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For the past 6 years me and my Jazz Mafia friends have presented a tribute to the music of Prince on his Birthday, June 7th. In years past it’s been somewhat of an underground, last minute unannounced party with Realistic Orchestra performing crazy orchestral/funk arrangements done by various musicians in the band featuring many super pro vocalists form the Bay Area music scene. This year I decided to do something different, thanks mainly to the urging of my friend Lyz Luke from Undercover SF; Things didn’t go according to our original plan AT ALL, or even our second or third plans…thanks to Prince’s publishing company!

So Lyz Luke has put on the successful “Undercover” series that has produced tribute concerts and albums of the Velvet Underground & Nico as well as The Pixies along with Porto Franco Records…I was happy to be a part of them as were my friends who did them. Lyz wanted me to curate the next one after the Pixies one. We agreed on an early June show and cd release, kicked around some ideas for a classic and legendary Album to recreate and interpret – Lyz suggested a Prince one and I wanted to do a Beatles one which me and Bagale have been talking about for years; Lyz agreed it would indeed be cool so that was that The Undercover Series hapens roughly Quarterly and she wanted it to be early in the month on a Tuesday; well, what do ya know, Prince’s birthday was the first Tues in June…So I figured it was meant to be (sorry Beatles, another time) and we moved forward on plans to do a full Undercover/Jazz Mafia Purple Rain Tribute album and Concert featuring approx 50 Bay Area musicians as the previous productions yielded. Lyz and I were working on getting all sorts of our favorite bands like Brass Menazerie, Peter Rowan, The Velvet Teen,  Tuneyards, F.A.M.E., Martin Luther, Lyrics Born, John Vanderslice and many more to be involved. Unfortunately this plan hit a huge snag when it came to clearing the publishing or mechanical rights for the recorded album…surprised? not really. Seemed like for Prince’s Birthday wish, he didn’t want us to do a tribute.

from our 2010 Prince Bday Show

Realistic Orchestra's 2010 Prince Tribute at Coda

Realistic Orchestra's 2009 Stevie Wonder Tribute

Being a huge Prince fan and a musician who performs his music from time to time, I’ve heard many stories about how it’s difficult to get clearance to record his stuff. Id even heard stories about the Prince Ukelele night (a live show, not a recording) at the Elbo Room getting shut down a few years ago. So, we had lawyers checking in on all the legal stuff and we were told “You should be fine as long as you go through all the proper mechanical licensing protocols” or something to that effect…sounds a little sketchy right? ESPECIALLY if ur trying to coordinate 40-50 musicians recording schedules from a van on tour like I was. Also, when we dug deeper into that matter, the lawyers found something that I’d never heard of and was a little confusing/disturbing to me: To get clearance to do a Prince cover recording,  part of the criteria is that you need to strictly adhere to the original melodies and chord structures – I think the actual wording was something like “Not vary the melodies or main parts of the song at all”. This criteria would NOT have worked for me as musical director. If you take a listen for example, to my arrangement of The Velvet Underground’s “All tomorrow’s Parties” it almost sounds like a completely different song for about half the tune. So…for the next few weeks I started to get an uneasy feeling while I was SUPPOSED to be confirming the roster for the show and the recording and we awaited an answer from Prince’s powers at be. Bands that had initially said yes to being involved were getting tired of waiting for me to o.k. the songs they’d requested to arrange and record, bands were getting other gig/tour offers, and calendars were filling up;  things were in serious flux. I felt bad because I really wanted it to happen but I had that feeling that I’ve gotten before, something telling me to “forget it” and spend my energy on something that wasn’t so likely to be a huge waste of time for 50+ people.

I don't get to rock that fit often! Thanx for the pic Kate

After a 3 weeks of serious limbo, we got a response from Prince’s publishing saying we were denied clearance to record and release the works, even if we paid the mechanical fees etc… We sent some of my previous arrangements and I guess since it wasn’t someone singing When Doves Cry just like how Prince did it they weren’t into it. Prince’s Birthday wish was becoming more and more clear. This whole clause really was a surprise to me in a way because I would’ve thought Prince would NOT want people to just try to mimic his recordings and if anything,  would want ARTISTIC interpretations ONLY. Shows what I know!

