Playboy Jazz Festival Weblog - The New Jazz Thing with Vince Outlaw (TNJT.com)

Saturday, June 7, 2003

Did You Hear The One About Poncho, Moody, Vince, and the Operator?

No joke. But Comical. A Unique, Live, Episode of Life.

Poncho, Moody, Vince, and the Operator came together for brief moments around 7:15 pm PT, last Thursday night, June 5, 2003, on The New Jazz Thing Live at Jazz 88! And the Operator ended up stealing the show with her 'running out of time' voiceover and her interview ending disconnection. Live in front of you all. Or at least some of you. And it was unexpected, which is funny seeing how we were treading some new ground.

The whole concept for the interview was coming together, after stewing about it for a day or so. And it started getting clearer on the drive down to the station, to which I was arrived at 5:15, later than a usual Thursday. It was a 'Moody on Poncho, Poncho on Moody' thing:

What did these two well known Jazz legends think about one another?
Was there a tune of the other that each could suggest to illustrate something special about the other?
How was that going to influence their upcoming collaboration, Saturday, 6/14/2203, at The 25th Playboy Jazz Festival?
What would their set be like...tunes, feel, tributes?

It sounded like it could go in quite a few directions...and it could nicely fit into a 20 minute set. And was somewhat flexible. Which came in handy...around 5:45 pm PT, 15 minutes before the show, an hour and a half before the interview.

The same technology that would fail us later, put us together one last time before the interview. In most cases, I don't get much, if any, pre-interview time with the artists. Maybe we've exchanged some emails, but most of the time not. Especially when they are phone interviews like both Thursday night were. I'm talking to them about 1 minute before we go Live on the air. And I do my best in that short time to ask the artists if there is anything THEY want to talk about. I usually tell them that we'll hit the obvious, like the new disc, upcoming show, or other News about the artist. Most of the time the reply back from the artists is "ask what you'd like" or "whatever you want to talk about". I usually have lots of ideas for directions to go and I ask as many of those as I can.

Talking with Moody (I continued to call him James, to the last minute of our connection), we decided to talk about how Latin Music, Poncho's pan y mantiquilla, impacted his career. After all, he did play with Latin Jazz Pioneer Tito Puente and Latin (and Bebop) Jazz Ambassador Dizzy Gillespie! Moody sounded like he was looking forward to doing his New Jazz Thing over some Latin Rhythms. Poncho was open to most everything and wanted to rap. The plan was to learn what Poncho knew about Moody, what he was looking toward during the Playboy gig, and what New Things was Mr. Sanchez up to! Open enough to again go in several directions, time permitting. Time didn't end up being the limiting factor it usually is.

I started the show at 6:00 pm PT, with thoughts of a full hour of New tunes...no talk. And time to put together a final plan for the time together. And to remember that I (we, Jazz 88) hadn't ever conferenced two different phone calls together and put that over air. Oh, small detail (he writes ironically). But I did have engineering help, so had no doubts it would be pulled off. I could worry about the chat, not the tech.

So here's what I'd sketched out during hour 1, and in the first few minutes after 7 pm PT

Call Poncho around 7:18, say hi and get him on hold during my 7:20 break.

Out of my 7:20 break, play a Poncho tune. Something from his most recent, Latin Nights.

During the tune, call Moody, say hi, hook him into the same line as Poncho, transfer the whole phone call to our on-air-phone-line, and turn up the volume on the on-air-phone-line. voila...Poncho from Norwalk (hey hey, I was once a neighboring La Mirada homie) and Moody from home sweet home San Diego.

Introduce James Moody and Poncho Sanchez. I had bios on both, but had not been able to put together anything myself before the interview. I was going to wing it. Which has happened before, but never when I've got to introduce two artists at the same time. Can anyone say tonque tied?

Q for Mooody: How has Latin Jazz impacted his career to date?

