On Why Black Artists Are Dying Too Soon—The Real Epidemic

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We have reached a dangerous place in our society when we have to play nice and say things in such a way as to not to offend anyone. Yes, it’s important to be kind and sympathetic towards others, but not at the expense of our own health and wellbeing. As a person who’s spent decades on the front line of protecting our culture, I’ve often received flack for the way I choose to voice things. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, “Well, if you had just said it differently, your message would be better received,” or “Great points, but you lacked clarity.” Everyone wants to sit on the side and say how one should or shouldn’t do something, but have they done the work? Are they the ones putting themselves out there?

If you have all of the answers, you do it. Nothing is stopping any of us from putting forth into the world the things we wish to see represented. It’s easy to pick apart how someone else could’ve voiced something after they’ve done the work. Shit, I’ve done that to myself. Countless times I’ve found myself pouring over emails for corrections, yet didn’t catch a mistake until after I’ve hit send. The thing is, the awareness of those so-called mistakes doesn’t often arise until after you’ve put yourself out there. But this calls into question: What’s a mistake? I say a mistake is the truth trying coming out. There are mistakes that are derived from a lack of discipline and those that are born of brilliance. However, you only earn the right to make brilliant mistakes when you’ve done your homework.

I’m not that old, but I’m old enough to have seen a lot of the masters of Black music come and go. I’ve taken note of how many of them have died ‘too soon,’ yet the club owners, presenters, and impresarios seem to live on forever. They do and say whatever the fuck they want with little to no retribution in this world, while the artists must keep a tight lip if we’re to get ahead. It is the sacrificial artists who die ‘too soon’ because they internalize the pangs of living in this cruel and hostile society.

How many artists have to die from self-medicating before we address the root source of the problem? The whole point of Black American music and dance is that it was a lifeline for Africans who were forced into slavery. When the music is dumbed down, its healing force is nullified, and as a result, lead many to overindulge in substances as a form of escapism.

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I’ve been seeing a lot of posts recently calling this or that The Blues. Just because it’s a twelve-bar form with some variation of I-IV-V chords, don’t think you playing The Blues. The Blues is an ancestral calling. It’s freedom from oppression. It has no particular form. Relegating The Blues to a form, refutes its function. It can be found in many shapes and sizes. “Now’s the Time” is The Blues and “Nefertiti” is The Blues. “Got To Give It Up” is The Blues. Black people invented this new language because they were not allowed to speak their native tongues in the New World. Now, you don’t have to be Black to play it, but you must recognize where it comes from to channel it.

That said, I think it’s time we hold space for artists to be free. Art serves as a bridge between this world and the ancestral one. In this illusory world, it’s the only thing that makes us whole. It’s what saves us when education, policing, government, and religion fails. But don’t think The Powers That Be don’t know this. They are attempting to steal it from us in front of our eyes. If we’re not careful, they’ll erase Bessie Smith as The Empress and exalt the Rolling Stones as the emperors of The Blues.

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Arts are amongst the first things to be denied funding in American society. Art promotes creative and critical thinking, both of which are threats to the status-quo. Athletics get a lot of money because it inspires an atmosphere of nationalism, competition, groupthink, and sometimes violence—all of which are hallmarks of imperialism and capitalism. Football kills, yet we flood it with dollars. Music saves lives, yet we cut the budgets.

Music programs have altered the trajectory of little Black boys and girls set up to fail. Once they got a hold of our schools, they put an end to band. Once we validated the European jazz festivals and taught their musicians how to play, they gave our gigs to their own. They take over the neighborhoods into which were marginalized, then have the nerve to call law enforcement for a second line parade being too loud. Once we make the subdivision hip, they drive us out by making it too expensive for us to live. It’s time we stop hoping the oppressive forces play a hand in our healing. It’s illogical to expect your abuser to aid in your recovery.

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The media typically vilifies Black artists with a history of substance abuse without acknowledging the systemic reasons why said abuse might have occurred. However, it may be more dangerous to live in denial of why this epidemic is leading our great ones to their demise. If something kills someone, they’ve died in vain if we learned nothing from their death.

It’s easy to say drugs kill artists, but the reality is I think most artists die of a broken heart. Broken because of an abusive spouse, broken because of management fucking over them, broken because the world refuses to respect them while they’re here. The most harmful poisons come from people.

If we aren’t willing to protect the artists who protect us while they’re alive, it’s disingenuous to mourn them in passing. RIP doesn’t console children who lost a mother or father. RIP doesn’t pacify a parent who’s lost a child ‘too soon,’ which begs the question: How soon is too soon? Perhaps not soon enough to many who simply don’t want to exist in this vacuous and vicious world anymore.

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If we care about the place in which we live, we must value the artists who help make it beautiful. People are not here for our entertainment. We are here to assist in each other’s evolution. Art is not here to make you feel good. It’s here to make you grow, which is good for you.

