Rodney Jones

Speaker Tell me you started with Lena with a lady, and her music went above with my questions and they were going to be heard. So, OK, give me complete answers. Who was she to you when when you first started?

Speaker When I first was asked to be a part of Lena Horne’s entourage as part of Lady her music, um, I really didn’t know what to expect. Lena was an icon to me. Almost a mythical figure. Uh. Something beyond the grasp of what I would ever imagine I’d be playing with, of course, my parents, my mother and father were very excited being of the era that Lena was from and came up and they they immediately realized the import of that. I knew that it was. Heavy, if you will, but I had started playing my you know, started my career with Dizzy Gillespie, so I wasn’t unaccustomed to playing with greats in music, but I never played with a singer of that stature before. And so I was afraid.

Speaker Special about. And as that, I just want to remind you of something the.

Speaker Mm hmm. Oh, well, Lin is remarkable to me, I’ve never worked with a singer quite like her and I work with all the greats from Ruth Brown to Peggy Lee to Patti LaBelle, you name it. I found her to be. Not just a great voice, but a great artist in the true sense of the word, her ability to interpret a song, to find the parts of the lyric where the lyric and the melody and the harmony mesh to to become something greater than it is individually. There are a lot of great voices, you know. Ella Fitzgerald is without question one of the great voices of our time. Billie Holiday was a great interpreter of song. Sarah Vaughan had a great voice. But in Lena Horne, you have all of them coming together. You have a beautiful voice and an uncanny ability to understand the important parts of a lyric. She literally becomes consumed by the song she sings. And it’s a it’s an awesome thing, sometimes frightening thing to watch because she transforms. When she’s singing about heartache, she becomes that heartache. And that’s a I’ve often thought, you know, accompanying her what a terrible burden to have to perform, to have a career where you you have to live the the emotions and feelings of the songwriters and as well as as bring your own emotions to bear in those songs. So I think she’s remarkable in her ability to interpret a lyric. She swings in grooves as good as any jazz vocalist, but she’s not really known for that because her career has been largely one of being a beauty, an icon, an entertainer, if you will. But Lena Horne, the artist, really never, really never was allowed to blossom until recently. I think the Blue Note record gave her an opportunity to do that. And in later years, it’s ironic. It seems to be that way oftentimes. But in her case, I think it’s really true that she came to her own as an artist in the later period of her life, and it didn’t have to be that way. But that’s the way it worked out. So.

Speaker The Lynagh really sells the lyric to a tune, she is a master interpreter of a lyric, oftentimes before she’ll sing a lyric. I’ve seen her in learning a new song or working with a song. Just read through it, listening for the the inflection, listening for the emotion and finding where that is. And then when she sings it, it’s like an arrow piercing the heart. I mean, you feel it because when she says, you know, I mean or I felt or when she says the word love, she really is Celie. It’s more than selling it. She’s syndicated. She’s like impaling you upon this lyric that her her whole persona, all that she is is behind it. She really gives herself to the music in the way that the great jazz singers, people like Billie Holiday, that’s all Billie had was really giving her heart and soul to the music, to singing the lyric. And Lena has that as well as a beautiful voice. So it’s really quite remarkable how she sells a lyric like no one else as far as I’m concerned.

Speaker Then you work from could you just tell us? Brown says it sure will, Ruth.

Speaker You just start know with going. Yeah, I’ve been with Ruth Brown, the great rhythm and blues legend, if you want to say that, say I’ve been with Ruth Brown, who is commonly thought of as the queen of the Blues for some 15 years now, currently her music director, and work with her all over. And Ruth has a great, great admiration and love of Lena Horne. Lena is really the reason that Ruth is in show business, although it’s not commonly known. The story is Ruth has told it to me is that Ruth Ruth was injured very early on in her career and a terrible car accident and was in a hospital. And Lena and Ruth had a mutual friend named Blanche Calloway, who I guess was Cab Calloway sister, and Blanche Calloway knowing, you know, the roof was so just despondent and so in such pain and really ready to give up as Lena if she would send her card and Lena did with a picture and a get well card. And Ruth was so taken aback that this great legend, Lena Horne, would do this for her and would get would Lynn such an act of kindness that she got up out of the bed and begun her career leave?

