Below is the transcript of the above interview, which originally aired on March 31st, 2025.
Ears of Maize: All righty. Good afternoon KALX listeners. I’m Ears of Maze. It’s 4:30. What we just heard there was April Sonata taken from Adrian Younge Presents Something About April II. And in front of me, I have Adrian Younge and the band.
Adrian Younge: What’s up man?
Ears of Maize: Thank you and welcome to Berkeley.
Adrian Younge: Thank you. Thank you. It feels good to be here. And it’s interesting listening to that song. I’m with the band and we’re like, “Damn, we haven’t heard that song in a long time.” [Chuckles.] So thank you for playing that and showing us some old music.
Ears of Maize: Absolutely. Absolutely. Again, welcome to Berkeley and you guys are here touring as part of–
Adrian Younge: Yeah.
Ears of Maize: –Something about April.
Adrian Younge: Uh, exactly.
Ears of Maize: Part three.
Adrian Younge: Exactly. So basically we’re touring the trilogy. So Something About April I came out in 2011. Part two, of which you just played a song, came out in 2015, and in April – on April 18th – part three comes out, Something about April III. So I got my crew here. We’re playing the music, Something About April and, and more upcoming and older stuff that I have in my catalog.
Ears of Maize: Fantastic. Um, do you want to introduce the band or sort of, I’d love to speak, speak to how you’ve assembled yourselves?
Adrian Younge: I would love to. Yeah. So on my right there’s uh, Loren Oden and he is a vocalist that you pretty much hear on most of my music since Black Dynamite, which was released in 2009. And then next to him, you have Jack Waterson, who is primarily the guitarist, but has played drums and they both have albums on Linear Labs. Like I’m pretty sure you guys have played their music here. Then we have Alicia Camiña, who is an incredible, ridiculous tenor saxophone player. We also have Tylana Enimoto, who is an insane violin player. And we also have Marcelo Buga– Buga– Bugater, who is the backbone– [He seems to to stutter intentionally – someone chuckles in the background] who kills it on stage with the drums. And um, yeah. So we’re here. The rest are in the hotel, but we wanted to come and say hello to you guys as you support us, and we really, really, really appreciate it.
Ears of Maize: Fantastic. And again, welcome to Berkeley and the East Bay.
Adrian Younge: Thank you.
Ears of Maize: Are these all folks that you’ve played with in sort of studio sessions or it’s– you’ve assembled this band just to travel–
Adrian Younge: For both.
Ears of Maize: Okay.
Adrian Younge: It’s both. Yeah, it’s both. So it’s, it’s all of that, like, it’s interesting because when you– if you dive into the catalog, especially Something About April, there’s just– in order to play the music, there’s just a lot you have to know about where the music comes from. So I’ve always been very particular with who I actually choose to play with, because I always say I record music in order to perform it live and in order to give it life. So, uh, we were very calculated in choosing people to hang out. First of all, you won’t sound good if you don’t know how to go shopping at vintage stores. I dunno why, but that’s just, it’s just what it is. [Laughing. Others join in.] So I had to pick people that love vintage, but then beyond that, on a more serious note, um, like everything is analog, right? So you can’t– we can’t travel and you’re bringing your iPod– iPad to plug into a DI to play– It’s just not the music, not the sound. So it’s just like-minded people, uh, and they bring the music to life. And that’s what– that’s what it is. Like having people that are better than you around you, you know? Uh, to really create an experience and, and we’re looking forward to creating an experience at our show tomorrow.
Ears of Maize: Hell yeah. And to plug it one more time, Tuesday, April 1st, tomorrow night, uh, happening at Cornerstone.
Adrian Younge: Yes.
Ears of Maize: Um, looking forward to everyone being out at that. Um, can you kind of introduce where, um, Something About April III sort of falls within this trilogy?
