Geoff Gehman, April 2013
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
Two months ago Kevin Eubanks guested on The Tonight Show, where he spent 15 years as chief guitarist, music director and assistant comedian. He played a tune from his new record, reminisced with host Jay Leno, thanked his former boss and friend for sending him rare gifts involving Jimi Hendrix, his guitar hero. He felt like he hadn’t been gone for nearly three years; it felt natural, like home.
A more natural attitude is very much on Eubanks’ mind and in his fingers. On his latest CD, The Messenger (Mack Avenue), he branches out from contemporary jazz, his main medium, to other favorite tributaries: rock-funk, blues, Motown soul. He reunites with his brothers, trumpeter Duane and trombonist Robin, on “JB,” a tribute to James Brown, who helped convince him the guitar had to be his calling. Under what Eubanks calls “a roof of grooves” is a reminder to everyone to help loved ones in need and a reminder to himself to cut loose and just let it fly.
Eubanks, 55, was a cool cat long before he became Leno’s side-splitting sidekick. The Philadelphia native picked up poise from playing in bars at age 13, picked up a quick wit from pickup basketball games, picked up musical and comic chops from performing in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and living in Slide Hampton’s home. He’s that rare dude who can host Playboy’s jazz festival and an awards ceremony for top teachers.
Eubanks was typically hip during a recent phone conversation from his Philly home. He was passionate and perceptive whether he was championing instruments for public schools or dissecting his Leno/Martin/Lewis/Abbott/Costello comedy act.
The Messenger features your funky, hiphoppy take on John Coltrane’s “Resolution,” with a new, nifty vocal bass line from Alvin Chea of Take 6. Why is that tune so important to you? It encapsulates modern jazz and ’Trane’s spirit leap. It has a spiritual energy that makes me listen to it over and over. It just makes me want to dig deeper.
I had always wanted to work with Alvin [Chea]. We’ve been friends for years and he doesn’t live too far from my house outside L.A. So I sent him the song and told him that we’d just jam on it in the studio. I didn’t want it scripted; I didn’t want to copy ’Trane. You can’t copy him the same way you can’t copy Jimi Hendrix. Because both of them had such a personalized energy.
Did anything surprise you while making The Messenger?
The most surprising thing was I stayed out of the way. Usually I have everything so planned out and well rehearsed. This time I let people find their own way. We were recording in my studio, so nobody was looking at the clock. I’d tell them, Don’t worry about the song; let’s just work on the groove until we get something real solid. That looseness allowed them to do more than they wanted to do, which made them more comfortable and unified. Everybody had more fun because I stayed out of the way. I’d like to do more of that in life in general.
You were 12 when you first saw James Brown in action at the Uptown Theater in Philly. What happened that made you suddenly want to play guitar instead of sing or dance?
I have thought about that for so many years, but I still don’t know. I remember there was one part of the show when they put a strobe light on the guitar player and he was just moving around and that impressed me. But that was for all of two minutes. I just remember walking out of the Uptown Theater and looking down at the curbside and knowing I just had to play the guitar.
It’s kind of bizarre. We think we know so much about ourselves but then one thing comes along that takes us on a completely new path.
What gave you the chutzpah, the cojones, to start playing in bars at 13, just a year after you started on the guitar?
Oh, I never thought about it. It was just fun. I was 13, I was probably working on my second guitar (I painted the first one), and I had the neighborhood band—if you could call it a band. As long as the keyboardist’s mom was there, we could play and stay in bars all night. I never thought for a second it was dangerous. I was so wrapped up in the music, I didn’t even notice I was in a bar. Except whenever the keyboardist’s mom was not around and then we’d go: Where did she go? [laughs]
Your mother apparently was more enthusiastic about your bar playing than your detective father, probably because she was a musician. What was the best lesson or advice your mom gave you about playing music?
Well, one piece of advice I didn’t take was to take piano lessons, which I should have taken because piano comes so much easier to me than guitar. I can’t play piano like I play guitar, but if I sit at a piano I just learn. The key is I have fun when I play the piano. I think some of the fun, some of the luster, goes away when you’re studying something for a different purpose, when there’s pressure. My mother is still pretty amazed, even for a mom, how naturally I can play the piano. She says: “You should have studied piano. But you did great as a guitar player, so don’t feel bad.” [laughs] I still think I could take piano lessons. I mean, if I can learn to swim at 50 I can learn to play piano at a certain level.
Is it true you picked up early comedy tips from trading one-liners during pickup basketball games in Philly schoolyards?
It’s just the way kids hung out, especially in Philly. You could bust on anybody and nobody ever took it seriously. It was just a natural way to communicate, just like musicians on tour entertain themselves by telling jokes and funny stories. There are so many funny things that happen with a busload of musicians and, of course, the lives we lead on the road are hilarious.