Speaker Ruth told me just the other day, she said, if I could look like Lena Horne back then, I would have stopped singing just to look like that, you know? And, you know, I think that sort of tongue in cheek. But there’s a great admiration. I had the privilege of introducing the two of them again at a studio in New York where I was rehearsing with with Ruth from one to three and with Lena from three to five. And I arranged for it to be in the same studio so they could meet again. It was wonderful. Lena also went backstage to meet Ruth when Ruth was doing Black and Blue and Ruth. That tells the story all the time, even in a show that Lena knocked on the door and Ruth said, Who is it, you know, in between shows? And said, Lena. And it was like Lena, who, you know, Lena, if you open the door in the roof, was like, Oh, my God, yes. You realize what that was. So that’s interesting. Ruth also remarks she always jokes about utilizing Lena’s musicians because Benjamin Brown and Accurate also worked with Ruth Brown and as well as myself and Mike Ramsey. As a matter of fact, we all played on Ruth’s last record, all songs in my life. And in in her show, she says, well, they’re Sluman this week. They usually work for the great Lena Horne, but I cook better than Lena. So. So that’s why. But there’s a real love. Ruth was absolutely devastated in the earthquake and was anxious.

Speaker She lost her house, lost everything. She almost died. And I was talking to Lena and relayed that to her. And Lena was like, well, let’s call her, you know, and actually called Ruth again. It’s sort of ironic. You know, all these years later, Ruth, I was at a low ebb, you know, having lost our house and home and then dog who she loved.

Speaker And I was able to do it through a call and listen to the two of them talk. And, you know, Lena said, come on, Ruth, you got to come back here to New York where it’s safe. And everybody fell out laughing as if New York is saved relative to the earthquake in Los Angeles. So there’s a real, genuine love between the two of them and a mutual admiration and a lot of similarities in their lives to.

Speaker That you had this little invitation for me and what Ruth does when she comes out on stage one, Lena Horne or something like that, we can do that for me.

Speaker Let’s see. Which one was that? That to remind me.

Speaker When I first met her, she was pleasant but distant, a little aloof because music is so.

Speaker Well, what’s the word so deep to her, so personal, so much a part of her, there’s no separation between her and the music she’s singing. So if you’re part of that, if you’re playing with her, it’s almost like becoming a part of her life and she has to get to know you. And she has to get to know you musically and to feel you musically. And there was a time, a period where she was feeling me. How did how was I responding to her? Was I following how she was singing? Did I understand the importance of the lyric? Did I understand? How she was interpreting a phrase, you know, it really becomes like a family when you work together with someone like like Lina the way it is. And after a while. I mean, I can remember nights where you saw the magic happen, where it all came together, where she was there, you know, I think of Lena. I mean, the phrase I would use is that when she sings and I told her this, I wrote her a note and told her this, that that it’s like my heart being poised on onto the wing of an eagle, you know, suspended above the earth. It’s that it’s that feeling of anticipation where you’re of total freedom, uh, total musical freedom, total empathy. It’s it’s it’s something quite remarkable. It’s like nothing else that can be described. It’s different. It’s it’s not like love between man and a woman. It’s not like friendship. It’s not like a great gig. It’s not like a great set of music. It’s not like a great song. It’s something that really transcends the moment and what I call art. It’s when it when it becomes art and it becomes something greater than either she or I could have made individually. And when we hit that a couple of times, then, of course the floodgates opened because I knew our hearts were in sync. I could feel her breath and beating of our heart as she would sing. And that happened with the entire band, which is really remarkable. She she’s one about the only artist I know, the only person I work with now, whose band is a real band. We all love each other. We’re all best of friends. We all love her. She loves us. And there was much of a part of each other’s family. And in a deep way, as far as our real families are in many respects, because we shared so much the things that I’ve shared with Lena that I can’t tell anybody. I can’t even verbalize I myself, the things she’s I fell from her that I couldn’t tell you what it what it meant. But it’s giving me something about her. I understand something about this person that I didn’t know before that could only be called not taught. Nothing she could have told me would have given me that understanding. But hearing or seeing or hearing or just change one note in a song or hearing her pause.

Speaker It’s like eternity. It might have been one second, but to me it was like forever. If it’s a magic that I’ve. I’ve never experienced to that degree that with anyone other than Lena Horne, it’s amazing.

Speaker Could you tell me about that?

