(electronic music) (audience applauding) - Great job, Melody.

Great job.

One thing I will say about this is, I learned from playing with Ray Brown.

When you don't know it, when in doubt lay out.

Like if you don't know the changes, just lay out.

If you know the roots, you know you just play the roots until it can gel.

You know what I'm saying?

- Karriem, I'm just so thrilled that you're here.

Welcome home.

- Thank you.

- And I'm really excited that you're sitting in this chair this year for the Detroit Jazz Festival.

What is your earliest recollection of the jazz festival?

- I would frequently come to the festival every year.

My dad had some kind of show so I just remember as early as maybe seven, eight years old I got a chance to just run from stage to stage to to kind of peek in on what was going on.

- [John Penney] Jazz, if you're gonna talk about a genre I think is the broadest and most inclusive tent because it's always evolving.

And I think a lot of that evolution follows technology.

I'm curious, how are you gonna put all this together?

What are your thoughts for the festival this year?

- Well, one thing I wanna speak on is talking about the jazz people, jazz police like I really couldn't care less about what people think is jazz or not because it's what comes from here and sometimes what comes from here you can't put a label on, you know it's something from the heart.

So, that is something that was just instilled in me from the beginning is having my background and roots in hip hop, you know, and I grew up listening to jazz.

So all these different genres I feel like the more you read the more articulate you are in expressing yourself.

And I feel like listening to music is the same thing.

Like the more you listen to different things you can bridge those gaps and it becomes one thing, you know?

But for me, I, I feel like, you know integrating all these different instruments, it is my voice, you know, loops, finding different loops.

It's a starting point and sometimes we arrive at a different place from it just being a loop.

So that's where everything is kind of in a melting pot together.

It's like a gumbo, a soup that you make.

And there's so many different elements in there that makes it special.

- I found it really interesting in one interview you were talking about how with Common, working on his record it was all beats that, I mean, take a lot to put together.

But then with August Green, which is you Common and Robert Glassberg, you were playing all that live.

So, you know, there's that kind of interaction.

Back and forth.

So who are you gonna be bringing to the festival?

- It's gonna be quite a surprise.

- Oh, aren't gonna tell us?

- I don't really have anything to say now at this point but I will say that, you know, it will be some of the people that I've been collaborating with over the years.

- I would be surprised if August Green doesn't make it.

Let's put it that way.

(laughing) - Hey, I want to definitely do something that I haven't done before.

And that is, takes a little more effort and work, you know so that's what I wanna bring to the city, something special.

And it's not just the city because the, you know there's millions of people who get to watch this festival and I just wanna make such a huge statement.

(trumpets playing) - [Karriem] Much better.

I feel like, you know just that little space makes a big difference.

- How do you feel you were working with kids today, here how are they evolving and how do you think the music is evolving for that generation?

- Well, I could just hear, you know, it's becoming more of a thing now because people listen to so much different kind of music.

You know, Spotify and Title and all these digital streaming platforms have so much.

Or you can just jump from here.

You can listen to Maurice Revell and you can go to Phineas Newborn and then you can go to Kaytranada or Mad lib or myself, you know, and I feel like you can hear those influences in the youth playing.

- You went out with Betty Carter when you were 17.

What did you learn playing with Betty and what was it like?

- Well, what I did with Betty Carter was a Jazz Ahead where she flew out, I think it was like five musicians from Detroit and I think like seven other cities.

She had a lot of musicians come in and we all wrote music and we all had to interpret each other's music.

And I think that she was looking for us to play and be original and not be cliche.

So if she heard us or seen anything that was cliche she would like, no, do your thing.

You know?

And I feel like that kind of pushed me to be original and not to follow any kind of cliches, you know?

No copying.

Playing that last tune when you went into those feels.

You should definitely like zone in on those feels and play you, be you, you know, throughout all of that.

- That first tune?

- Yeah, the first tune.

- Okay.

- Yes, yes, like setting all those feels here are specific, setting up certain feels, but I know you can do it in your own way where you speaking with your voice.

- And that's hard to do.

I mean, if you're just playing with the notes in the scale but the way you can express them with all the different sounds and combinations of sounds - I think now it's a lot easier creatively, you know to see the sound wave on the screen.

You can find the downbeat.

Because it's a big bubble and you say, oh that's something there, instead of using numbers I think back when the MPC 3000 was around using those numbers will kind of take up the space of you and the flow of being creative.

So I feel like there's more room for creativity now because your workflow is faster.

So it's all about getting the idea out and being prolific and move on to the next.

And that's why I really want to achieve just being prolific and creating as much as I can while I'm here on this earth.

- You're my favorite kind of drummer.

- I mean like, man, thank you.

- The right lick and the right place.

I mean, I love Art Blakey, but he's out front.

You've been described as skeletal, and I think that's a positive thing.

I mean it's the bone against which all the flesh can be grown.

- That's what I strive to achieve through practicing, is trying to find that right thing to play, to make people feel.

The drummers supposed to make you dance and feel something.

And that is what I want to achieve every time I play.

I think I just learned just from being around great musicians is that less is more.

Like the simplicity in it, it speaks more, you said more by leaving room, leaving space and just playing the groove.

So I've worked so much I think by just being simple and playing the groove.

- [Presenter] And we'll have a performance by Karriem Riggins coming up later on in the show.