Chatting up Bobby Ricketts trio, America’s jazz group
You have been in Tanzania, what was the experience like? Bobby Ricketts: We initiated something we call the jazz platform for development. The idea is to interact with local music community and local community to help anyone doing a sound reinforcement and stage all areas of music infrastructure coming to play. Music is said to […]
You have been in Tanzania, what was the experience like?
Bobby Ricketts: We initiated something we call the jazz platform for development. The idea is to interact with local music community and local community to help anyone doing a sound reinforcement and stage all areas of music infrastructure coming to play.
Music is said to help developing countries with jazz playing a vital role. How does jazz come in, in this context?
Delmar Brown: The funny thing is the term jazz in itself in the US originated from a sexual term that is used for sperm and sperm being in the spark of creativity that carries the music forward like a kind of living music. Any music that is creative is jazz.
You can do everything with jazz. Anything that other genres don’t have and any music that doesn’t fit right into others is also called jazz. You can take it everywhere and do everything with it. It is here and it comes from here because our ancestors came from here.
Do you think that education is fundamental in one’s music career?
Bobby Ricketts: Formal education is important, so is mentoring. In many ways, mentoring is as valuable as formal education. Being around somebody who can do something at a level higher than yours and the willingness to learn because even when you go through college, they don’t do everything that provides you with the materials. So, if you don’t really have that hope and thirst to get through and the willingness to learn and to receive you can’t be fully educated.
A Nigerian artiste will be performing with us. We are not telling him anything, we just told him you have to open your ears and listen. This is probably much higher than the level of expectation and what he is used to; that simple experience of having to hang on for dear life. We are comfortable with him because we think he will be able to rise to the occasion and do what is needed but that experience in itself is going to mean a lot to him.
Delmar Brown, you played with different people with different music interest. How have you been able to fuse your styles to produce the kind of music that you have?
Delmar Brown: By listening very close, you have to have the seeking spirit. The seeking spirit is the key to growth, so if you really want something, you have to listen to it, you have to pay attention to it, because that your heart is burning to have this information and that is call unconditional inspiration – its unconditional, I want this, I want that like eating food, I have to eat and I have to hear this, and when you are at that point your channels are open, they are very open and you then suck it all up and it makes an impression that the more you do it the more you practice to retain it and take it and use it in another way to make it yours. The idea that you never have the experience and you take all tthose experiences and try to make them a part of you and that what gives you an Identity to be different form someone else and also listening to the same thing.
How does religion fit into your music?
Delmar Brown: When you talk about religion, I see religion on a much higher plane. You have known Christianity, I study some Buddhism, Sufism, Muslim and different religions in my life, but there is only one religion, the universal religion and keeping yourself in line in the religion of the universe is where your fortune is. It is very important to have a high life condition in other to attract your life’s needs. It is very difficult in what you can do daily. In Buddhism we embrace the obstacle as a challenge to get stronger I suppose to take it.
But it is a good practice because you have to move forward, you don’t have to fall down. Music is a way of keeping my life condition high it is a way that lifts the spirit of people. It is almost like medicine for the spirit, so I got to have this tool to help people and the more I help people , by educating, by playing music and bring happiness to people (it is a religion of a kind) and along with practicing whatever religion you like to practice or religion of your choice. It stays with me when we come down with the rhythm of the universe. If you practice a religion against the harmony of the people then is the wrong religion because it’s got to be in harmony with the universe and that’s how you get your blessings.
How much do you know about Nigerian music?
Tony Bunn: You know like a student of music, we have listened to a lot of music, we played with students at Lagos Music School, and actually Nigerian musicians are interconnected. It is amazing. You all know the popular theme music for ‘New Masquerade’. I have never heard such a beautiful theme played the way it was in Lagos because I never heard them play the song with improvisation, interpretation, interconnectedness and going in like you said and going out. So they heard a lot of high life music, which is exactly what is done very well. We were also able to teach the students, to use eye contact. It is not about me personally, it carries everything along.
What are your views on Nigerian music generally?
Bobby Ricketts: I think what we’ve experienced and seen here, we had the opportunity to accomplish some music and see musicians who played really well. What I like is the joy of expression, the passion in what they do. I believe I have heard it before and maybe I didn’t know it was Nigerian music when I heard it but now I am in Nigeria and we all hear so much music. So no matter where you go there is music. I could hear a radio like two hundred meters away and I would say time up; let’s go this way to hear what that sound is. Just listening to sound all the time even nature sounds and tunes to popular music. But somewhere along the way we have picked it up or even experienced it.
Do you consider yourselves teachers in this field?
Bobby Ricketts: They call us jazz ambassadors. That’s what we are. Sometimes we are exchanging knowledge; sometimes the people we interact with have specific questions. Someone might come up to and say ‘hey, how do you do this?’ So we take specific technical things and in general even if we didn’t have the chance to speak with anybody, just the fact that we can come in sit and play a little bit, and people feel something, even if you are to leave immediately after you will still fell that something has moved you that what you can do to people just by swinging into music smiling to people, shaking their hands, it not that easy.
The best way to teach somebody to do things is by example. We have given a lot of messages; willingness to learn, to teach by example, you now the ability to express and have faith and that where music comes from because we come as examples that’s the best way to teach. By living the experience, you know, if you have never being to a place, buy your ticket and you go check it out. Live the experience that is the key to the growth of life.
How easy is it for an adult to learn something like the saxophone?
Tony Bunn: You have to make your distinction between somebody trying to work and others. We have to play for them to see it as an example for them to follow their own path. I would say one is never too old to learn anything and as a matter of fact, it is my favourite topic since my first child at age fifty four. One is never too old to learn anything in this world. You’ve got to maintain that willingness to learn and keep moving.
How danceable is jazz?
Delmar Brown: Very danceable. Have you ever seen the old clips of jazz back in the 50s? It was dance music. They danced like crazy; they are swinging the ladies between the legs. But people don’t dance like that anymore. Back then, it was amazing. It is a viable art form, into which you can incorporate hip hop music. In jazz today and reggae music, or afro bit or any kind of music, the mix are relevant to the artiste and the music jazz is the only term that has spanned the whole century and is still growing and expanding. R&B has its time period; maybe pop music is also growing now. But jazz started back in probably 1800 and in 1900 and we are now in the second decade of the 21st century and jazz is still growing and expanding, it is danceable, kissable, it is huggable, it is truly a music that looks like water. It comes around here, touches you and goes around and it continues, it touches a little reggae, classical, and every time it touches something it grabs something. That makes it different, like paint like different colours by coming to the stream and touches you and moves forward.