Speaker Yeah, it Leena’s sense of timing is remarkable, especially considering she’s not considered a jazz singer. She doesn’t scat like Ella. She doesn’t do all the vocal gymnastics of a Sarah Vaughan. And a lot of times the musical vehicle she’s had to work with haven’t been songs that have given her a chance really to use all the elements because they’ve been arrangements and they didn’t have the free and open sections where she could be more expressive. But her sense of time is is uncanny. She can she can work with the lyric, the way that little Jimmy Scott, who influenced it, was so important when Nancy Wilson can can lay way behind the beat and you think he’s going to miss it and he makes it at the last minute and it’s like so good. It’s like the best feeling in the world when he makes it. Yeah. She has that ability. She doesn’t believe she has it. You know, if I tell her she has it, she gives me a look like. Yeah, right. But all the musicians know her, understand that part of the magic and the genius of Lena. So she really doesn’t know. If she knew she might be much more self-effacing. She might have the ego that so many of the stars that I’ve worked with have. And she doesn’t have that she doesn’t have any real concept. I don’t believe how good she is. She knows she can sing and she enjoys singing and loves music. But I think the charm and the magic is that she she just has Lena.

Speaker She just sings. She’s just being herself when she’s singing. That’s the one time she’s truly herself when she’s singing a song and lyric. Because if she hasn’t lived it, she won’t sing it.

Speaker Not anymore. Maybe in the early days, but no more. I know that.

Speaker One of the things you were telling me is that she was really so unaffected by celebrity she is and how she has. Lena Horne, it should put on. Could you tell me? Can we just run to lower level two? Because if you could sit with your legs.

Speaker I don’t look like I’m like, you know, John Holmes, you clean up okay? I mean, there’s nothing wrong with that. You understand me, right?

Speaker Not that I would know that, you know, necessarily.

Speaker That’s not the is it? Oh, no.

Speaker It must be someone else I’m going to question. No.

Speaker Oh, yes, but being unaffected by celebrity and putting on a horn for other people to benefit someone. Well, Lena.

Speaker Has a remarkable sense of. I don’t think remarkable she is an honest, sincere sense of. Of wanting to help others. And a real concern for.

Speaker African-American people, all people in general, particularly African-American people, she feels the pain of the struggle for for rights in among black people in America. She really feels that she she feels that every day. Every day. I know she feels that. And I think she has been willing. And paid a price of being Lena Horne in order to make certain small gains for for black people in general. I think she’s also willing to be Lena Horne to help a child or art to help a person in need, even if it’s just signing a picture or two to endorse a cause that she thinks is worthwhile. Believe me, Lena is not a phony at all. Lena Horne, you see on the stage is real, but that’s the tip of the iceberg. She’s so much more Lena as great as Lena Horne is, Lena.

Speaker Is it Lena is is such a giving, loving, caring person. You know, I don’t want to, you know, sound like she should be canonized and made a saint, but really, she’s she’s remarkable, her sense of giving and honest expressions of love. I speak for myself. I it’s it’s remarkable.

Speaker I really been in awe of that, you know, the way she treats those that are close to her and around her and the way she’ll treat a stranger. She never put yourself above another person. I’ve never seen her do that. I’ve never seen her be cruel. I’ve never seen her be callous or cold. I’ve never seen her turn her back to a fan. I’ve never seen her not give an autograph. I’ve never seen her not care about someone who needed a hand.

Speaker And I’ve never seen her. Be full of herself as Lena Horne.

Speaker I’ve never seen that unless it’s a means to an end, if it’s if it’s to get the job done and she always keeps her eye on the tip of the spear, what is the goal? And so she is really and I mean, I work with I work with Bill Cosby for years. I work with a lot of celebrities, and I’m not taking anything away from them. But with me, with my experience Leena’s unparallelled and without peer in her selflessness and her spirit of giving up, she doesn’t always express it because she’s a very shy person. She doesn’t always say it, but you know it. She does it in the quiet little bit. She’s not looking for the phone call. Thank you for doing this for me, Lena Horne. She doesn’t care about that. She does it because she has to do it because it’s who she is. And and, uh. I just feel really fortunate that all of us do everyone that works with her knows that. You know, Lina, you know, I work for Lina. You know, I play with Lena Horne on stage. That’s what you see. But I believe as my friend and I work for her and with her, because that’s it. I mean, I love Lena Horne, but I love Lena way more. And it’s great because they’re they both work for each other. It’s really amazing.