Adrian Younge: Absolutely, absolutely. So. I’ll just kind of go back to kind of tell the story. Um, I started making beats, sampling records in ‘96 and I soon realized that the music I really wanted to make was the music that was inspiring me from these records that sound, that composition, not the derivative sample beats I was making. So I took the time to start teaching myself how to play different instruments and started figuring things out and, um, basically my journey took me to wanting to be the next, like, Ennio Morricone meets RZA meets Curtis Mayfield meets like a King Crimson or whatever. And Something About April, the first album, represents the work that I put in studying records and trying to become one of these musicians in order to create one album that represented my DJ crate. So when you listen to Something About April, it has all those elements in there. Then that kind of style of music, where it’s from, what I call the breaks perspective, is kind of like you’re listening to the kind of music, uh, a hip hop producer would want a sample had they found these records from back in the day. Using that perspective to create full compositions is essentially Something About April is. Um, and then did part one. When it came out, people loved it, but it really blew up after the Jay-Z samples and, uh, other people started sampling it. Then that led into us doing a lot of different albums, uh, and then we did Something About April II and then a lot of other albums. And now, uh, Something About April III, you know, so there’s a lot to the world, but essentially there’s Something About April world is– it’s basically a trilogy of records. It’s a world in and of itself where you like prog rock as much as you like hip hop, as much as you like jazz, as much as you like cinematic soul. Like that’s what it is. So it’s kind of like a strange world for strange people to enter.
Ears of Maize: Hell yeah. Well, it’s, it’s welcome company here with, with–
Adrian Younge: Thank you.
Ears of Maize: –Our DJs and our listeners. Thank you for that. In looking at some of– sort of not only your recent discography, but also looking at, um, the tour dates on this current tour, I see that Brazil is a piece that continues to show itself.
Adrian Younge: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Ears of Maize: Can you sort of speak to that influence and how it finds itself on this record or with the tour and–?
Adrian Younge: Absolutely, absolutely. So you’re basically saying, could you answer the question I asked you to answer? [Ears of Maize laughs.] So I will answer that now. Um, basically, so Something About April III is very much inspired by the trips that we’ve been taking to Brazil since 2019. Um, essentially, my group along with Ali Shaheed Muhammad, called the Midnight Hour, had a show out there in 2019 and we were there also and we performed and it was just– it was just a culture shock because, ’cause I just fell absolutely in love with the culture. I mean, on that trip we met Marcos Valle, so much other iconic Brazilians, and we just– it was just like– there’s some past life, something happening over here. I’m not speaking their language, but spiritually we are connecting. It’s crazy. We’re performing and we’re seeing people singing the words to our music and all that stuff. It was just like, yo, seriously? And then digging deep into the crates, and then discovered for the first time in my life that there was another region in the world that had a well of music as deep as ours here in the US. So I just started going deeper and deeper and deeper, and I just– again, started becoming more connected to the culture. Um, I started taking Portuguese lessons. Um, I started meeting more iconic musicians from the ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s. And then with our record label, uh, concert promotion company slash institution Jazz Is Dead, we started creating a myriad of albums with these people, um, and– in a weird way, I felt like I just started to become Brazilian in a weird way. Like, like, it’s like I’m a gringo saying that, right? Like I’m becoming Brazilian. But it was something that I actually really felt. So with doing Jazz Is Dead, we did albums with, uh, Brazilian icons like Marcos Valle, João Donato, Azymuth. Um, we have an upcoming album with Hyldon, upcoming album with Carlos Dafé upcoming album with Joyce Moreno e Tutty Moreno. Uh, there’s still so many more Brazilians that we’ve worked with. And this is just in the last five years. So I wanted to end Something About April trilogy in a way that represented where I am right now. So that means that I wanted to make, uh, a Something About April style album, which would be like a psychedelic soul album that would have come out in like ‘69 or ‘70 that’s very soulful, yet psychedelic and I did the entire thing in Portuguese.
Ears of Maize: Wow.
Adrian Younge: So like it’s a big risk for me to do an album like that as an American, but it’s– for me, it’s a big homage to a place that’s given so much great music to the world and hasn’t really received as much back. So that’s what this is, and it’s just been interesting to see that people are down with it.
