Nicholas Payton Looks to Direct the Culture

Interview, News, From the Magazine, Nicholas Payton, Marquis Hill

By Marquis Hill I Jan. 31, 2020

During his concerts, Nicholas Payton frequently plays keyboards and trumpet simultaneously.
(Photo: Michael Jackson)

I never thought about it from that perspective.

And when we look at all great movements, when we look at church, when we look at any spiritual procession, music is always a part of that, if it’s to be effective. And that was kind of my problem with the recent Black Lives Matter movement. I felt like not enough music was a part of the message; you don’t effectively have converts without music. That really ties you into it, pulls you in. Yeah, the word of God, that’s what it is. But when you hear that organ come in or that sister singing, that makes you believe.

Now, we have the complete opposite. On social media, everybody’s speaking about race all the time, every day. When I was doing it, 10 years ago, I was crazy, angry and black. Now, when I see a lot of cats of Instagram and social media #BAM, it’s a rewarding feeling, because I stood for something to people.

Why do you think jazz audiences reacted in such a visceral way to BAM?

When people are asleep and comfortable, they don’t want to be woken. Because I’m awakening you, you have to be responsible and actually think about these things. ... I got into a lot of spirited, sometimes ugly and heated, battles with certain musicians because I felt like, they know I’m right. Even those who didn’t know or agree, give me a phone call. Some of them I’ve known since they were in high school. I might have mentored them, or people who are like my brothers. “How are you going to come out against me publicly like that, particularly as black people—you see what I’m trying to do? Even if you don’t agree, pull me to the side. Call me.” In many cases, I’ve had conversations with these people and know how they feel. But they’re so scared that they’re going to lose their gigs or sponsorships or support as a result of standing with me, that they threw me under the bus to make their career more secure. It angered me because it’s like the cliché of the house Negro. I got into it heavily with a lot of cats. ... What I was fighting for benefits us all.

Back to the new record: The tracks that really stood out for me were the ones with vocals. What was your thought process into selecting the vocal tunes?

“Othello” is something I debuted on my Afro-Caribbean Mixtape. That’s been in the books, often requested at gigs. People really love it. It’s a two-bar song. Post-Sonic Trance, that was the genesis of me not writing music anymore, and letting the music write itself. The writing of the music, if ever, was the last part of the process. Whereas before, I’d sit at the piano, go through my ideas and try to craft them or say, “I want to write a tune today.” Sonic Trance was the beginning of me just playing direct into the recorder, wherever I have an idea.

Voice memos.

Yeah, voice memos. When I go to make an album, I’m a beat picker. I’m like, “Yo, which beats are going to work well for this project?” My ideas are everything from me singing on a plane in an airport or when I’m around a piano or any instrument, tapping a rhythm, playing some chords, playing a bass line. Whatever that is, in my phone. I feel like the music is more honest because I’m not trying to write. The ideas that come to me are something that exists in the ether. If I heard it, somebody else heard it. So, when it passes through me, I’m giving you a song that you’ve already heard.

We don’t create anything. Ultimately, who created the scale? Who created the blues? Who created whatever? These things exist in nature; harmony exists in nature. That’s the other thing I take offense to in the “jazz” argument. Oftentimes people say, “It’s the marriage of European harmony with African rhythms.” That’s a slight way to diss us, like we’re not intelligent enough to develop our own harmonic scope. First of all, harmony was not invented by Europeans, not even invented by Africans. It exists in nature. So, this idea that we haven’t created our own harmonic palette to me is pretty false, and that’s a big problem I have with [the term] “jazz” itself—that it obscures that it’s black music at its root.

In other interviews, you’ve talked about being a vessel, being open for spirits of our ancestors—Bird, Diz—to come through. How does that relate to what you refer to as African rhythmic DNA.

African tribal DNA.

Yeah, thank you.

The whole point of this music was that it was a lifeline for black people, African people—I use those words interchangeably—to our roots because we were disconnected as a means of enslaving us. Because you can’t oppress somebody who knows who they are. So, the first rule of oppression is people can’t communicate, speak their language, they can’t worship their god. You cut them off from those things that make them who they are, that connect them to their ancestry. So, this music was us rebuilding that bridge—that our oppressor sought to destroy—back to Africa. And that’s the most important part of it. So, for me ultimately that is what drives me, that is my purpose. But getting back to solos and lineage, it wasn’t enough for me to just learn the notes; I wanted to be Clifford Brown. I wanted to know what he had for breakfast that day—how that influenced his playing.

The nuances.

Because to me, the more detailed you get in your extraction from those solos, then these elements become more foundational and elemental, so that you can use them however you want.

When your elders and your ancestors deem you worthy enough that they will use you to come speak to the people, to me there’s no better affirmation that you’re serving your purpose. That’s why I’m here. So, no matter what somebody else tells me, I know these people chose me. I can feel it, and there’s nothing anybody can tell me otherwise. To have been blessed enough to have known a lot of these people—like Ray Brown, Elvin Jones, Clark Terry, Doc Cheatham—young people can’t touch them anymore. The closest they can get to that now is through those of us who served under them. And that’s why I started going harder. I saw the scene changing and a lot of dangerous stuff going on in terms of a paradigm shift. It used to be the elders decided who was next in line, who the lineage was. And then it started shifting. The constructs started deciding who was next. And that’s backwards.

People literally died to play this music, for us to have a life. And as enjoying, as entertaining and as fun as it is on a certain level, it’s also serious. And when is see the very foundation of it at risk of extinction, I feel compelled to try to save it. That’s really what BAM is all about, all of my output, everything. I’m just trying to get as much of this stuff done while I’m here, because I’m not saying I’m better than anyone else, but no one is going to do it in the same way I’m doing it.

This idea of lineage is really the hallmark of what this is, and that’s why I created the Black American Music movement—to re-highlight that this is the essence of the music. And to be clear, once again: To say Black American Music is not to draw a line in the sand to say, “You can or can’t play it.” It’s just an acknowledgment of where it comes from. It’s about the respect of that which has come before you. If you don’t have that, you’re missing the most important part—to me, you’re not really connected to what this is. DB