Speaker No, no, let me get emotional and get me to get emotional here. I want to find out what is the same thing with things she’s done for you, that Tushka. Well.

Speaker I’ll start by saying that. Being a jazz musician, which I am, is not easy.

Speaker It’s hard, um.

Speaker Can be hard financially, it can be hard, but emotionally, I mean, Lina and I have she’s seen me grow up. I’m 39 years old now. When I start playing with her, I was only 23, 24 years old. So she’s seen me grow up. She’s seen me go through the pains of fatherhood, raising my young daughters. She’s helped me with that.

Speaker I remember I told my daughter what my daughter Leanna was about four. And I said maybe four or five. And I said, OK, I’m going to take you. You’re going to meet Lena Horne. I’ll take you to rehearsal with me. I said, but whatever you do, my daughter was obsessed with money. You know, at that age, she said whatever you do, she would ask everyone how much money they had.

Speaker I said, Do not ask Lena Horne how much money she had. Don’t do this. Don’t embarrass me. So we’re leaving rehearsals.

Speaker She says, Are you rich billionaire lately? I said, no, I’m not rich, honey, but I have enough, you know, just like you. And she’s like, Oh, OK. I don’t know why I’m telling that story, but what the you know, the point is that she.

Speaker She’s been a real friend. You know, she’s a listener.

Speaker She will listen remarkable all her life experience, everything she’s been through, she’s you know, I always tell her she’s forgotten more than I know already, but she’s willing to listen, just to listen. Not about music. Just just on a friend level. I don’t think there’s anything I couldn’t discuss with her are asking about. I admire her so much for her spirit of giving, just as she would be there as a friend. And she’s that way for all all the band members. I mean, I’ve seen it time and time again and a lot of little ways, whether it’s just buying us dinner after the gig or you saying let’s hang out or let’s go do something or or let’s just get together. I mean, we have you know, we’ve had Christmas parties at our house. We’ve had, you know, she takes stuff to eat. Her favorite restaurant is a place called Pig Heaven. And we go over there and then talk about having some fun. That and it’s a little thing. She doesn’t have to do it. She’s a star. She could do anything, but she would you know, she spent that time with us as family and and it’s real. It’s not phony. I mean, she’s really there. She’s present. And it’s a rare gift, you know, how often do you talk to someone that really is present for you? It’s rare that to me is the mark of a real friend and whether you talk once every six months, we talk once every day. When you talk, it’s just like it’s like, you know, it was yesterday. And so I can’t really truthfully, I can’t say all the things she means to me. Because most of them don’t have words, it’s a feeling, you know, how can I say what my mother means to me? What my father meant to me, I mean, I could they they fed me, they cared for me, they raised me. But it’s way more than that. When you love someone and you’ve experienced that love between two people as friends and as brother and sister and his mother, son and and all the levels that we’ve that we’ve shared.

Speaker There’s no words, but that’s how it is. And anyone that enters her world in her sphere and that particularly if you make that connection, when your heart is open and there’s a meeting of the heart, it’s not a meeting of minds, the meaning of the heart when when the music becomes the telephone line between the two hearts and it’s an open communication.

Speaker There’s a bond that lasts forever. There’s something there that I’ll never, never forget, and they can never be broken. It transcends time. It transcends space. And I think that’s a gift she’s given to me and she’s given it to the listeners. How many people have heard her sing a song and been moved to tears? How many how many people have gone to the audience? How many people have been inspired to to lift themselves up because of something she said or done or sung?

Speaker That’s a gift. There’s no price you can put on that, there’s no there’s no. Value that can be given to that in earthly terms. It’s something that really is a it’s a spiritual act, is an act of pure love, and it’s an act that only a few people, a few artists are able to do and people do in different ways. I mean, Martin Luther King did it through laying down his life for an objective. Coltrane did it through his music, trying to reinvent himself. He set a standard for jazz musicians that will last a thousand years. Wilson has done the same both in her her function, Lena Horne. But to those who know her, she’s tuckshops more deeply than than any record, more deeply than any song, more deeply than than you know, than any gig. It’s not a gig for us, all of us, to play with her, play with her, because we we would do it for nothing. We gain, we benefit and and.