“Take care of the music and the music will take care of you.”

Protect the people you love. Call out bullshit at all costs. Appreciate free thought in all its glory. Fuck this sanitized view of our heroes, which feeds the ego and perpetuates a false sense of perfection. We only want to believe the ‘good’ things about the people we admire, when what makes them heroes is how they negotiate their flaws.

#BAM

-Nicholas Payton aka The Savior of Archaic Pop

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My Soul Brother, Roy Hargrove…

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Photo by: Tanya Rahme

Y’all don’t even understand. I lost my spirit brother today. I remember I first started hearing about this dude when I was around 12-years-old. When I would hang out and get lessons from Wynton Marsalis, he would tell me about this cat around my age from Texas by the name of Roy Hargrove who was a prodigy like me. I didn’t meet him face-to-face for another 4 years or so, but as you can imagine, the excitement built in my mind. Who is this little mothafucka playing as much horn as me? In my mind, I was the only one. When we first met, I felt like I had reunited with my long, lost soul brother. I felt so much love for him instantly. Much in the same way I locked eyes with my son for the first time, there was a kindred feeling of family present from the jump.

Years later, Wynton had this series he started at Lincoln Center called the Battle Royale. He pit Roy and I against each other on the old standard called “Just Friends.” How ironic. Haha… Anyway, if you can find that tape anywhere, you’ll hear perhaps the most heated trumpet battle you’ve ever heard in your life. We loved each other, but we were going for blood. The vibe in the room was electric and it was very clear who the next two trumpet stars on the scene were to be.

That event signaled the start of the music industry doing everything in its power to create of web of conflict between the two of us. And like brothers, we fought over everything: the same record company, the same gigs, the same women. We kept each other in check and made each other our best selves. I couldn’t go anywhere without him right there. Even my big Grammy night when I thought I would one up him, he won his first Grammy the same night. That little mothafucka! lol

[Another trumpet battle of note is one at Berklee the night after we won our first Grammys]

There aren’t many relationships like ours in the world. The closest I can think of is that of Magic Johnson and Isiah Thomas, or even better, Phife and Tip. The world got the best of the best because we both existed. And now he’s gone. It’s just me and it hurts beyond belief.

With every note, this brother dripped soul. In every phrase, he never let you forget you were listening to a Black man playing that horn. He inspires me to no end.

Right after the big flood of 2005 in New Orleans, I was estranged in his home state Texas for a few months while NOLA was still in disrepair. Roy called me to New York to participate in his series at the Jazz Gallery called, “The Trumpet Shall Sound.” This was also one of many of our legendary trumpet battles. With the exception of a head nod outside of a hotel in NYC 2007, I hadn’t seen or spoken to Roy until about 2017 at a session at the Zinc Bar. Those who knew Roy know that he could often be very shy and quiet, almost aloof sometimes. I went up to him and said, “Wassup?” and he barely blinked. I was like, “Okay,” and went about my business. A little backstory: If you know anything about my history, you’d know that throughout the ’90s, I was often hailed as the Second Coming of Armstrong, something I’d come to love and loathe. Back to Zinc: After speaking to Roy, I got onstage to sit in. When I walked back to my seat, Roy came up to me with his eyes wide as pies (a rare occurrence, hehe) and said, “Pops came back!” I just burst out laughing and gave him some dap and a hug.

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That night sparked a series of late night hangs we would have, often shutting the jam sessions down. I’d jump around on different instruments or he’d play his horn or trumpet or sing and we’d play songs hardly anybody knew. I really admired Roy for being a staple at those sessions. He often expressed frustration at the lack of fundamentals many of the current crop of young musicians exhibited these days, but he stayed in the trenches many a night, imparting to the young ones what our elders imparted to us.

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Photo by: Tarek Yamani

I often say two things changed the New York City Straight-Ahead music scene: Art Blakey passing and Bradley’s closing. Now I have to add a third, the departure of Roy Hargrove. New York will not be the same without you and neither will I.

#BAM

-Nicholas Payton aka The Savior of Archaic Pop

 

On Humanity…

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There is little kind about humankind.

“Humanity” is a fairly modern construct designed to separate people from their Light within. Without a connection to Light, people are in darkness and need to design a hierarchal pyramid and put others down in order to feel better about themselves.

As long as this false, “human” hierarchal pyramid construct exists, there can be no collective consciousness or evolution.

The higher-ups have folks fooled that being human is cool, when humanity is the root source of the problem.

“Human” is a race, and as long as humanity exists, racism exists. Human beings will always defer to a hierarchal and oppressive system. Only light beings can ultimately transcend and evolve.

While you’re waiting for God to save you, God is waiting for you to save yourself.

God, The Light, is within.