I’ll give you an example. One time everybody gets off the plane for a connecting flight and there’s one guy who is so tired, he’s still asleep. And no one wakes him. The flight attendants are gone, the people who clean the plane are gone, and he’s still there, sleeping. And we’re sitting on the next plane, wondering: Where is he? So for the next tour you call him “Sleepy.” Even onstage. So he has to hear, over and over again: “Where did you get the name ‘Sleepy’?” Just because he fell asleep and was left behind on a plane, just once. That road camaraderie was one of the reasons Jay [Leno] and I hit it off right away. We have that in common, that you have to be on your toes when you’re traveling. That’s why we could bust on each other on the show and never take things personally. He could joke about me not having a date. I could tease him about staring at a really pretty girl. Who would have thought that hanging out, playing pickup basketball, could be so useful?
Was there a favorite comic routine on The Tonight Show that you originated?
We had a recurring thing that Jay was never that fond of but everybody enjoyed. I love sports, which Jay doesn’t care about. So I was always looking for some reason for us to be at odds, to pick sides for a bet. It was not really about sports or a particular game; it was more about competing in a comic contest. Let me pick one thing. The Philadelphia Eagles [Eubanks’ favorite pro football team] were playing the New England Patriots and I said: “Well, Jay, are you saying the Eagles can’t beat the Patriots? People, what do you think?” And then the audience would start clapping. And then I said: “Jay, the Eagles will tear the Patriots to shreds.” And then the audience would “Woo! Woo!” And I told Jay: “I’m still thinking about you thinking the Patriots will beat the Eagles; I think we should have a bet.” More applause. And Jay looks at me: “You did it again!” The executive producer loved it because now they start writing about the bet in Philly and Boston. And people would be calling from sports radio and saying “You’re going to get dunked in a big vat of Campbell’s Soup if the Eagles don’t win.” Most of the time the loser was me, which worked with the show because, after all, I was the sidekick. So Jay gets to throw the football and I get dunked in a huge vat of Campbell’s Soup. If the Sixers [the Philadelphia 76ers, Eubanks’ favorite pro basketball team] were playing [the Los Angeles] Lakers, Jay would have Lakers players come on the show and I would bet them the Sixers were going to win.
So what was the Sixers bet you lost that ended up with you, PETA’s World’s Sexiest Vegetarian Man, eating meat?
Rick Fox [former Lakers forward turned actor] bet me that if the Lakers beat the Sixers, I had to eat a chili dog on the air. So I told the camera man: “Look, man, get a good shot because I’m going to spit this thing out in three seconds. We don’t want that on camera and I’m certainly not going to swallow any part of that chili dog.”
How normal or abnormal was it to guest on the Feb. 21 Tonight Show and then sit down in the interview chair next to Jay?
It felt completely normal. It felt absolutely like no time went by. I still knew everybody there. Before the show I was still hanging out with Jay and the executive producer in the office. Before the show I was in my dressing room, talking to Dennis Rodman [former pro basketball player and new rogue envoy to Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s b-ball-loving leader]. And when I sat down and spoke to Jay, we talked just as easily as ever. I think part of our success was that Jay and I were comfortable with each other, so people watching us were comfortable. We were part of their evening, part of their extended family. Over 15 years we had time to develop a safe routine where we both trusted each other. I could get him out of his comfort zone, so he could do some dance moves on camera—even the finger dance. You don’t want your partner to do something that feels uncomfortable because then he can’t do something on his feet; then he feels stifled.
After a while I started understanding comedy better, in a traditional sense, along the lines of Abbott and Costello and Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Of course Jay is such a great comedian, you could see how things formed, that there is a science to comedy, like music. But, like music, you still have to have spontaneity. The punch line has to be unexpected but still completely appropriate. You know, there’s something to be said about development, which doesn’t happen much today in anything. Nobody wants to develop rawness, so new bands are hit and miss. It’s not like the way Motown developed musicians or even the way the country developed industry after World War II. We want to have high-speed trains but nobody wants to develop them; we just want to keep the cash flow flowing. When you take development out of things, you shouldn’t be disappointed when it’s not heroic.
Jay develops your friendship by giving you choice gifts associated with Jimi Hendrix, one of your guitar heroes. What are some of your Hendrix-Leno treasures?
Vinyl never before released. An immaculate box set. A lot of things from England that don’t reach the States. It makes me feel weird. All I send him for his birthday is a dorky card or something. I can never find something related to his great passion for great cars. You know, “Oh, I’m sorry I don’t have access to a Bugatti blueprint.” [laughs] I can tell you that for 15 years I parked next to Jay and never, ever touched his cars. I should get an award for never leaving a scratch or a dent [laughs].
Why are you so passionate about putting public instruments back in public schools?
Playing music in public schools is so important for so many reasons. Learning music means kids have to stay at school a few extra hours a week. It means they have to spend extra hours at home preparing to play at school. You play with like-minded people, so that makes you focus better. You start to make friendships, too. With music there’s a connection that continues even if you don’t play it for a living. Music cracks open a door so there’s a part of your personality that has more emotion. All these things are tied together. When you lose music in public schools you lose a bit of culture and a lot of humanity. Without music I don’t think people would be as happy or appreciative or kind. What is there to be gained by making our children less happy, less inquisitive?
Hip Humanitarian
Philly native Kevin Eubanks aims to be cooler and warmer
after his Tonight Show gig.
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Geoff Gehman is the author of The Kingdom of the Kid: Growing Up in the Long-Lost Hamptons, which will be published in July by SUNY Press. Email: geoffgehman@verizon.net.