Jazz Mafia's 2008 Prince Tribute at "20th and Mission"

By this point it was somewhat of a relief cause we’d stalled so long while waiting to hear back from who knows who and it was just great to at least know the plan to do a record was off the table and so was the Undercover Event since they are completely based around the concept of a Live Show/Album release pairing. So at that point with about a month before Prince’s birthday (and still on tour in a smelly van, sleeping on floors every night) I suggested we scrap any type of Prince tribute and just focus on the millions of other shows we already had planned in June (3 Shotgun Wedding Quintet CD release parties, a NYC tour, Shotgun putting together a whole set of Oliver Nelson live remixes for a show at Yoshi’s June 27th and of course, the premiere of our 2nd Jazz Mafia Symphony at Stern Grove to name a few! )

Lyz, bless her heart, really wanted to see us do something, mainly just for the love of Prince’s music. This reawakened the love for all that music that has possessed me to spend hundreds of hours arranging, orchestrating, organizing Prince Tributes for years (it DEFINITELY wasn’t for the $40 I made on those shows with 20 other musicians right?). I even sang in a Prince Cover band in College…Oh wait, can we delete that part? Oh, it’s already in the Blog now? Crap.) After I thought about it and how hard of a worker Lyz is, I realized we might be able to pull something off without too much work, if we just made it a fun loose “Jam” on some Prince music with a bunch of invited musicians and have a DJ maybe. This totally DIDN’T happen either…

our 2007 Prince night at Jazz Mafia Tuesdays - Brown Chris, Bagale and Daymetrius (R.I.P.)

As I started calling up the crew who’s been responsible as backing band for Stevie Wonder Tribute (oh and actually jamming with him that one time yes we’re sick of hearing about it too haha_) and it became apparent that all the musicians were very passionate about Prince’s music and when asked to select a song  each the list kept growing and growing. I’m not good at saying no so the list became about 2 hours long and rehearsal time kept getting added and added, as did guest musicians. So what was gonna be a loose jam turned into a full on SHOW, focusing mostly on the music from Dirty Mind, 1999, Purple Rain, Controversy plus a few B sides, Sheila and The Time stuff.

here’s the set list for those inquiring minds who want to be in da know:

Pop Life – slump – Sax solo Ab- cue verse

Let’s Go Crazy – Crystal

Controversy – Sonya/Matt – All sing choruses

Segue to

Let’s Work – Sonya D

Teeko Interlude??

Adore – Sonya D mcgee bass

I would Die for you (Crystal) Start with bass/vocals all in on 2nd verse

Head – Bagale/Sonya verses. All on chorus

Sister

Baby I’m A Star – Crystal …Mcgee Bass

Beautiful Ones  - Ryan Green

Glamorous Life – Sonya D

Crossfade to

777-9311 – mcgee

DMSR – MCgee

segue to Sexy MF JAM

Get Off (C-)  Singers do choruses

segue to Rock Hard Hornline (G-)

1+1+1=3

We managed to get all the songs together with minimal headache and lots of fun times at rehearsals just kickin it and clownin around. The set ran at over 2 hours and featured a band that really felt like a family of artists who share the same passion for Prince’s music:

Crystal Monee Hall, Sonya D, Chris Mcgee, Joe Bagale, Joe Cohen, Jon Monahan, Matt Berkeley, Teeko, and lucky ol’ Adam. We also did end up succeeding in the “Jam session” idea in a roundabout way because Infinite, Soulati and Uriah Duffy put on a smokin opening set of live bass/beatbox/looping/ remix versions of many Prince tunes including an incredibly tasty version of the seldom performed live “Diamonds and Pearls”. That was a real treat soldiers. Ryan Greene added a great vibe and did a great remix of Beautiful Ones, thanks dude! It was a awesome to see so many friends and fans all in the Mission again. Lyz did a great job on the promo and the club was packed, more people than I’ve seen there on weekends and it was a Tuesday. I guess Tuesday is STILL the new Saturday!

