jazz is Dead — I knew about Gary Bartz because A Tribe Called Quest sampled Gary Bartz on “Butter.” I knew about the Gary song “Gentle Smiles” because A Tribe Called Quest sampled it.

What’s crazy is that when we were in the studio recording it, I’m sitting at the tape machine. I’m looking at Ali and Gary, and thinking, “When y’all sampled it, you couldn’t even really play anything. And now, you’re in there making a brand new album with somebody that has a ton of respect for you and you have a ton of respect for. You’re both adults and you’re doing something new and special, but you’re taking him back to the time when he did The Shadow Do! album with the Mizell Brothers. So it’s interesting because what Mizell Brothers did was they were able to fuse the notion of jazz and soul into something completely brand new, which really laid the platform for the upcoming hip-hop generation. They did it in a way where, in these hip-hop clubs, you could just play the Mizell Brothers stuff, and it’s better than the hip-hop stuff because it’s not just a loop of a part, it’s a full song.

So when we were there recording that, Larry was there and he was like, “Damn, this reminds us of being in the studio.” It was the craziest validation for what we’re doing when he said that because so much of my own music recording style was just based on their point of view through music, and not caring about who said this is jazz or it’s not jazz or whatever. It was special to have one of my favorite producers in the studio saying that about me and another one of my favorite producers that inspired me, and then having Gary Bartz there at the same time! That connects back, like I said with my Wax Poetics guys, to just knowing that, and understanding that journey to get to this.

That’s why at the beginning of this conversation, I said Jazz is Dead is everything just kind of coming alive. We’re shining light on people that may have been forgotten because most people don’t know who the Mizell Brothers are. In 2008 Wax Poetics had a Mizell Brothers issue that was amazing. What’s crazy is, I didn’t even know about the Mizell Brothers before that. A lot of my information was really fed to me through reading this Wax Poetics magazine. What’s crazy about that is that I knew all this music. I had all these records from Bobby Humphrey, I had Johnny Hammond’s Gears, I had the Donald Byrd stuff. You guys [A Tribe Called Quest] had flipped Donald Byrd’s Caricatures album on People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm, but I never ever knew that there was a production crew behind that.

That’s what is so interesting about the Mizell Brothers, they were able to fuse a brand new sound also with the use of synthesizers. You have to understand, right now, everyone takes synthesizers for granted. It’s like, whatever. I see them all the time. When they were using them, you have to understand that a few years prior, you were only really seeing these synthesizers in colleges and universities, because they were like a laboratory type instrument and too expensive to have in the studio. Then they started making these portable synthesizers, the ARP Solina, the Odyssey, the Minimoog, and they were teaching us as well as many other, from Led Zeppelin to all these other great artists from back then, how to use these electronic instruments. With their production, they saved Blue Note because they created this new sound.

Now that we’re doing Jazz is Dead, it’s interesting because there’s this through line where now we’re working with our mentors, people that we never really thought we’d ever get to work with. Back in the ’70s when the Mizell Brothers were driving their Porsches, they were also doing music with their mentors: Donald Byrd, Johnny Hammond, etc. It’s this whole cycle. But in addition, we’re having these concerts, and just like with hip-hop, we’re reintroducing all these iconic people and their music to new audiences. It’s a trip to see just how young the audiences are too. Kids being mad because they aren’t 21 and can’t get in to see an 80-year-old perform… It’s kind of crazy, but it’s so dope because real music is actually timeless.

TY: I feel like this is a perfect opportunity to listen to a Mizell Brothers recording. We have lots of vinyl here, but is there a particular song that you feel really highlights the voice of the Mizell Brothers? What made you pick that track? I guess, what are you getting when you're listening to it?

“We’re giving you the blues, we’re giving you the funk, but we’re also giving you this melody that makes you either want to dance, or something in your spirit is just floating.”

Ali Shaheed Muhammad on the Mizell Brothers

AS: One of the things about the Mizell Brothers music was that from a jazz and funk point of view, but more from the jazz side, they incorporated blues. Gary’s first run of the melody on this track is so blues. If you stripped everything away and just listen to that horn, it just really pulls you in. To me, it sounds sad. It sounds like he’s playing his heart out. He really is trying to speak to something to me. But then it’s layered with what the Mizell Brothers did to make it lyrical and super melodic. One of the reasons why Q-tip and I bonded, and why Adrian and I bond, is that we love melody and chords, and who doesn’t, right? We all do, right? It’s a simple, easy recipe to music, but it is not.

To be able to take chord progressions and move them in a certain way where you’re not losing people by over playing and doing all this noodling, as they say sometimes with jazz. They didn’t do that. They found a very direct straight, straight through. We’re giving you the blues, we’re giving you the funk, but we’re also giving you this melody that makes you either want to dance, or something in your spirit is just floating. That song has all the elements of what I think made their sound so successful.

