TONIGHT

• Home
• Video
• Podcasts/RSS 
• Local Showtimes
• Past Shows
• Blogs
• About the Show
• Tell Tavis
• Features
• Mobile

RELATED LINKS

• Yo-Yo Ma's official site
• Silk Road Project
• Yo-Yo Ma's bio

E-mail a friend

Grammy-winning cellist explains the purpose of his musical talent. (2:01)
 

Full interview. (15:09)
 

Tavis:  I am pleased and honored to welcome Yo-Yo Ma to this program. The Grammy-winning cellist is out with a new CD in advance of the holiday season. This year, the project is called "Songs of Joy and Peace" and features a number of notable guest artists. Here is some of the recording session with a guy named James Taylor, who will be here, as a matter of fact, on this program October the 8^th. But I'm honored to have Yo-Yo Ma here tonight. Here, Yo-Yo Ma and James Taylor performing the Beatles' classic "Here Comes the Sun."

[Begin film clip.]

James Taylor: (Singing) Little darling, I feel like the ice is slowly melting. Little darling, it seems like years since it's been clear.

Yo-Yo Ma: It's a thrill. It's a thrill to just be making music together. Talk to me.

James Taylor: Oh, I'm just -- I'm loving this. I think the more we play it, the more it sort of comes in. We work so hard on isolating things.

Yo-Yo Ma: I know, I know.

James Taylor: But it's much better to be in the same space, isn't it?

[End film clip.]

Tavis: Honored to have you here.

Yo-Yo Ma: Honor to be with you.

Tavis: What a blessing to have you on this program and to shake your hand.

Ma: Well, it's such an honor, because I love what you do.

Tavis: No, well --

Ma: Because you care about people, and I think that's all we can do.

Tavis: Yeah, well, you do that, and you prove it in your music. I was whispering to Yo-Yo Ma while the clip was running that a couple of summers ago I was at Tanglewood for Beethoven and Bruckner, that's what they were doing that summer, and you were sitting a couple rows away from me and I was, like, "There's Yo-Yo Ma." (Laughter.)

Ma: That's so funny.

Tavis: (Unintelligible) Black man acting a fool in Tanglewood.

Ma: Oh, come on, if I'd seen you, I would have done "There's Tavis." (Laughter.) But you know what you have to come to? July 4^th generally, James Taylor does a concert.

Tavis: Absolutely.

Ma: So you've got to go -- because that's old home week for -- it's just such a joyous occasion. And since you love his music --

Tavis: Yeah, I'll come back next summer.

Ma: It would be great. It would be great to see you.

Tavis: This is a wonderful, wonderful CD -- "Songs of Joy and Peace." I get the concept. What gave you the idea to want to do the concept?

Ma: Ah. Well, I think timing, in terms of thinking -- I think a lot about joy. What gets people to be joyous? What are the components? And one of the joyous times in my life is the holiday season, and a lot of relatives get together and say, "Well, why don't you do one of those albums?" I say, "Well, I really don't want to do it," but finally, the light turned on and I said to myself, if it's really about joy, then how can we do that with music?

If I had a musical party. So instead of people bringing food and drink, whatever, and if everybody brought a song that meant something to them that is joyous. So various people came in with different songs, and James Taylor, the first thing that he thought of was "Here Comes the Sun." And Dave Brubeck said, "I think we should do 'Joy to the World.'"

And so each person came in and did something, and I felt in the end that we took something that exists in reality -- friendships -- but that we put it in the virtual world, which is the CD. But it is actually reflective of real friendships.

Tavis: What I love about this project is the same thing I've always loved about you, although we've just met for the first time, which is I revel in your humanity, as I intimated earlier, and the humanity that's found in the way you play and beyond the stage, what you do with your life to enlighten and encourage and empower other people.