Ears of Maize: Mmm.
Adrian Younge: You know, just with the singles that we’ve been released and like, we’re performing stuff live and we’re seeing people bobbin’ their head, when in my head, they shouldn’t be, they should be confused, but they’re bobbin’ their head, it’s like, “Really? Are y’all down with this? Okay, let’s go.” So we are going, uh– April 30th is gonna be our first date in Brazil, in a place called Belo Horizonte. And then after that we’ll be in Sao Paulo performing, and we’re also bringing out some of the icons that I mentioned, and then after that, uh, we’re going to Curitiba in Brazil. So it’s, it’s like a real dream come true to be able to do something like this.
Ears of Maize: That’s awesome.
Adrian Younge: So that’s the connection there, yeah.
Ears of Maize: And um, again, to sort of bring that home, I saw that these look like– sort of the capstones to your current tour with, again, taking this music to Brazil.
Adrian Younge: Exactly.
Ears of Maize: And I even saw the notes, like you mentioned with special guests and even an expansion of your orchestra to upwards of 40 pieces, right?
Adrian Younge: Exactly. Yes, exactly. So basically like, uh, a lot of this is essentially my– you know, as you create goals in life as an artist, you say, you know, one day I want to be this. You know, uh, when I was young, it was just like, “I wanna be able to do music and get a lot of girls.” Right? [Laughter.] And then, you know, you start taking music a bit more serious and, um, you start finding who you’re supposed to be creatively. And then you say, “Okay, I wanna make these kind of albums and get these kind of girls.” Right? [Laughing.] Then you, and then you become more mature and you just wanna focus more so on the music and just have those girls love your music, right?
Ears of Maize: Mm Hmm.
Adrian Younge: And, um. What’s crazy about this journey is that I always say I went from the sampler to the symphony. Like, I was sampling records and didn’t know anything about music theory to the point now where I can, you know, use my musical point of view to create music that could be as grand as a Lalo Schifrin or whomever, uh, because I put the work in to actually learn how to play with the symphony. And so, like, that’s what these concerts are representing now, and these are kind of like the dreams come true. So in a strange way, it’s like, uh– the perspective is if you could have like a Pink Floyd on stage with, you know, Ennio Morricone conducting the orchestra or something, that’s essentially what we seek to bring to the audience. It’s that, uh, that in-your-face music that is still romantic and beautiful and touches people and when we perform, our aim is to make people cry, you know, to make people happy, uh, to move people and to inspire people to, uh, seek more outta music. Because just like this station, I think we’re like the antithesis of, uh, what everybody else thinks is cool.
Ears of Maize: Mm Hmm.
Adrian Younge: Like, we’re the arbiters of cool.
Ears of Maize: Yeah.
Adrian Younge: Like, that’s what we do, and that’s what these shows are representing. If you come to our shows– like, there ain’t gonna be no nerds in there. [Pauses.] Well, we’re nerds, so–
Ears of Maize: Right.
Adrian Younge: But we– well, what we call other people nerds, right?
Ears of Maize: Yep.
Adrian Younge: It is like, it’s just us quote cool people, you know, um, trying to express ourselves, and that’s what we all kind of appreciate. So that’s what this tour is.
Ears of Maize: Right on. And I– personally, as a listener, have always found this cinematic thread–
Adrian Younge: Yes.
Ears of Maize: –Through the music that you make.
Adrian Younge: Yes, yes, yes.
Ears of Maize: And to sort of apply that to my own kind of evolution as a listener.
Adrian Younge: Mm Hmm.
Ears of Maize: As someone who appreciates this analog side of music and the authenticity and the handmade sort of–
Adrian Younge: Mm Hmm.
Ears of Maize: –Component of it all.
Adrian Younge: Mm Hmm.
Ears of Maize: Has music always had this tie-in to movies, film scores, the cinematic sort of edge to it? Or is that sort of a graduation to you? Or there was an aha moment? Again, in my own journey, I can think of, you sort of find the sound that you like, and then you seek out the players, and then for me it was this evolution to, like, doing the deep dive on labels.