Then the bass on that song… The bass player is singing as much as Gary is, and the pocket of the drums, for me, is straight hip-hop. I hear that. I’m just hearing bass and drums the first time I heard this. But then everything else, all the layers start to fall into place. The piano is so graceful. Again, if we start to strip back these other instruments to really pay attention to what all the players are doing, there’s just so much love in that.

Gary’s a cheeky dude, man. Adrian and I have had the honor to spend some time with him and to really see how the OGs behave. Listening to that, it really fills in his personality. It’s cute. It’s really cute, and it’s charming. That song to me, again, just has all the recipes of what the Mizell Brothers did really well with a lot of the artists that they produced.

AY: One of their tricks is that it was a drum first production. Obviously, in hip-hop, it’s drums first. When we were in the studio, Larry would talk about how they would make sure they mic’d the hi-hat, and try to get as much fidelity out of the drum set first. That’s a very forward-thinking concept for the time because were just getting deeper into multi-track recording. Before that, it was four-track, it was two-track, and you had a whole bunch of mics in the room, and you’re picking up the entire room. Now they’re focusing on that drum sound as part of their sound.

When they were making a lot of these productions, the Mizell Brothers had their crib over here in the hills, and they would work out a lot of these parts in their room together. Then they would bring the parts to the studio, Sound Factory, and have the musicians kind of play it, work it out, and do it live. That’s what you’re hearing when you’re hearing this. Again, when you listen to this music, you have to understand that you’re listening to music with no computers involved. It’s all real people. There’s a different feeling, there’s a timelessness to it. Also, when you’re hearing that, that’s what live music is. It’s this analog, organic thing.

It’s interesting, when we’re talking about this notion of timelessness, it’s also making people that I thought were old younger. We got tight homies that are in their mid-80s, you know what I’m saying? We’re kicking it and we’re older now too, but on the real, right? When I was younger, I used to always think of eighty-something like, “Dang, 80.” Larry’s 83, but music keeps you young and you’re creating something that lasts for decades.

It’s crazy to see the human connection with no robots in between. Our love for music connects us and makes things timeless. Age just doesn’t matter. It’s not that we’re trying to go back, we’re just trying to keep things bespoke. You know what I’m saying? We’re trying to have our unique signature on it, and cultivate these handmade experiences for people to come together. That’s what that music represents to me, and that’s what Jazz is Dead is.

TY: Of course, the name Jazz is Dead is very tongue-in-cheek. Since Jazz is Dead started in 2017, jazz has seen a resurgence all over the world in places like London, New York, Chicago, and, of course, Los Angeles. Has the name changed meaning over the years as jazz is more relevant than ever?

AS: Our partner Dru (Andrew Lojero) was very intentional with the concept, and even the question of, “Is Jazz dead?” I think he phrased it differently.

AY: We were doing a concert for an artist, and Dru (Andrew Lojero) was like, “Man, I got to do this concept, but these tickets ain’t going to sell. Damn, jazz is dead,” and a light bulb went off in his head. He called me and was like, “Yo, dude, what do you think about us creating this whole series called Jazz is Dead?” I remember saying, “Yo, that’s pretty ill for a show. I don’t know if we could do a label or anything called Jazz is Dead, but I think it’s dope for a show.” But then, what happened was the show sold out, and there was an immediate excitement. You could feel like it was a catharsis of people coming together. It was like all of these people who didn’t feel like going to bars or these wack clubs were coming to something very special under the auspices of Jazz is Dead, which when you go and you see what’s happening, you realize it’s far from that. So it’s kind of like the name protects and shields you, but also emboldens you. You know what I’m saying?

It was a reflection of seeing all of these things that changed my mind about what it was. Then going around the world and seeing it in different languages and seeing people respond to it. Seeing people hate it is just as dope as seeing people that like it. Because when people hate it, then they start acting like they didn’t hate it when they realize what it is. It’s all a beautiful thing because it’s a way to excite people and a way to piss people off. It’s working and it’s growing. If we didn’t have the name Jazz is Dead, people would not have asked as many questions as they did. People have a better understanding of what the name is now.

AS: Yeah, I don’t think it’s changed, because for us, it’s always been a love story from the beginning, from day one, and that has not changed. If anything, the love is outpouring and we’re receiving it back, and it’s growing. This whole idea is touching so many different people around the world and people are bringing their friends, people are bringing their grandchildren. That’s the part that strengthens what’s inside sometimes when we feel that we don’t have a large enough community from a global perspective. It’s just the five of us really grinding hard off of this love story, off of loving vinyl, being kids, digging in the crates and growing up to make music, to then be in a room with those who taught us everything we know, and they’re willing to take the journey with us to start all over again, another revolution.