And so it was not -- it wasn't a far stretch for me to imagine that you would have done a piece that really wasn't about, with all due respect to holiday music, Christmas music, that wasn't really about celebrating Christmas music or the commercialization of the season, but really focusing in on what I think is lost every season, which is a laser-like focus or some kind of conversation about what it means to try to bring joy and peace to the world beyond all the commercialization. Does that make sense?

Ma: Absolutely. I think the commercial part of the holidays I know is so incredibly important for retailers or whatever, because so much of their lives are -- of their year's income depends on it. But for the rest of us, besides shopping till you drop, I think really it's the joy of truly being reflective, of being together with people you love.

And we're such a large country, and I think in the way that I think you care about so many people all over the country, I think the purpose of music is a communication between heart and heart. And there are many kinds of hearts.

And I think it's not just about -- obviously, shopping is great, but there are different kinds of gifts, and one of the best gifts is not about something material. And joy is one of those things, as well as is peace. And I started toying with both ideas because dona nobis pacem, which is essentially "bring us peace," I started doing that because my family and I, we always experienced Christmas season going to Christmas revels. And that's one of the things we sing in Cambridge Massachusetts -- the whole audience sings it. and that's one of the few moments when the community feels, acts, and experiences as one.

And so I thought I'd love to put that in there. So a lot of tracks are different people improvising on it, and I think that's one of the things that we can do, is to have a more participatory expressive community.

Tavis: And your fans who are purist will say what about this project?

Ma: Well, I think there is no tradition that I know of in the world that I have yet to encounter that is not an invented one. And so I think the idea of a community is actually bringing different forces together, different ways of expression. And the thing that drives me is passion, right? And what drives, I think, you, too -- passion for something. And I think as soon as you feel someone's passion for something you know that they'll go deep, they'll go generous, they'll share, they will learn and teach at the same time.

And if you start to bump against someone else with a passion, you start to learn from each other and you start to imagine more to get to a point of being empathetic to the other person's way of saying something. And so I think that's one way of doing it, is in the sound world.

Tavis: It would be nice if we could fiat into existence joy and peace in this country and indeed around the world, and I suspect if we were going to fiat it in, a Yo-Yo Ma project would be the best way to do that -- certainly it would sound best. But I raise that to ask, Yo-Yo Ma, whether or not you think that joy and peace in the world that we live now are more elusive than ever before?

Ma: Well, I think -- I know how hard you work to bring people together, and I think there are different ways of working. And I think if we get the sort of political, social, economic engines working together, as well as the cultural engines working together, I think if all of those engines are humming at the same time we have a better shot at a kind of joy and peace.

And I think ultimately, I think it's very easy to suffer from an empathy deficit. In other words --

Tavis: An empathy deficit -- I like that.

Ma: Yeah, it's one of our candidates talks about it, and I think what is important is if I know what you care about and you know what I care about, we're already having a better conversation. And I think -- and this goes over and over again, and it's not just people that are far away, but it's our immediate neighbors. And I think that's something that I work really hard at and especially I think if we can do that with our children in education.

So instead of saying "You must do this because I said so, and you must get good grades," which is a great goal, but if you were passionate about learning, wouldn't that be even better? Because then you're self-motivated. You're not working to get good grades; you will get good grades already. But you're so excited about something that you will pursue it on your own.

Tavis: Let me ask you two questions, if I can, about your own life and your own career before I let you go -- I can do this all night.

Ma: Same here.

Tavis: They don't give me enough time here. (Laughter.)

Ma: You're the insomniac.

Tavis: (Laughter.) I can talk to you all day and all night, you're so fascinating to talk to. Two things about you, though -- one, where your music is concerned, what do you see -- because I sense there's an answer to this, which is why I want to ask -- what do you see as the purpose, the divine purpose, for the gift that you have? We're talking about joy and peace, and it's one thing to do a project -- it's a wonderful project -- but I get the sense that beyond this project you think -- I get the sense, at least -- there's a divine purpose that you perceive for the gift that you have been blessed with. If so, what do you take that to mean?