Speaker No, I better start. And maybe sweat.

Speaker I really couldn’t tell you. You know, it’s beyond what I could say. I wish I had more words to tell you, but. It’s beyond what I could really say on camera or otherwise, it’s beyond, you know, it makes me get emotional because. She’s remarkable and what she’s meant to me and my my career.

Speaker It’s small compared to what she’s meant to me in my life. Although she might not believe that maybe she sees that she’ll believe it because it’s true.

Speaker Well, when we were talking earlier, you want to say, yeah, maybe.

Speaker OK, the Klemp talk amongst yourselves, I’ll give you a topic.

Speaker Good news, this wonderful description.

Speaker Can you tell me?

Speaker Sure. I think on an unconscious level, Leanna has has always had men in her band to fulfill a different function, a different function for her. And it’s not a sexual thing. It’s a it’s not a musical thing, but it’s a relationship thing. She’s so diverse. She’s got there’s the intellectual Lena who knows everything.

Speaker That’s everything from what’s the best wine to, you know, let’s discuss Rousseau. I mean, she knows it all. You know, it’s it’s amazing.

Speaker And so each band member has a role and it’s fulfilled a role. I I’m always considered the interpreter. You know, Lena will say, well, I kind of want to be, you know, can we make it that part maybe more green and put them, you know, purple in it?

Speaker And I’m like, OK, guys, take out this two bars and make it a demand or seven. I think that’s what she’s saying, you know, and, you know, they’re always amazed because she’s like, that’s perfect, you know? So I seem to be the interpreter of what she’s feeling. Ben Brown has been our basis for as long as I’ve been. A guitar is actually a little longer.

Speaker Is the doctor, Ben is the one who brings the teas and juices, and Ben really provides a sort of a salt of the earth feeling, he’s the foundation for us.

Speaker Ben and I played together with Dizzy Gillespie. We’re best friends. So we bring that family from our own born into Lena’s family, which makes it that much stronger. And she and Ben are so close to. So Ben is a doctor and always keeps the bottom down, as you would think a bass player would like. Rienzi is is the he doesn’t like to be called mysterious, but I mean it in the most loving way.

Speaker He makes a genius. He he can create a paint a picture.

Speaker And Lena, depending on the song, will either paint a picture, create a mood, tell a story. And Mike is a master weaver of these. Because he he ties it all together because he stands between the guitar and the bass, he’s the hub, um, I’m playing fields and he’s the. We give him a lot of flak, but that’s because we love him so much, he’s amazing and he’s without Compar and we have. It’s interesting, you know, we have a such a unique sound. We have a Lena Horne sound that we carry everywhere, Ben and I and the Curatola, the drummer. And I’ll talk about in a moment. We’ll just working this past weekend with Ruth Brown.

Speaker But you know what, when we started playing, it was Lena Horne. It was Ruth Brown’s gig. But we went right into those thing. Of course, everyone loved it because it’s was great.

Speaker You know, Akira is the newest member of the group and he brings the the humor. He’s he’s amazingly sensitive drummer. And and he sort of the humorous side in the in the band. And and so I think we all fulfil different roles. The things I like to discuss with Lena are not the things that Mike and you know, Mike Ramsay’s more like her husband, Lennie Hayton, that type of musical genius persona. Very intense. Brilliant.

Speaker That’s not where I come from. I’m more like, you know, I like to make jokes and and goof around and be silly. And Ben is more like that, too. And so it’s it’s a really good balance in the group and all held together by the glue, which is Lena. And so it’s it’s like a family.

Speaker It’s no different than any family where everyone is the you know, you have the son and the daughter and the mother and father and they all know the boundaries and the rules and they all have strengths and weaknesses. But in this case, we all complement each other. It’s a it’s a it’s a ban like I’ve never worked with before. I’ve never played with a group of musicians that have such a genuine love for each other, that are at such a high caliber level. And and, you know, the general Lena Horne is, you know, pointing in the direction. It’s it’s amazing. I’ve seen her go to the piano and play, you know, she’ll say, oh, I don’t know music, but should go to the piano and play the part. So if she doesn’t know musically how she doing it and she said, oh, but that’s not knowing music. Yeah, right. That’s no in music. I got news for you. What is this, Lenovo’s.