Q for Poncho: How has bebop in general and James in particular impacted you as you've played Jazz? How has it impacted your Latin Jazz playing? Where's the connection?

Q for Poncho / Moody: Had either of them played The Playboy Jazz Festival before? Did either of them have any thoughts on the upcoming gig at The Playboy Jazz Festival?

Q for Moody: What New Things were coming up with him? Projects, Albums, other Collaborations? Where could folks in San Diego see him?

Q for Poncho: What New Things were happening in his life and career?

Play A Moody Tune. In my haste, I couldn't find anything in the 10 or so Moody discs which by name indicated a latin tune. So I grabbed the Moody Plays Mancini disc. Fun tunes.

And that was how it was supposed to go. But it didn't. I got Poncho on the line no problem. And promptly dropped him as I tried to flash the phone or hit the transfer/conference button or put him on hold first. That happened a couple times. Re-dial, apologize, screw-up, repeat. I got good at this. Some combination eventually worked and gave me another dial-tone. To call Moody. No problem. Until I tried to put them together. And the exact keystrokes escaped us again, which was now twice as bad because I had to call them both back, apologize, screw-up, repeat. Oh, and that first Poncho Sanchez tune finished as we struggled, so I did what any good DJ would do...I let the CD run and played the next tune on the disc (with a small little DJ rap to pass that in-between-tunes sound-less space...I bet I sounded nervous).

But we finally perserved after a couple more aborted tries (and re-dials, apologize, screw-up, repeat), and they were on the air Live and Together. Poncho and Moody. And a DJ without written introductions. So I moved right into my initial question for Moody. And the Operator moved in. I was so surprised to hear this other voice speak lightly over Moody, "your time has elapsed" (or something like that...wait for the audio book). Poncho made some sly comment about her wanting to get in and I think I said something about how only NOW did we not have problems getting folks on the line. Ha Ha (we chuckled). And Moody collected all of our thoughts back up and moved forward with the initial question. And it was a great answer...that explosure to Latin Jazz had given him another area on which to explore on, another pallete for his art, something New to improvise on. But the Operator had had enough of us. And she promptly disconnected us. The line noise in my headphones went immediately dead and I think I immediately knew something bad had happened. Again. But I went on for just a second or two like it was a happy day...probably spinning avenues of idle, cover my ass, chat lines through my brain trying to grab the one that would work in the next couple of seconds when I had to admit to the world that THEY WERE NOT THERE. I did, I composed, I joked, and played "The Pink Panther" from Moody Plays Mancini.

I was done. I hate to even admit it. But I was done. Will was gone. I made a quick search of the premises for help and answers from higher beings. But there was none to be found. At least none directly answering my technical dilemma. So I thought for a moment. Kind of hoping that I would regain the will. Someone or something would prod me to try one more time. Or just interview one of them at a time. But that would require going back through the phone system, which was now my sworn enemy, or more appropriately, my conqueror. I was done.

So I called them both back, and they were so gracious. So willing to try again, but both probably knowing that something strange and wild was going on down at Jazz 88. I apologized one more time and said good night to Poncho and Moody.

And muttered to myself a phrase I use a lot when things go right or wrong, when a moment illustrates one of the most awesome things about doing The New Jazz Thing Live at Jazz 88: "Live Radio". That's what it's about. I can (and want to) plan for the most tight, organized, thematic show that can still be all about New and Fresh and Right Now, but it all comes down to being Live. And moving on to the next Live moment. With lots of people listening. And hopefully enjoying the Live experience. Live Radio!!

Oh...and it only took me a moment to realize that I now had another full hour and a half to play music. Killer New Jazz Things!! So I did and it was awesome. Maybe I'll get the playlist up this weekend and we can blog a little bit about what we heard.

On with the show!!

Much Love...VO

P.S. This posting is dedicated to Poncho Sanchez, James Moody, Nina, Natalie, Rebecca, Larry, Claudia, and everyone else who had a hand in this unique episode in life.
12:15:50 AM