Nicholas Payton – Playin’ the Numbers
17th November 2014 · 0 Comments
By Geraldine Wyckoff
Contributing Writer
“If you want to continue to love me, you have to learn to love all of me not just a piece of me,” says Nicholas Payton to those who might be dismayed that he only plays trumpet on the first cut of his new release, Numbers. “I think the fundamental sound is still Nicholas Payton and my real supporters will recognize my personality all through the album.”
Throughout the disc, Payton mans the Fender Rhodes, an instrument along with keyboards that he has performed on for years though usually in consort with his horn. His like-minded accomplices on the funk and groove heavy Numbers are members of Butcher Brown, a band of 20-something musicians based in Virginia. They include Corey Fonville on drums, Devonne Harris on Juno, piano, organ and bass, Keith Askey on guitar and Andrew Randazzo on bass.
Payton didn’t plan to virtually leave his horn out of the project expecting he would overdub it in at a later date.
“The intent was to play more trumpet on the album,” Payton explains. “As I lived with the material, I decided I liked the stark nature of it all and wanted to leave it empty just for mental and spiritual space. I’m still telegraphing the spirit of the music but not just on trumpet anymore.
To reinforce that concept, instead of giving the selections names, he titled them with numbers. His purpose, he says, was to give the album a “universal presence” making each cut’s meaning up to the listener. A quirk is that the first tune is titled “Two,” the second “Three” and so on. The reason has to do with a previous recording session by the same group for a yet-to-be released album.
In keeping with these open views, on many of the pieces Payton shied away from dictating a pronounced melody. “So, it doesn’t distract you from the fundamental thing which is the groove, the feel, the soul and the meat of a piece.”
“I don’t really write songs anymore,” Payton continues, adding that he just compiles ideas on his voice memo. “I haven’t written music in over 10 years. Right now it’s about getting to the essential idea. I sing into it or play piano into it. It’s easier to record the idea when you get it and to fool around with writing it out later – or never – if you want. The thing is to get it down as fast as possible.”
Vamping, riffing with some groove, funk and jazz thrown in are the mainstays of Numbers that harkens back and updates the music of the 1970s era inspired by the likes of the Ohio Players and New Orleans own Meters.
“Any time you hear a groove – a funk groove, a rock groove – any kind of backbeat that you typically hear in pop music, the roots are New Orleans,” Payton definitively states. “It’s the way it’s phrased, the way New Orleans drummers play the bass drum.
Payton agrees that this city’s drum masters like the late Idris Muhammad would define that style as playing from the bottom up.
“What I like about the Ohio Players, which similar to Numbers is that they would create a vamp and slice them together post-production. Ohio was a hotbed of a lot of the funk bands of the ‘70s – Dayton in particular. The feeling I get from the Meters, as opposed to splicing them (vamps) together later, they would rehearse all the time – playing tunes with two or three recognizable vamps. (Nicholas then starts vocalizing the oh-so familiar phrases of the Meters’ “Cissy Strut.”)
The drums of Corey Fonville are way out front throughout Numbers. “That was intentionally so – I like to have the drums very present in the mix.,” Payton quickly responds. “That’s the foundation of a lot of these ideas all the way back to Africa and how those rhythms trans-mutated to the Americas. In the Black music tradition, regardless of what instrument we play – voice, piano, brass – we’re all essentially drummers. That’s what I wanted to highlight on Numbers. I wanted to see the foundation of how that works.”
With the drums on his mind, Payton continues stressing the importance of a drummer playing “on the one” – emphasizing the first “downbeat” of the measure – a signature of many of New Orleans great drummers such as the late Herman Ernest, Dr. John’s longtime drummer who made playing on the one his mantra. While Payton sees the growing popularity of music built on groove, funk and vamps, he finds many modern bands obscuring “the one.”
“A lot of it ain’t really funky,” he complains. “I don’t see the point of playing funk music if it ain’t funky. I wanted to make an album straight down the pipe where we just relish the one and bathe in the one.”
Payton, a Grammy-winning musician, acknowledges that people have had problems with his musical transitions throughout his career. Many remember him as the teenaged trumpeter whose sound and style reminded them of New Orleans greats Louis Armstrong and Joe Oliver. Albums such as Sonic Trance and Into the Blue also raised eyebrows. He was hailed, however for 2013’s Sketches of Spain on which he blew trumpet on 90 per cent of the 45-minute suite.
“I need to evolve and expand,” Payton, 41, offers. “I need the room to evolve and to redefine who Nicholas Payton is first personally and (then) that translates to the music.”
This article originally published in the November 17, 2014 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