Ma: Well, you're very kind to say that, but I think one of the things that music does, it joins people together. There are enough things that separate people, and I think when I look at our world, there are more things that actually we have in common than separate us, but we tend to focus on the things that separate us.

So I think in terms of -- so when I play music, I would like to think that I'm the host and you're all in my living room, and basically we're sharing something together. And so the purpose is for us to be -- to appreciate each other. I know life is difficult; we have different lives, agendas. But for a period of time, we can actually be transported together into another space, and we consider it, look at its beauty and look at -- consider it.

And that gives us, when we come back down to earth, a different perspective on life, a slightly richer perspective, and that you can refer to over and over again in making your daily decisions. Oh, I thought of that the other day, I think I'm going to do something about it. And I think it's those little decisions that we make that add up to who we are and how we fit into the world.

Tavis: The last question I want to ask is you have been such an international star now for so long, and clearly the best at what you do. I started researching your past just to remind myself of the journey that you had taken, and I was wondering whether or not you, as you look back on your career now that you've been blessed with, is there a defining moment for you that put you on the path to being the international icon that you are?

There's so many moments along the way that you could look at. Was there a defining moment, though?

Ma: I think for me, I can -- I'd have to answer with two answers.

Tavis: It's your show, whatever you want to say.

Ma: No, no, no, no. (Laughter.) I think the primary one is the immediate focus of getting married and having children, and understanding that there's so many different kinds of love. And that tethers you, in a sense, in time, because if you go away and your child starts to talk or to walk or to put, for the first time, two fingers together, that time is lost.

Before, you feel like you're immortal. You can do anything, time is on your side. But after that, that time sense is gone. When I was in college, the other answer is that I took a course in anthropology where I studied and saw films of the bushmen of the Kalahari desert. And so they live now mainly in Botswana and Namibia.

And there was a blind musician, and the film that I saw was called "Bitter Melons." And a blind musician that played and sang, and played on an instrument that I'd never seen before, but it was so magical that I was 19 and one of the things that you do when you're 19 is you think "What am I going to do with my life? What are the 10 things I want to do?"

That was one of the things I wanted to do. And for some reason -- and I feel very blessed because of that -- I had the opportunity to go there 15 years later and did a documentary on the trance dance and music practices in 12 villages in Namibia. And at the end of the trip, they did a trance dance. And I asked -- where you basically go into, well, a trance, and people who go into trance after hours of singing and dancing, there's a laying on of hands.

And I saw something that was so -- it was about religion, it was about medicine, it was about society. Everybody participated, and anybody who came from neighboring villages who needed it also were helped. And the next day, I interviewed the ladies that were clapping the hands, sitting down, and chanting. I said, "Why do you do that?"

And their reply is the best answer for culture I've ever heard -- "Because it gives us meaning." And that is something -- and so for the bushmen, that was their most complex ritual. It was s complex, as meaningful, as transcendent as Beethoven or Bruckner or Stravinsky, because this is what -- they gave all of what they had for the meaning that they get back. And that's what motivated me ever since.

Tavis: Well, if you have to close a conversation with Yo-Yo Ma, that's a pretty good place to stop, don't you think? (Laughs.) His music has and continues to give meaning to our lives, as does his new project -- "Yo-Yo Ma and Friends: Songs of Joy and Peace."

I was just in New York literally on Saturday, speaking at the 92^nd Y series where you spoke not long ago, and I ended up having dinner with my dear friends Cornel West and our mutual friend Ben Barber.

Ma: Ben Barber, right.

Tavis: And he told me I was going to love you as much as I feel like I do now. So Professor Barber was right, and I'm glad to have you on.

Ma: That's because we both believe in the declaration of interdependence, right?

Tavis: We do indeed. (Laughs.) Shout-out to our friend, Ben Barber.

Ma: Yeah.

Tavis: Honored to have you on, come back any time you want.

Ma: Thank you so much, Tavis.