Speaker Hard to define, easy, easy to play for us because we know how to do it. It has become a groove, a place we go to. It’s a place that it swings like crazy but is loose and free. It’s a place it’s modern, but also retains all the elements of the traditions of love. Jazz. It’s a jazz feeling, but it’s one that almost never used. And I don’t know why that is really it, because it feels so good when you’re doing it.

Speaker It’s.

Speaker It’s a groove I don’t know how to describe, but I couldn’t really describe it, it’s a feeling it’s something very subtle. It’s it involves the rhythm, the way that the interaction between the piano and the guitar and the bass and the the drums. And I think it it works because each of us knows our role and each of us knows how we function and what we how we fit in relative to llena. We each sense a different part of her musical persona, which intuitively lock into a different aspect. Then the basis will lock into her groove and lay down the bottom. You know, I lock I’ll lock into the the the soaring aspect, the the dreamy aspect. Miquel will lock into the emotional, the moody moodiness and Akira will lock will lock into the the jazz phrasing, the make really making a jazz performance versus an entertaining or showbusiness performance. It’s is remarkable. Something that we it’s a groove we go into. I don’t know. Describe it. It’s amazing. We just it’s a place we go.

Speaker OK, I just need you to give me one sentence at the beginning, because one of the things that when you start it, we don’t know, OK, once the Lena Horne sound is.

Speaker Is a sound that really has evolved over the past 10 years and really culminated when the Curatola came into the band. It’s a sound between Mike Renzetti and myself and Benjamin Brown in the Cura. It’s a level of sensitivity. And after action supporting Lena, the sound that is llena sound is one that we all feel is spearheaded by her. It’s laid down by her, but. Laid down in the sense that she points to the way. And gives us the freedom to follow that way. And she does it brilliantly, it’s following that roadmap where she’s going musically because she has such a wealth of experience and has lived and played and sung with all the greats in jazz and heard all the living legends in jazz and blues, all of them. And she brings all that experience to bear in every musical performance she performs. You’re hearing the living history of jazz and blues when you hear Lena Horne sing. And we’ve all become educated to that and expanded our awareness. And we’ve made this the link to to that sound and that is evolved into what we call the llena sound. And whether it’s just the three of us being myself and Akira or the four of us with Mike Rinzai, there’s a groove that we go to that we only do with Lena or we only do when we’re playing together. And, you know, Lena is never far from my thoughts. So we were even talking about doing a recording called The Ladies Men because she’s made the mark on us. It’s like I’m Lena Horne to talk to everyone that knows me. Ruth Brown, Peggy Lee. I get called Nowy because. Hey, I’m Lena Horne. Guitar playing I must be all right. You know, that alone is the call I don’t have to say or I played with this one or that one who you were with, you know, hired, done. It’s that because they know what that means. If it’s if it’s Lena is not chopped liver, that’s for sure.

Speaker What have you learned as a musician?

Speaker I’ve learned the importance of knowing the lyric in a song and I’ve learned the importance of. Being willing to surrender yourself to a song I’ve learned to not be afraid to wear your heart on your sleeve in the interests of making great art. I’ve learned that I knew that was always a goal. I knew that before I met Lina, but I never live that I never worked on a daily basis with someone who came from that place all the time, who didn’t know any other way to sing, any other way to be than to to to reach deep, to reach into the heart, to to reach and sing from soul to to the sing from the depth, you know, to reach down the gut and bring that out and not be afraid, not worry, you know, am I exposing myself, am I being vulnerable. Am I expressing pain.

Speaker She’s not afraid to do that, and I think one of the reasons she’s private is because she doesn’t want to lay that on anybody. She didn’t want to. It’s too much. Sometimes you don’t want to say that to someone. How you doing?