#BAM

— Nicholas Payton aka The Savior of Archaic Pop

On Louis Armstrong…

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We owe an incredible debt to Armstrong because he really is the fulcrum of American music. Certainly there were masters before him, but everything got funneled and distilled through him to what we have now – from Swing to Rock, from Funk to Hiphop. He changed the feel. It’s one thing to have your own feel, but it’s an entirely different thing to change the conception of what a quarter note feels like. I can’t think of anyone in recorded history who’s done that. And we’re still borrowing his quarter notes – the forward motion and the pulse of that, he changed feel forever.

#BAM

-Nicholas Payton aka The Savior of Archaic Pop

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The Nicholas Payton Quintet: Live at the Village Vanguard 1997

 

 

 

Inspired by a post of the original handwritten chart to my composition “Back to the Source,” and the convo that ensued on Instagram, I went to look for a DAT tape of my band at the Village Vanguard in 1997. As a band, we did a lot of gigs over the 5 years we were together and I still remember this one quite vividly. Not just because a recording of it exists, but there was a magical vibe in the room that night. Rarely do these nights make it to tape. They are usually rhapsodized about via word of mouth.

Well, here it is:

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There were lots of kats in the house this evening. A couple of them had just moved to NYC from Houston for college: Mike Moreno and Robert Glasper. I didn’t know them then, but they would both play in various bands of mine in the years to come. Their friend, and fellow trumpeter, Carlos Abadie was with them. The late great James Williams was in the house, and was sure to school us on what he heard as a wrong chord on the ballad I chose to close the set with, “I’m Old Fashioned.”

The full set list is as follows (all compositions by me unless noted):

Back to the Source
Paraphernalia (Wayne Shorter)
The Last Goodbye
Concentric Circles
United (Wayne Shorter)
I’m Old Fashioned (Kern & Mercer)

Most of the tunes on this set would appear on our then upcoming album, Payton’s Place. “Back to the Source” is an uptempo burnout song in the tradition of Freddie Hubbard’s “The Intrepid Fox” or Branford Marsalis’ “Spartacus.” For the uninitiated, “burnout” is a way of playing that was invented primarily by Miles Davis and John Coltrane. It’s often modal with few chords, but not necessarily. It has more to do with the rhythmic and harmonic abandon one plays with and it’s typically high energy, but can also be sultry and seductive. Rhythmic interplay is really the hallmark.  “Back to the Source” is more structured burnout. “Paraphernalia” was pretty much vamp-based with the cue system for Miles’ studio version. We play it completely free after the melody while still employing the cue system as a jump off point.

“Concentric Circles” is one of my most influential compositions to date. It’s commonplace now, but no one was doing this when we recorded it 20 years ago. It’s burnout, but it uses what I call fixed broken time in the second half of the form. The syncopated swagger of those pivots provide an underpinning that’s conducive to some real Negroidery.

“The Last Goodbye” was written for our then recently departed brother and fellow musician, Charles “Dia” Taylor, affectionately known to some as “Alto.” He and I were friends long before we knew each other as musicians.

Years before, Steve Turre laid a bootleg on me of Woody Shaw playing “United,” amongst other tunes, at the Vanguard in 1981. When I saw he was in the house, I thought it would be fitting for us to jam on it.

A couple of things to note here: The sound system went out during our first night of the week on Tuesday. It felt so good, we decided to play the rest of the week with no microphones. What you hear on this recording is the pure acoustic sound of the room. We also did two albums during that week, Adonis’ debut album, Song for Donise, and I recorded with Tim for his Gentle Warrior album.

The Nicholas Payton Quintet is:

Nicholas Payton: trumpet
Tim Warfield: tenor sax
Anthony Wonsey: piano
Reuben Rogers: bass
Adonis Rose: drums

 

There that is. Enjoy!

#BackInTheNinetiesWhenKatsWasREALLYswingin

#BAM

—Nicholas Payton aka The King of Research

 

 

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Textures

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Textures_CD_imageTEXTURES The new recording by Nicholas Payton | Available June 17, 2016 on Paytone Records™

All great art has a rhythm. Movement. A Pulse.

Painting, Music, Dance, Martial Arts, Architecture, Sports. They all have, at their core, a rhythmic undertow.

The strokes of a paint brush have a rhythm. They create patterns, lines, curves, shapes, forms, and ultimately a rhythmic flow. They create movement. Their movement create a feeling. Colors also create a rhythm. They make your eyes move from one component to another. They allow your mind to travel. To think. Ultimately a story is told. A feeling is created. A visual beat penetrates one’s mind and soul.

What happens when master artist Nicholas Payton is a part of the artistic process of painter Anastasia Pelias? Textures is born. As Nicholas told me, “They are off the cuff tracks done in real time with an artist who paints.”  Nicholas takes the strokes of Anastasia’s brush and mirrors them with a beat. The visual beat becomes an aural beat. A pulse. A movement. The colors become harmonies. The strokes become rhythmic shifts. The two become synonymous with each other.