Adrian Younge: Mm Hmm.
Ears of Maize: And from where this came–
Adrian Younge: Mm Hmm.
Ears of Maize: I’m curious how that relates to sort of the cinematic element–
Adrian Younge: Yeah.
Ears of Maize: Or that same journey for yourself or something much different.
Adrian Younge: Well, two things. My theory is that everybody has what I call a core. Everybody has a core. So like, um, your core– my core is soundtrack music between ‘68 and ‘73, soulful soundtrack music. But it took me many different– listening to many different artists to get me close to my core. So if I’m listening to Wu-Tang, and then I’m listening to Curtis Mayfield, and then I’m listening to, uh, someone who sampled Curtis, it’s like all these things are leading me somewhere. And then when you find that thing that you lead, that, I mean– when you find that thing that is your core, then that’s kind of the music that was kind of made for you, right? So like, what’s happened for me personally is– all hip hop, ’cause hip hop is a bricolage of vinyl culture, all from– from all these different genres. So sampling all these genres and then me seeking out the records, led me to my core. And so when you’re hearing the music, you’re hearing, uh, how much I love old soundtrack music, because soundtrack music tells stories, but also what I think a lot of people don’t realize is that pop music and all other kinds of music are soundtrack music too. Because when you could listen to music and close your eyes and see a story and see something, it’s cinematic. So I always liken the– the example I use is, you know, the Delfonics La-La Means I Love You. Most people that are younger than me will hear that and think it’s like– hear it cinematically because it was in, uh, Jackie Brown.
Ears of Maize: Mm Hmm.
Adrian Younge: But they don’t know what it meant before that. You know what I’m saying?
Ears of Maize: Mm Hmm.
Adrian Younge: So, so cinematic music is essentially something that gives you a picture, you know, with Stranger Things using all that– all those eighties joints, right?
Ears of Maize: Mm Hmm.
Adrian Younge: Younger people hear that music differently now.
Ears of Maize: Mm Hmm.
Adrian Younge: That’s all cinematic music to them.
Ears of Maize: Mm Hmm.
Adrian Younge: You know, so.
Ears of Maize: Wow. Okay. Um, I wanted to ask too: you know, you bring this tour here to Berkeley–
Adrian Younge: Mm Hmm.
Ears of Maize: Again, looking at the other tour dates that you have: Sao Paulo, New York, um– why pick Berkeley, in sort of the Bay Area market here? I know that the East Bay is obviously a hub for music of that era, but, um, how did Berkeley and we find a spot here on your tour when you were selecting dates?
Adrian Younge: Yeah. Well. It doesn’t matter.
Ears of Maize: [Chuckling.] Okay.
Adrian Younge: We just wanna be here.
Ears of Maize: Cool.
Adrian Younge: We wanna find our audiences.
Ears of Maize: Right on.
Adrian Younge: You know, it could be like, “Why Nebraska?” Because there’s cats in Nebraska that love this music, so let’s go. You know? And plus, I mean, I’m born in San Francisco and also my connection, musically, to here is that, you know, we did the Souls of Mission album in 2013 and we’re West Coast, you know, we’re LA, so Bay is the other LA, or LA is the other Bay in a weird way, so this is still kind of home, you know?
Ears of Maize: Mm Hmm.
Adrian Younge: And, and it’s not, you know, we don’t think: “Hey man, should we be going to Berkeley? Do they deserve us?” It’s like, no, we go to play for people that are willing to come and see us, you know? So if, you know, wherever somebody needs to feel our energy, you know, it’s, it’s an honor for us to be there, so that’s why we’re here, you know?
Ears of Maize: Cool. I appreciate that.. Again, we collectively feel honored that, that y’all would choose to, to bring your music here to Berkeley.
Adrian Younge: Dude, look man. I love it here.
Ears of Maize: Cool.
Adrian Younge: You know?
Ears of Maize: Cool. Happy to have you. And again, I wanted to call out again the Souls of Mischief collab there.
Adrian Younge: Yes.