Speaker But you don’t really want them to tell you all the time how they’re really doing. But when Lena thinks you know how she’s doing and those of us that work with her, we know if she’s hurting emotionally. We feel that if she is ecstatic, we feel that. And she feels that from us, she knows she knows our moods. She can read us like a book in two seconds. You talk about read like give two seconds. She knows the dynamic. She can read the dynamic of all our musicians instantly. And we think we know her. And that’s like family. You know, they say, you know, your family are people that know the truth about you and love you anyway. And that’s what it’s like. You know, she knows the truth about us and we know the truth about her. And the truth is, when we’re making music, there’s no secrets. There’s no there’s nothing to hide and we don’t hide it from the audience and we don’t hide it from each other. And so when she’s saying yesterday when I was young, you know, she’s not just singing that song, she’s living that song. You’re seeing her experience again, that song and being willing to do that like a like an acrobat on a trapeze wire, being willing to go out there without a net and say, OK, you know what, I’ve lived this. I I’ve experienced the death of my husband and my son in the same year I’ve experienced racism and not being able to to go in a restaurant. I’ve experienced the great joys of great success and playing the Copacabana. This is my life and here it is. Some people are going to love it. Some people are going to hate it. But, you know, when it’s honest, it’s art. It’s music. It’s it’s a sincere expression of the soul of of this person that we call Lena Horne. And that’s a great gift. That’s rare for an artist to be able to do that. Um, and even rarer for an artist to be willing to do that. That’s the remarkable part. She’ll do it. You know, she’ll do it. There’s no there’s no cheating. There’s no faking. We don’t go up there on the stage and fake. I’ve never played with her when she sung it just tongue in cheek just to get through the job doesn’t happen. She’s singing. She’s live in it. And that takes a terrible toll sometimes. I’ve seen I’ve seen that drain her because she lives these songs.

Speaker She lives them. She she experiences the stormy weather. Every time she sings it, she little she doesn’t want to sing it very much anymore. Why do you want to live that?

Speaker I don’t know why. There’s no sun up in the sky. Stormy weather. That’s my man and I together, you know, that this woman lost her husband and she’s willing to say that and experienced that loss, the depth of that feeling to make great art. That’s courage. And that’s that’s a general, that’s a warrior, it’s not just music, something else. It’s a quality that you that I’ve rarely seen. And those people, I’ve seen it. They pay a price for that, and I think she has, but we’re the benefactors, we we have her her willingness to to give herself to the music and to art has given us something we can relate to because we can listen to that and experience that in our own lives and learn from the benefit of her experience. She’s lived this music. She’s lived the history of jazz. Before there was jazz. She was there before there was Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. She was there. She lived them. She saw them rise and saw Charlie Parker die. She saw that. You hear that. She saw Billie Holiday. She knew Billie Holiday. She’s not a phony. And when she brings all that experience and emotion to bear in a song. We get to share in that magic, too, we get to take that journey with her if we’re willing. And that’s a gift.

Speaker It’s it’s a gift. We were in tears in my eyes, um, you were talking in the same vein, you were telling me earlier in the room how there are songs for every period of her life, every 10 years. Could you tell me? Tell me. Yes. Um.

Speaker Lena and I have talked and it’s interesting how I mean, I think most people would agree that life oftentimes is flat, punctuated by moments of sheer ecstasy or sheer terror or sheer despair. You know, the you we remember the great moments of elation and we remember the great tragedies, but most of life is flat. What did you do two and a half years ago? Do you really know?

Speaker You know, what do you do? Two weeks ago on Tuesday? We don’t know. But in Lena’s life, there have been defining moments, so many defining moments.

Speaker In her life, both tragic and glorious, and there have always been songs that have expressed. Things that have taken place in her life, there are always Regino llena, she carefully capital S. carefully selects each song she sings. Carefully.

Speaker Over and over again, we’ve to I’ve gotten calls late at night about a song, you know, is this is a woman that’s been out there all this time, sung all these songs, who still gives that attention to a song, to the lyric, to is it going to say what we want to say?

Speaker Is it expressing the feeling? How how do we do it? How can we arrange it so that we get the most out of it? And in her life, there have been a number of songs that have had meaning to her. I mean, clearly, stormy weather is, you know, readily identifiable by most people. Can’t help loving that man is another one. But there are many others, I’m glad they were few. There’s a song right now called Black is that she has been working on that speaks a lot about how she feels now. And here again, she’s living those songs. She picks them because she has to sing them honestly. So she’s got to find someone. She can really sing honestly or she can’t sing. She won’t sing, literally will not sing unless she’s feeling it. So as a result, her career has had to have these songs. Yes, because of her beauty, she was used as a as a media novelty, a media event. Look at this beautiful light skinned black woman. Wow. Let’s throw her out there and make some money. But through all that, she was able to make art and anyone that goes back and listen to her early recordings can hear that can find the art in the entertainment, that’s something where Wes Montgomery had it to being a guitarist. I love Wes. U.S. made a number of commercial records, got panned critically when you listen to those records. There’s a lot there are a lot of feeling, a lot of a lot of depth, and I think Lena’s career has been like that and. She she has a knack for finding someone to express who she is in the moment.