Adam Theis June 8th, 2011

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As we made the drive down to LA we were already juiced from such a wild week (see my previous post for more info on that.) I spent most of Saturday kicking it at the festival, saw Chick Corea, Marcus Miller, Naturally 7 (acapella band) and Clayton Hamilton Jazz Orchestra. I was surprised how the acoustic jazz acts, and basically all the instrumental acts, didn’t receive much audience attention on Saturday. The bands with vocals were definitely the hit. No surprise right?! A group of the JM road dogs went to the Roxy after the fest to see Uriah Duffy’s new band The Memorials led by ex-Mars Volta drummer Thomas Pridgen and featuring Kev Choice’s vocalist Vivica Hawkins . They rocked out with so much soul, like no other group I’ve seen lately.

Sunday morning we I was surprised to hear that the whole band made it to the 9:30 a.m. load in at the Hollywood Bowl, and I was the last person to get there. Amazing. A really interesting thing about the Hollywood Bowl is the rotating stage. Two acts fit on the “turntable” stage which allows for non-stop music through the day without any breaks. Another interesting thing about the Playboy Festival is that all the groups play 45 minute sets, regardless of how mega famous they are; there were some entertaining moments seeing how the various artist’s negotiated the situation when the turntable stage started to move at the end of their 45 minute allotted time slots.

As we got on the stage to soundcheck it was one of the weirdest feelings I’ve ever experienced – Looking out , or up, at the completely empty Hollywood Bowl, it’s striking how much of a vertical climb the seating covers. We got in trouble for taking pictures of the Bowl but aside from that, the crew and staff were super amazing to us and of course I managed to sneak in a few pictures.

The backstage area was a small city, with all the sets for the acts performing that day completely assembled on movable risers. The efficiency of the whole operation was staggering. Compared to our experience just 2 days before at the Harmony fest it was a completely different operation – At Harmony we had a few crew members helping us out (and they forgot to order microphones…) and at Playboy they had a crew of 24 making sure that every element and detail was taken care of. AWESOME!

As we went onstage – about 1/3 full audience capacity- the band, many of them with hangovers, seemed the most alive I’ve seen in awhile. Even with a very short soundcheck, things were sounding really good on stage as the rotating stage brought us around to the front. The set was epic for sure, everyone played their best and the band was really smoking. I was elated that as we neared the middle of the “At My Window” finale, it seemed like we would possibly be able to finish before the 45 minute timer expired. I’d spent weeks re-orchestrating and editing the piece from over 60 minutes down to under 45 and it worked! Some highlights for me; cruising out into the audience with a wireless mic for my bone solo on “Window” and not dropping my trombone after throwing it about 20 feet in the air and catching it to cue the end of the last note. Success. I regretted not bringing my skateboard and shredding a little on the stage while playing trombone…oh well, maybe next time!

The rest of our day at the Bowl was a great vacation after one of the most intense weeks the Jazz Mafia has ever had. We got to kick it and check out Esperanza Spaulding, she was amazing and is the real deal. Many of us got to meet her and now want to marry her. Irving Mayfield’s New Orleans Jazz Orchestra was swingin’ hard, George Benson sounded a bit cheesy but compared to Manhattan Transfer he seemed like some cutting edge indy artist that just hit the scene. But seriously, I was super impressed with George Benson – I’ve always been a fan but he really slayed it live.

It was truly an honor for the Jazz Mafia to be asked to perform at the Playboy Jazz Festival. We met so many new music lovers and it warmed my heart to see the band come together to a point where it is starting to feel so tight it’s scary! We’re SO looking forward to our first East Coast tour!