The trombone player who stood beside Kamasi Washington earlier this year to fill La Madeleine and our hearts with warm jazz notes? Ryan Porter, who is claiming the spotlights himself on the album The Optimist. And Kamasi? Well, he can join in too.
© Ruff Draft
Ryan Porter is a childhood friend of Kamasi Washington. Along with the saviour of (American) jazz and like-minded people like bassist Miles Mosley and pianist Cameron Graves, he has been making music with a “gang” of jazz musicians called The West Coast Get Down. Sometimes described as the “Wu-Tang Clan of jazz”, they are the catalyst of the flourishing jazz scene in LA, with branches to key figures like Flying Lotus, Thundercat, and Kendrick Lamar. For years, they lent assistance to anybody who needed it, until in 2015 they were invited to give Kendrick Lamar’s unrivalled hip-hop epic To Pimp a Butterfly its wildly jazzy touch.Two months after its release, they finally broke through with Kamasi Washington’s impressive jazz symphony The Epic.
It is with the same West Coast Get Down that Ryan Porter released The Optimist earlier this year, an album packed with sultry soul jazz that he is coming to present at Flagey. The tracks were recorded at Kamasi Washington’s parents’ house in LA, ten years ago, during the same sessions that would also yield the basic tracks for The Epic. Ten years? “Yeah, it’s been a loooong time coming,” Ryan Porter laughs over the phone from North Carolina, where he is preparing for a show beside Kamasi Washington as part of Washington’s Heaven and Earth tour. “Back then, we didn’t have a record deal and we didn’t have any plans to tour either. We weren’t thinking about becoming famous musicians, we were just doing what we loved to do: playing music.”
Had you already come up with the title in 2008?
RYAN PORTER: Yeah. It refers to the nature of the setting. Obama just got elected. America was going through a lot of changes. One of the things that Obama helped do, was make us coexist together again. It was an inspiring time, there were a lot of positive vibes, both on a personal and a universal level. The music came from that energy.
Isn’t it weird to release a record that’s called The Optimist in America today?
PORTER: I wear a hat that says “The Optimist”. People think it’s something political, they don’t know it just refers to the title of the record, which in fact is not a political title. But to answer your question, I am still an optimist. In fact, I’m optimist pro now, I graduated at the University of Optimism. [Laughs]
I am still an optimist. In fact, I’m optimist pro now, I graduated at the University of Optimism
There’s this track on the record called “Obamanomics”. What does that refer to?
PORTER: When Obama assumed office in 2008, the financial crisis had just crashed our economy. Obamanomics was the nickname of the financial package that he introduced to get America back on its feet. I wasn’t taken aback so much by the plan, but more by his intentions behind it. To try to fix America and make it a great place. That track was the soundtrack to what Obama was doing.
Now there is somebody else saying that he’s going to make America great again.
PORTER: Yeah. That’s why we need optimism. [Laughs] I know there are crazy things happening, but I think we still carry good values.
You didn’t record the music in a studio, but at Kamasi’s house.
PORTER: Kamasi’s parents are both musicians, they had a house full of instruments and gear to record. We used to hang out in their garage, a place we called “The Shack”. A wonderful spot where we could be creative, the only downside was that it had no air conditioning and it could get pretty hot. And we were right under the landing strip of LAX. Every few minutes you’d hear this huge 757 come by and go like wooooohaaassshh! We had to seal up all the doors and windows, so temperatures rose even more. [Laughs]
Where did you know Kamasi Washington from?
PORTER: We met at high school. When we were both young teenagers, there was this music programme for inner-city kids called Jazz America. That’s where we bonded. He wasn't playing the saxophone yet, he was trying his best on the clarinet. Kamasi was very serious about playing jazz, I could tell right away that he would still be doing it today.
How did you get hooked on the trombone?
PORTER: My grandfather was a car mechanic. When he was in the repair shop, he would listen to music all the time. He was a huge record collector, he had crates and crates of records. When his hands got dirty, he asked me to pick one. One time I put on a record by JJ Johnson, Proof Positive. I must have been five years old. I thought the guy on the sleeve was a mechanic too. [Laughs] “Why is he playing this funnel?” I asked my grandpa. When I put the record on, it changed my life.
By the time I went to elementary school, I begged my mom to buy a trombone. “What about a soccer ball,” she said? She wouldn’t buy it, so I started to clean carpets, cut the grass, all sorts of odd jobs to raise money. When I was finally able to buy one, I immediately felt it was something for me, like when you try out a new pair of shoes and they fit perfectly. I practiced every day, even early in the morning before going to school. It drove the neighbours crazy.
“My greatest teacher was not a vocal coach, not the work of other singers, but the way Tommy Dorsey breathed and phrased on the trombone,” Frank Sinatra once famously said.
PORTER: That’s it: what I liked about the trombone, was that it reminded me of a singer. Most of all, I was seduced by the versatility of the instrument. I could play low like a bass player, high like a trumpet, it could be smooth and cool, but also hard and heavy.
You have collaborated with lots of hip-hop and soul artists, but also with Nick Cave. How did you end up on his album Push the Sky Away?
PORTER: I think there are just a couple of trombone players with a reputation in Hollywood. [Laughs] He was looking for an interesting sound on “Higgs Boson Blues” and asked me to come by. He told me I had a unique sound. It was great to see his creative process.
You also witnessed Kendrick Lamar’s creative process on To Pimp a Butterfly. It must have been awesome to be part of that. Suddenly people who never listened to jazz started to dig it.
PORTER: Jazz was always there, but suddenly there was a spotlight on it. I was so happy, because Kendrick and Terrace Martin and everybody who worked on that project gave people a proper introduction to what we were doing. The jazz scene in LA is still very vibrant today. It inspired so many kids and other musicians to try to pursue their dreams.
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