Speaker Well.

Speaker That’s a hard question to answer, that’s a question better given to Lena Horne, I think.

Speaker I have my own guesses about that, we haven’t really discussed that.

Speaker But I think it’s I think it’s a question should answer.

Speaker He would talk about her profession. What did you learn about professionalism from the.

Speaker I won’t show up on time, be well dressed and be ready to play, be in tune with if the jobs are to eight eight o’clock, be ready to play. I learned it. Whether you feel sick or not, you go in there and give 100 percent. And if you feel great, you get 120 percent. And she’s she’s impeccable about being on time, about making sure that things are correct, making sure that the music is right, that all the parts are correct, that the sound is right. She really gives amazing attention to detail, not in any kind of neurotic sense, but in a sense to really give the audience the greatest possible performance, which she can. And she has a standard that she upholds. She has dignity. She she refuses to not do it the right way, she will not, she just won’t and she won’t allow anyone else to. So I knew that was always the goal, but it was kind of like going in the army, you know. You know, your shoes should be fine, but we actually have to shine in every day and pass inspection. You learn to shine your shoes. And so it was it was interesting. I mean, when I joined Lady in her music, we were all the band members were wearing black shirts and black pants. But we had to die. We had to like magic marker the white button so it would be all black. As if anyone could see that. Well, I don’t know if they could or not, but that was important. We’re wearing black, so let’s wear black. You know, I thought that was that was interesting. She would always do an encore. Tired or not. She will she she always comes to say and always. She always becomes a. Another person, when she hits that stage, you know, don’t matter how tired we’ve been on tour or whatever, when she is at stake, it’s like it’s another who is this person up there? Sometimes I wonder. But the years roll back, the the the heart opens up, and it’s a timeless moment. It can be llena 20 years ago, 50 years ago or today, what she gives and what she brings to the performance transcends.

Speaker Chronological time.

Speaker And it becomes it becomes a moment in eternity. It’s certainly a moment, you know, that undefinable for all the people to play for. And and as evidenced by the the success in her career, I think many people have experienced that, too, that have listened to her so.

Speaker Let me just make sure could. She’s a very spiritual.

Speaker It’s yes. I do think that each of us in our own way. Eventually, if we pursue it. And if we have the eyes to see in the years to here, we’ll discover what our own purposes why we’re here. And we’ll discover that life is just not a random experience, but there’s a reason I have my own personal belief and I’ve seen that borne out in my experience of the life of Lena Horne. Uh. She sometimes was a reluctant missionary, if you will. But in spite of herself. She. I believe we had a mission and has a mission. She has set a standard for professionalism, for integrity. For artistic merit, for musical genius, for. Sticking to your guns for. Having success and not being affected by it.

Speaker That serves as a role model for countless generations to come, people that will never know, people that maybe will watch this, that I’ll never see, they will never know me.

Speaker But we’ll know there was this this being a so-called Lena Horne who was here, who set such a high standard. The people will try to reset forever. She, in her own way, exemplifies all the best qualities in a human being, I think kindness, caring, loving, sharing. And now she walks the walk. She doesn’t just talk it. She’s not big on saying she does this or that and touting her own horn. But she walks that walk. Those that are that know her, know that she’s living it. She’s living a life of genuine love and concern, not just for those close to her, but for all people. She feels the struggle of all people and and and celebrate the joy of all that. She’s really a universal woman. She’s thought of as a black woman, but she’s much more than that. She really has transcended that label. I think she brings to bear all the best of that, but has gone on to serve as a role model, an icon for for people of all races and all nationalities and in all areas of endeavor. I can’t think of anyone that I know that has obtained a higher degree of awareness and beingness in their in their chosen field than Lena. I don’t know that she’s a very spiritual person in a very private way. I’m not there. When she closed her eyes that night, I don’t know what’s in her head, but she lives in the lays on the pillow and looks up at the ceiling and it’s dark. I don’t know. But I know that by the light of day when we are around her, she’s an example of kindness and and love that whatever she’s doing, she’s doing something right. That’s all I have to say about it.