Ears of Maize: And I also found it striking– I was listening to that record this past week and, um, the sort of segues– the skits that you do in that album–
Adrian Younge: Yeah.
Ears of Maize: –Where you call out 90.7 K-NOW.
Adrian Younge: Yeah, yeah.
Ears of Maize: It’s the same, um, station number here as 90.7 FM KALX Berkeley.
Adrian Younge: [Amazed.] WOW!
Ears of Maize: Dunno if that was on your radar or not, but–
Adrian Younge: [Chuckling in the background from band members.] Dang! See that’s–
Ears of Maize: Deep cut.
Adrian Younge: Well, well, yeah, because we were, we were telling this story–
Ears of Maize: Yeah.
Adrian Younge: About– wow, that’s craziness. And Ali Shaheed was the fake DJ for that.
Ears of Maize: Yep.
Adrian Younge: But a lot of this correlates with– a lot of people don’t really know the radio history here, you know, and a lot of people don’t know how hip hop actually started coming to the radio. So that story is because in the Bay– the Bay helped to break hip hop on the radio. You know, there was a time when you would not hear hip hop on the radio.
Ears of Maize: Mm Hmm.
Adrian Younge: So that’s kind of part of what that story is, you know, like it was happening all here and it was happening with KDAY in LA.
Ears of Maize: Mm Hmm.
Adrian Younge: At the same kind of time, you know, when programmers were saying, well, we need to make money, and advertisers don’t wanna pay for this. But then people didn’t realize that a lot of these young white kids wanted to listen to hip hop.
Ears of Maize: Mm Hmm.
Adrian Younge: You know, and it was just like, “Oh, well, okay, fine. We’ll do it.” And then once it all started happening, uh, like from The Chronic to, you know, all that stuff, like that time from ‘91 to ‘93, all that stuff is the first time we started hearing hip hop become pop music. And then the radio started– they said, “Okay–” Because a lot of radio stations, even out here, were trying to push a lot more of the freestyle stuff and all that, which I love, but the kids wanted the hip hop, and that’s a lot about what that story’s talking about.
Ears of Maize: Cool. The other piece for me too, in sort of doing some, I don’t know, some listening and prep for knowing that we’d have a conversation today, I found a lot of the music that I was listening to, kind of in the spirit of the music that you make– what I was listening to this past week, a lot of it was coming out of Fantasy Studios.
Adrian Younge: Oh!
Ears of Maize: That’s, again, based here in Berkeley.
Adrian Younge: Oh, yes.
Ears of Maize: So there’s also a jazz edge, too–
Adrian Younge: Yes.
Ears of Maize: –To sort of the Berkeley scene, the East Bay.
Adrian Younge: Yes, absolutely.
Ears of Maize: And I find it all sort of complementary to what you’re doing, what we’re talking about here.
Adrian Younge: Yeah.
Ears of Maize: On both the hip hop influence–
Adrian Younge: Yes.
Ears of Maize: –As well as sort of the Staples jazz scene.
Adrian Younge: The thing is, the reason why I love– first of all, my favorite music was made before I was born. First of all.
Ears of Maize: Same.
Adrian Younge: So, like, the thing is that it’s not as though that music is just better than other music. It’s just that there’s people like us that need music that is more cultivated, right? We need to hear more of a connection to culture in the music. There needs to be, uh, more thought put into the music. So what’s great about a lot of stuff on Fantasy, a lot of stuff on Blue Note all the time, um, and other commensurate labels is that you hear where hip hop was coming from. It’s kind of like– as a DJ, you know, like when I would always play DJ sets, I wouldn’t even play a hip hop song. It’s all that stuff because it’s– it’s hip hop squared, hip hop mastered the drums, it never matched the composition. This is stuff where you’re getting the drums and the composition. So like when I listen to those records and, in having a record store for so many years, when you show that music to younger people, they’re very open to hearing it because they don’t know that this exists. And again, it helps these younger people get to their “core” when you could disseminate this music just like you guys have been doing for, you know, decades, you know what I’m saying? So, um, we’re all on a musical journey and none of us knows everything and each generation of DJ needs to pass on what they know to the next generation, because stuff that might be simple to us is brand new for that next generation. It’s like, oh, you know, “Oh my God.” You know, a perfect example of this is when you think about the evolution of hip hop, let’s just say from, uh, let’s just say from like ‘87 to to ‘93, ‘94.