For it to reach an eight-year-old, there’s nothing greater than that because that’s a tangible physical thing. We can see the love growing. We look at what was done with Blue Note Records, and we go, “Okay, they up there,” we will be up there. Then, God willing, someone else will continue to carry the torch, because Q-Tip’s words in my head now, “The love never dies,” from “Bonita Applebum.” Seriously, the love does not die, and we have so much more work to do if we really look around what’s happening in the world. I’m not going to strap a AK-47 on my back, but I’m going to go grab my soldier brother over here and we’re going to get in the studio and make something to hopefully change the vibration of what’s going on globally.

TY: I'd love to play one more song from the Mizell Brothers' discography, but before that, I would love to know how you connected with Larry Mizell, and did it take any work to convince him to get on stage for his birthday next month?

AY: I remember us bringing Larry on stage to a Jazz is Dead concert with Gary Bartz. Later, he came to the studio. We were just feeling the OG’s energy, just being around there with the ill sunglasses, you know what I’m saying? Looking super cool. I’m like, “I need to be like that.” He’s just a very humble, quiet guy that doesn’t speak much, but he listens and he’s just a great guy. It’s an honor to… Again, going back to my earlier thing, we’re super happy to be able to have his concert here and do all that, but it’s really that we get to sit with him and just build with him and talk with him. It’s that energy sharing.

The notion of this highlight series is for the artists to see why we care so much, and they see why we care so much based on the response of the audience that comes to see them. It’s crazy, because a lot of people that come to these shows and it’s all great and it’s fun, but what you guys don’t get to see is when these artists have tears in their eyes because they’re so happy and grateful. With a lot of these artists, pre-Jazz is Dead, if they’re coming to LA, they’re performing at this little club here. It’s kind of like the vibe ain’t really right. It’s kind of like Carnival Cruise-y type vibe. It ain’t all cool, it’s just what it is.

So when they come to these events, they’re coming to these parties that are inspired by this hip-hop culture that really, really loves music. Now they’re coming out and they’re having a younger audience, that’s just as attentive, and they come out, some of them their first time in Los Angeles or their first time performing in Los Angeles, and then they leave and you see this light on their face and in their eyes that wasn’t necessarily there when you might’ve been FaceTiming them before. So it’s this whole thing. Then doing an album and seeing their name charting again, and then seeing people reaching out to them on Facebook. You know what I’m saying? You notice I didn’t say IG.

It’s this special thing that happens. Even when it tires us out and we’re like, “Yo, man, I can’t do this on Saturday,” just to see how they feel after, it gives us energy. So it’s this cyclical thing. Again, earlier I talked about how energy never really dissipates, it just moves. They give you that energy back, and it just goes back and forth. We’ve created lifelong relationships. Unfortunately, some of the people that we created albums with have already passed unexpectedly, because we’re hanging out with people who are 87 years old sitting in the studio smoking weed, and telling us stories about how in the ’60s when they used to live in Glendale, they got arrested, stuff like that.

I don’t smoke weed, but if you’re 86, 87 and you want to smoke weed in the studio, yo, dude, live your life. So imagine that. Then, they’re no longer with us like a year or two later. Then you think about all the things you learned from them. One of those artists is João Donato. Tribe Called Quest also sampled his music. This is another one of those times where I’m around Ali, seeing these OGs, and looking at these conversations. There’s a video I have on my phone of João playing “Aquarius.” If you listen to the them of Midnight Marauders where you have the woman speaking over the “Midnight Marauders Tour Guide”, that’s the “Aquarius” song written by João Donato. He couldn’t figure out why I was freaking out so much about how he played this song. He’s like, “You want me to play this song at the performance?” I was like, “Yo, bro, you have to, trust me.” “But it’s a waltz.” I’m like, “Dude, trust me. Trust me. Just play it.” There’s a video on my phone where his wife was filming him on the small Rhodes, and I’m asking about his chord structure and how he played all that. He’s sitting there just teaching me. I learned so much about his style of playing, because he created that first wave bossa nova style of piano playing that you hear throughout those decades.

We were going to have him perform with Joyce, but he hurt his back. Next thing you know, we get a call that he’s not here with us anymore, but we have all these beautiful memories with somebody who, when he was with us, wasn’t old. That’s what music does. It keeps you young, and it makes me want to do music for the rest of my life, because of that youthful spirit that all of these brothers, from Larry to Marcos, to Ebo Taylor, all of them have, because they’re able to release themselves and share their soul with everybody through music to keep them young.

TY: I guess, in that spirit, I think we could all use a little fountain of youth. So I'd love to hear another selection from the Mizell Brothers before we move on to talking about Marcos Valle and Azymuth.