As a listener, you find your own meaning. Every time you listen, a new layer of the story is unveiled. You start to get lost in the music. Have you ever just sat and watched the ocean? At first you see the sand, beach, and waves. Then, as your mind drifts, you start to see beyond the ocean.  You think about the depth of the ocean and its beauty. As the waves crash, one also begins to think of the past, present and future. No wave crashes the same place, or way, twice, yet each is perfect. Each has been here before, but returns in a whole new way.  It is brought to shore as it should. It flows perfectly, yet is never quite predictable. Each wave has its own direction, and its own identity. Textures does the same. You look out into the horizon and see where the sky meets the water. You begin to reflect on the beauty in the world. This is Textures. Movement of a rhythmic undertow (ocean/waves), with harmony and colors on top (the sky and world).

Textures is a master work of art. Created by a master artist. In this case Nicholas Payton uses an instrument he has yet to use on record. As he told me “I set up my keyboard and laptop and Anastasia has a blank canvas and we create a new work in real time.” Nicholas’ instrument here may appear to be a keyboard and laptop at first. But ultimately, his instrument is his mind and soul. Textures flows with perfect clarity, yet takes direction in ways one would not expect. The harmonies take shape in only the way Nicholas’ mind can.  The three basic elements of the mind — intellect, feeling, and will — are displayed as Nicholas searches from within, and let’s the music pour out of his body, and into our ears.  But once it hits our ears, we too, need to let it penetrate our hearts and soul, so that we can find ourselves. We can create our own work of art in our own mind.

Textures exudes compassion. It is radiating with boundless light and compassion. It makes you reflect within to find peace and love.

Begin to let the music enter your body. It is music to relax and think to, music to reflect on, and music to dance to.

Textures, like an any great art, is drenched with rhythm. It has movement. A Pulse. Listen, as I did, over and over again. Find new meaning each time you listen. Find your own rhythm.

All instruments performed by Nicholas Payton

Mixed by: Jehan Buhari and Tom Soares

Mastered by: Michael Fossenkemper

Artwork by: Anastasia Pelias

Cover by: Tom Seltzer, Seltzer Studios

Album Notes by: Alex Silverbook

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Artwork for Textures — by Anastasia Pelias

Wassup, y’all:

As many of you know, each tune from my most recent release, “Textures” has a corresponding visual to go with it. So, here for the first time, I will present the collaboration in its entirety. Track numbers and titles will appear under the piece. Anastasia’s titles will be after the em dash…

Artwork by Anastasia Pelias:

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1.) Smooth — Do (what you do)

 

 

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2.) Sticky — Friday Afternoon, 4-7

 

 

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3.) Silky — Blue be Cool I & II

 

 

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4.) Fuzzy — Everything beautiful goes away

 

 

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5.) Hard — The Struggle Is Real

 

 

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6.) Wet — Reckless Daughter

 

 

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7.) Rough — Night and Day

 

 

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8.) Greasy — Not Mortal

 

 

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9.) Soft — Watusi I & II

 

 

Both the artwork and the album are for sale.

http://anastasiapelias.com/paintings/

CD Baby

iTunes

“Ibbity, ibbity, ibbity… That’s all folks…”

#BAM

— Nicholas Payton aka The Savior of Archaic Pop

 

 

 

 

 

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Selections from “Textures”

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I’m posting, as an offering, the healing power of music. This playlist is comprised of three of nine selections which will appear on an upcoming album of mine called “Textures.”

The genesis of this project was a collaboration with a visual artist from my hometown of New Orleans, Anastasia Pelias. We set up in her studio (her with a blank canvas, me with a laptop and a midi keyboard) and co-composed a new work in real time.

Each session yielded a new work.

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All instruments played by yours truly.

Mixed by Jehan Buhari and Tom Soares.

Mastered by Michael Fossenkemper.

#BAM

— Nicholas Payton aka The Savior of Archaic Pop

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CALLING ALL ARTISTS/LOVERS: First International #BAM Masterclass in New York City

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CALLING ALL ARTISTS/LOVERS: I’m doing the first in a series of International ‪#‎BAM‬ Masterclasses where we sit and chat for a couple hours with an informal Q&A about art and culture.

For all those who have wanted a lesson with me, but was unable to afford my regular fee, I’m offering this class at the discounted price of $100 (cash only). No freebies, no exceptions. “The game is to be sold, not told.”

We will be meeting at Michiko Studios in New York City, this Saturday, October 17th, from 4 – 6pm.

This is not only for musicians, but all people with breath in their lungs and love in their hearts.

And before you complain about the price, you spend $100 on sneakers. What’s $100 to have your life changed?

Bring your musical instruments, just in case…

Share this with as many folks as possible.

#BAM

— Nicholas Payton aka The President of PAYTONE Records