Ears of Maize: Mm Hmm.
Adrian Younge: Because of all the hip hop drum break records, like Ultimate Breaks & Beats and all that stuff, you had an amalgamation of just parts of records that was provided to producers all over the world to make things from, but there’s– they’re all kind of cookie cutter, but in doing this quote, cookie cutter thing, you’re hearing various, various, various perspectives on musics from around the world. And hip hop is the only genre that did that. No other genre said, “Let’s be open to everything else from around the world,” you know, so, like, we’ve learned so much from listening to these old records, and keeping these records in a cycle of, of renewing themselves with sampling. And in doing so, it’s the first genre, especially Black genre of music, that didn’t forget the past.
Ears of Maize: Hmm.
Adrian Younge: And, and what this means is that– and I think this epitomizes what our Jazz Is Dead movement is. It’s like it shows you that we can still listen to and create with icons of the past. And going back to this, not to go off on a tangent too much, but Black culture is one of the only cultures who, like, just forget about their past and it’s onto the next, onto the next, onto the next. But we have so much great music here, um, you know, young white kids still know about Led Zeppelin and the Beatles, you know what I’m saying? But like, how many young Black kids know about the Isley Brothers and Curtis Mayfield? Like– we always forget about our past, but if someone samples it, they’re hot for a little bit at least. So, at least sampling has connected us back, you know?
Ears of Maize: Yeah. You know, on that same thread, um, who do you find as sort of the audience for– especially the Jazz Is Dead series? Is it building a bridge between sort of the old cats and the heads and sort of the new folks that find these artists in the music through sort of the hip hop connection? Is it a brand new audience? Where does that territory take you?
Adrian Younge: So it’s interesting. So for those of you that don’t know, so we have literally 23 albums out right now on Jazz Is Dead. And, um, what, what we’ve done– myself, uh, [and] Ali Shaheed Muhammad, is that we’ve recorded new albums with iconic, iconic musicians from the past and present. So you know, from Gary Bartz to Doug Carn, to Marcos Valle, to Brian Jackson, to Roy Ayers, who recently passed. Like, there’s all these people that we looked at their catalog and said, “What can we do to continue those conversations and make new music where we’re not just rehashing the past?” So we went into my studio, my Linear Lab Studio that’s all analog, and recorded things with the same kind of instruments for tomorrow. And, in doing this, I thought it was just gonna be like, okay, you know, older people are gonna be like, “Oh man, this is dope.” But I didn’t think that younger people would be into it as much. But what has been insane is that the crowd is so young.
Ears of Maize: Mmm.
Adrian Younge: And older, but it’s so young. When we have our concerts with Arthur Verocai, to Cortex, to Hermeto Pascoal– like, to see that many young people coming out is a real surprise. And then I started thinking about, well, why is this? And then, going back to this notion of hip hop sampling the past to making it new to new audiences like it did for us, um, like we would have Tyler, The Creator at our shows or Action Bronson, and there’s just some of these younger, you know, alchemists, some of these dudes that are in tune with the younger audience sampling a lot of these artists and they’re coming out. Then younger people are seeing them coming out, so they’re like, “Okay, I must be here.” But then some of the stuff that like a Tyler, The Creator sampled, now the younger people are researching, so “Oh, Cortex.” “Oh yeah, Cortex, they’re great. I know them.”
Ears of Maize: Mm Hmm.
Adrian Younge: And then they come to the concert. So it’s like younger generations are finding a new kind of way to be cooler than their friends by going to events that are a bit more cultivated.
Ears of Maize: Mm Hmm.
Adrian Younge: And this also connects to what I feel is not their parents, but their grandparents. You see what I’m saying?