AY: Ali just blew my mind right now. So the one soundtrack that the Mizell Brothers did was Hell Up in Harlem, and there’s a song called “Easin’ In” on there. If you listen to this song, “Easin’ In on Hell Up in Harlem,” it’s been sampled by so many people.

What’s crazy is that this Bobbi Humphrey album is probably the album I’ve listened to most out of all Mizell Brothers productions. I never realized that that song is the same thing as “Easin’ In” on Edward Starr’s Hell Up in Harlem, which is a blaxploitation movie. It’s part two of Black Caesar. If you listen to where the drum breaks are and all that stuff, it’s the same writing, but just slowed down. I was just asking Ali like, “Yo, why you never told me this before?” because I know this song, and I know the other song, but I didn’t put two and two together.

AS: Again, I know this song because of Ice-T and hip-hop. That arrangement, it is the same, but there’s just a very subtle thing. I really wished that Larry was here, because I wanted to ask him, “Okay, man, what was the ingredient?” Because it is the same, but it’s different. There are a few things that they have done with their instrument choices throughout the different artists that they work with, which have this element. The Brand Nubians have this song “Punks Jump Up to Get Beat Down,” which sampled something from a Bobbi Humphrey song. There’s this little sprinkle of a synth. It’s not harpy, but it has a very high kind of sound. They’ve also done that on Stepping Into Tomorrow and on Johnny Hammond’s Gears.

So the point that I’m making is that they are really great with taking these fractional motifs that we ultimately kept. We jump onto the sample, but when you really pull the scope back and listen to their body of work, it’s just like, “Wow, how did they do that and still make it original and fresh?” That’s something that as a DJ, we’re always striving, listening to these records. Living inside of this four-bar loop is boring. How do I get outside of that? The way that I would get outside of that is, and Adrian knows this, finding another record to layer on top of it, and then it has a feeling that it’s moving and shifting, but how do we do more? All right, find another record. Ultimately, the limitation of just doing that was what inspired me to pick up an instrument, because I’m like, “I need to know how to do this without having to rely on that.” But as we’re listening to this music and we’re studying how they do it, it’s still fascinating, because it’s always fresh.

AY: One more thing before we close out on the Mizell Brothers to actually connect us to Azymuth. One of the signature instruments that they used was this keyboard called the ARP Solina. That was kind of the first real pioneering string synthesizer. You’ll hear this sound on Roy Ayers albums, Lonnie Liston Smith, you’ll hear it all over. You’ll hear it on Stevie Wonder’s stuff for the first time. You could be in the studio and now you have string sounds. So you may listen to it now. It could sound kind of cheesy to you because you think of strings. I mean, string synthesizers are just way better now, right? It’s interesting because the ARP Solina was a coveted instrument. It cost thousands of dollars to get one, and the Mizell Brothers were the first alongside Stevie Wonder, and a couple other people to be able to test the ARP Solina.

They were one of the firsts to help pioneer that sound. I was sitting with Larry and I said, “Yo, when you guys were using it, were you using it to really mimic strings? Or were you really using it because of that texture, that’s not really strings, but something different?” He said the latter. It was just something different. You have to understand that there’s a major limitation on what you can use to create. Like I said before, this was the dawn of portable electronic synthesizers. So people are now crafting a new sonic landscape with these instruments, and they’re using it to fuse jazz and soul into something new. Also, when you’re hearing this music, the thing to me that’s one of the most compelling, is you have to understand that that music was considered pop music. That music literally saved the Blue Note Label.

So you hear it now and it’s funky and aggressive and it’s cool. But imagine, that album came out in ’73 and other jazz musicians are hating on you saying you’re selling out and, “This ain’t jazz. This ain’t good for the sound. This ain’t good for the music.” But what’s interesting is that you have to understand that, at one time, straight ahead jazz was like pop music, like classical music. That’s what was on the radio, and that’s what selling the most records.

Now, we’re getting into the seventies. It’s not necessarily the same. They kept that sound alive with their point of view and how they were able to fuse all of this into a new kind of jazz-funk that really laid the firm foundation for a lot of hip-hop. Also, when you listen to a lot of the CTI albums and these other labels, all of them kind of followed suit following a sound that they pioneered. When they did this sound, it was when Motown came from Detroit to LA, and they were part of “I Want You Back.” This was the new revolutionary sound, but people didn’t really believe in their sound until they really started creating this new jazz-funk. Then they were able to get into disco with “Boogie Woogie Oogie” and all that stuff, and did a lot of amazing things. I just want to say that they’re really timeless pioneers. You could listen to their music and it just never gets old. You’re always hearing something new.

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Photos by Halline Overby courtesy of the LA Phil