JAMES MTUME: JEWELS FROM A MASTER MENTOR
The first of two parts of an long interview with the late musician, broadcaster and philosopher #juneisblackmusicmonth
MTUME - PART 1
Very few people had a life as rich and varied as James Mtume. Born in Philadelphia and raised in a deeply musical family (his biological father was saxophonist Jimmy Heath, his stepfather pianist James Foreman), he grew up excited by activism and music. He’d become member of Ron Karenga’s black nationalist US Organization and would become political activist who’d help Newark elect Ken Gibson, that city first black Mayor. But music was in his blood and he’d become a world class percussionist, playing with Miles Davis on some of his most radical, funkified recordings, such as On the Corner.’
Along with partner guitarist Reggie Lucas, Mtume would evolve into a hugely successful writer/producer, penning hits for Roberta Flack, Phyllis Hyman and Stephanie Mills, who had a great run of recordings in the ‘70s under their guidance. Mtume would then start his own self-titled band, featuring lead vocalist Tawanta Agree, who’d record one of hip-hop’s most sampled songs, “Juicy Fruit.” He’d also be the musical composer for a the ‘New York Undercover’ series on Fox.
When Mtume stepped back from music he transitioned into radio. On Sunday mornings for a decade plus he did political and social commentary on a KISS-FM radio that became a staple for New Yorkers. So when Mtume talked he brought a unique perspective and singular set of experiences. He died of cancer in January 2022 and I truly still miss him, just like all the people he influenced and mentored during his vert active life. I interviewed many times over the years and each one was filled with jewels of wisdom about life and music. This is the first of two parts from the late great musician.
For reference when you read the interview you should listen to these recordings: MTUME ‘Kawaida and Alekebulan: Land of the Blacks’ (1972), MILES DAVIS ‘On the Corner’ (1972), ROBERTA FLACK & DONNY HATHAWAY “The Closer I Get to You” (1977), STEPHANIE MILLS “Never Knew Love Like This Before” (1980), MTUME “Juicy Fruit.”
SLY LIVES IN HIS BASEMENT
Well I was sitting up one day and I got a call from a dear friend of mine who was also a fellow musician named Tyrone Brunson and he was out in Oklahoma I think it was and Sly was out there and he said “Tombs, I am here with Sly and he would like to know could he talk to you?” “Right, put him on.” So Sly got on the phone and he said “Hey man I heard that you help people.” And I said “Well, in what way?“ “I am trying to get it together.” So I said “Let’s talk.” He flew back, we met and he stayed. I think Sly lived with us for about year.
So it was a hell of a thing. One of the things that you have to be clear about him or any great musical mind is that he was obsessed musically. I don’t care if you got up at two or three in the morning, you go down to get some milk or something, he’s down there working. So I have been around genius, like I said, the first and foremost exposure for me was my five years standing next to Miles Davis every night. But Sly definitely qualifies as a genius. See, people have this saying ‘Somebody stopped before their time’ or ‘They had a lot more to give’. I don’t believe that, I think he felt he had given it all but you don’t know how to stop and you don’t know how to say “I’ve given it all, that’s all I got.”
So we’ll look at somebody and say “Man the guy was only around for five years.” Yeah but it’s not the question of the duration, but what was the contribution? Okay, five years but we are still studying that music. I think for some people it is their mission is to bring it and they’re gone. Look at Charlie Parker. Charlie Parker was dead at what? Thirty-five, what are we talking about here? I don’t deal with life in terms of longevity, it’s like Methuselah lived like a thousand years? So what did he do other than live long? Tell me one thing Methuselah did? So art is like that. What would happen if Jimmy Hendrix had lived longer? He gave what he had to give. So I only measure it by that and what Sly gave us, we’re still talking about it and we’ll be talking about it for another thirty years.
[JAMES MTUME DURING HIS TIME IN MILES DAVIS’ BAND]
PLAYING WITH MILES DURING HIS ELECTRIC PERIOD
Well for me that was the most exciting period musically, that was my first adventure into understanding the need to explore and to follow what your heart is telling you because you know, at that time we caught hell. Fortunately we had a band of young rebels, so we really didn’t care about the critics. What we saw during that period was a lot of B.S. that came with these critics talking about he’s going to electronic. All of a sudden there was this big argument, false argument, about acoustic music versus electronic. My position was, as I said when I debated Stanley Crouch (who was one of the foremost preachers of this inaccurate observation), I said why is it that in everything else in life we use technology. This is a light, that’s a camera, you know, that’s a microphone. But when it comes to music all of a sudden, you know instruments that were three, four, five, six hundred years old; you know the bass, the contra-bass, the four forty tempered scale piano; why do we say if somebody plugs in and starts playing through a computer or a synthesizer all of a sudden that’s not music? And the conclusion I had come to, is that music had limited itself, especially with the Jazz musicians into this false thought that if you plug in then you are selling out. And what Miles was doing was totally; we were doing exploratory Funk.
WHAT IS FUNK?
When people say that “How do you define Funk” it’s like how do you define life? You are living. Funk is what you are able to receive through your antenna, some people’s antennae goes a few meters and some goes a few miles. Funk is what you are able to receive. The funkier you are the more you can receive. That’s how I; I never look at it as a definition as much as a state of being. you gotta start with Sly, because Sly actually revolutionized the whole presentation of black music. You know before Sly it was the singer and then the background band. Sly was the first black self-contained band but when I say black it was black led, but it was also interracial and multi-gender. It was women and men. But out of Sly came everything else; Earth Wind, P-Funk; everybody man. You know the Ohio Players, myself; but the self-contained band concept for black music was started with Sly. White bands had been self-contained for a while, but with Sly; so all of that comes from him that’s his major contribution. You know I saw a quote once, I don’t know who said it but I thought it was quite accurate and apropo. James Brown gave birth to Funk and then Sly raised it. He clothed it in another way, what Sly did was update it to contemporary sounds also he began to mix more of the pop flavors.
(Much more to come.)