Ears of Maize: Mm Hmm.
Adrian Younge: And then the parents are in the middle, trying to figure out where their coolness is. You know?
Ears of Maize: Uh huh–
Adrian Younge: Because– and a lot of times it’s across the board, it’s like we’ve had many events where it’s the kid, the parent, the grandparent, and they’re all singing the words and doing their thing, you know? So it’s like it’s evolved into something where it’s a movement of people that just are searching for more ’cause that’s what we’re doing.
Ears of Maize: Mm Hmm.
Adrian Younge: We’re just searching for more and we’re also trying to give flowers to these artists while they’re alive. They’re not forgotten to us. And a lot of these artists don’t realize or didn’t realize how much we still listen to their music. You see what I’m saying? So like there’s a myriad of reasons as to why we do what we do at Jazz Is Dead and why the demographic is so wide. Um, but at the same time, it’s not like a super lucrative thing for us. It’s just [pauses] it makes us rich spiritually and it’s something that we love, something that we love to see. You know, even here, I’ve been here many times with Ebo Taylor. We have another tour with Ebo Taylor. He’s 90, we have an album out with him right now and he’s 90 years old and he’s killing, bro.
Ears of Maize: Mm Hmm.
Adrian Younge: So, like, seeing these artists shed tears in the studio or on stage because they never thought that they’d even have an audience this big, they never thought that, at this day and age, they could perform–
Ears of Maize: Mm Hmm.
Adrian Younge: –And be who they’re supposed to be. It’s just a beautiful thing and it turned from something fun to just an absolute obligation that we have to the culture. And that’s what’s– just like you guys, you know, we’re obligated to do what we do.
Ears of Maize: Yeah, I appreciate that. I know, I mean, we’ve got the new Marshall Allen album out. He’s 100 years old and it’s one of our top plays at the moment as far as new music.
Adrian Younge: That’s amazing.
Ears of Maize: Um, and real quick, at, at the top of the hour, I wanna remind folks you’re listening to 90.7 FM KALX Berkeley. We are University of California and listener supported Freeform Community Radio. I’m Ears of Maze here, talking with Adrian Younge and the band here in Berkeley. Uh, getting ready for their show tomorrow night at Cornerstone. Just in sort of follow up to that, again, you’re talking about how, in the Jazz Is Dead series, these are all brand new compositions–
Adrian Younge: Yes.
Ears of Maize: –That you’re making in tandem, and in sort of the spirit of collaboration with these artists.
Adrian Younge: Absolutely.
Ears of Maize: In that sandbox that you create, in that space, are you finding that these artists come with sort of intentions of the music that they wanna make sort of in these later stages of their career as sort of where this new music sort of falls within their sort of discography or their legacy, or it’s all sort of magic that’s happened in the moment with, you know, once you get there and you find you sort of work in collaboration, or a combination thereof,or– how do you sort of describe who– where you go and what the intentions are from the–?
Adrian Younge: Yeah. Well, one of the things for me as an avid record collector and DJ, like, I study music, and one of the things I’ve always studied is why do your greatest artists get whack? Like, what happens? What are the choices that they make where they’re just turned into straight musical garbage? [Ears of Maize chuckles.] How does this happen? And what I’ve found is that– I always say that for me as an artist, I live in this false reality and I wanna make this false reality my reality. So when I’m creating, I create for this false audience in my head, and I try to make them happy. And the more I could do that, the more I’m in tune with myself. But the second I start trying to make music for a different audience, I feel as though, when I try to come back, there’s not as much people there left that wanna listen to my music and this audience in my head– And if that’s true, that means I lose myself and a lot of these great artists, especially of that time, from my golden era (from like ‘68 to ‘73 ) lost themself because in ‘74, ‘75 is when disco’s really kicking in. And I love disco, but they weren’t making disco before that. And in order to maintain their lifestyle, in order to get those checks from the record labels, they had to start changing up their music. And this is a cyclical thing that happens throughout the decades. So what happens is that they start losing themself. What I’ve done in recording with these dudes is say, “Yo, come into the studio. When you walk in, you won’t see any computers. You are gonna see the same instruments that you were looking at when you were making the music of your quote prime. That’s what we wanna do here. We don’t wanna do the other stuff.”
Ears of Maize: Mm Hmm.
Adrian Younge: And so that’s known when you go into the studio. We’re making music for us and you’re using my ear and Ali Shaheed Muhammad’s ear to determine what we love about what you did. So, for example, rest in peace Roys Ayers, I don’t like everything he did.
Ears of Maize: Mm Hmm.
Adrian Younge: That’s just what it is, but he made some incredible music. So like, stuff like, you know, “My life my life my life my life in the sunshine” we wanna try to hit three of those, you know what I’m saying? But like for today, um, or some of his stuff from like the Coffy soundtrack or whatever, right? But there’s some stuff that– it’s not that it’s whack, it’s not what we necessarily needed today, so we’re not gonna try to continue those conversations.
Ears of Maize: Sure.
Adrian Younge: So, that being said, if any artist came in and wanted to use Ableton to make something, there’s no way the tape even starts running. No, I don’t wanna do it.
Ears of Maize: Mm Hmm.
Adrian Younge: I’m not interested in that.
Ears of Maize: Yeah.
Adrian Younge: And we’ve never had a problem because they come in understanding how much we love them and how much we love their catalog. So like, they’re getting an opportunity that they won’t get, you know, in 2025. And that’s to record, to tape all analog where we are edifying what you’ve created, and we want to continue your conversations for the future into a new audience. And we have not had, like I said, not one problem. And it’s just been beautiful.
Well, I wanna say it really comes through again as, as the audience to be able to find something new from, again, these masters, these greats, here, in modern day. It’s incredible. And again, it comes through with that purity and that love for the artist.
Adrian Younge: Thank you. I thank you for it.
Ears of Maize: And something new.
Adrian Younge: Thank you. So– just one example with Loren here. Like what we did, our Lonnie Liston Smith album– um, it was just recording doing that with Lonnie and then him hearing Loren’s voice instead of his brother’s voice, on his– on our album, he was really blown away of how we took the spirit of what he was doing with Expansions and other music, with his brother singing, to now having Loren as a vocalist, and us, like, continuing that– his space funk, jazz funk for the future. It’s like these are special moments, you know? So that’s pretty much the point of view of all of it.
Ears of Maize: Yeah. Awesome.
Adrian Younge: Thank you.
Ears of Maize: Um, again, Adrian Younge and the band here, uh, tomorrow night, Tuesday, April 1st at Cornerstone here in Berkeley. Feel free to catch them. I want to thank you so much for the time.
Adrian Younge: Thank you.
Ears of Maize: I wanna be respectful of your time and, and Annika’s time here too.
Adrian Younge: Um, also one thing I do wanna say that tomorrow we will have vinyl and merchandise, jazzy jazz stuff and all that. But the album, Something About April III is not gonna be released until April 18th. But we will have some copies that would, you know– if you want to cop ’em, we’ll sign ’em and thank you for coming and all that stuff. So bring a cool friend. A cool friend– [laughing]
Ears of Maize: Cool friends only.
Adrian Younge: Yeah. Cool friends only. Oh yeah. And, and, and, and please enjoy us all trying to share our energy together tomorrow night.
Ears of Maize: Fantastic. Again, welcome again to Berkeley.
Adrian Younge: Thank you.
Ears of Maize: Thank you for being here. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your music and all that you share.
Adrian Younge: Thank you.
Ears of Maize: Um, we’re gonna ride out here, uh, again with one more track from Something About April II. A fitting song for where we are. We’re gonna play the track Sitting By the Radio.
Adrian Younge: Oh, and that’s Loren singing, that’s Loren singing. So, yeah. Cool.
Ears of Maize: Fantastic. Again, here on your 90.7 FM KALX Berkeley, Ears of Maize handing things over to ec0fr3ak on your KALX.
