Frank Sinatra’s drummer, Gregg Field, joins Jeffrey Saad to share his extraordinary journey through music, passion, and opportunity. From playing alongside legends like Count Basie and Ella Fitzgerald to producing groundbreaking tracks with Frank Sinatra, Gregg’s story is one of perseverance, pure talent, and the magic of simply showing up. Discover how trusting his instincts—and avoiding the trap of needing success—allowed Gregg to create iconic moments in music history. This episode reveals the unique insights and life lessons from a musician who’s seen it all, reminding us why following passion over fear opens doors we might never expect.
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Frank Sinatra’s Drummer And Producer Extraordinaire Gregg Field
Starting Young With Jazz Legends
The circle. I’ve got Gregg Fields here. Gregg, you’re unbelievable. You’re nineteen years old, you start touring with Count Basie, Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald. You’re not even in your early 20s, and you’ve already done what most people would go, “I’ve lived a good life.” Ten different categories of Grammys, Latin Grammys, Emmy nominations, Grammy nominations.
Who’s counting?
You know who’s counting? Nobody, because it’s too much to count. You’ve been at the Apollo, you’ve done the Hollywood Bowl, you’ve been to the Aspen Film Festival, you’ve been at the Library of Congress. The amount of things you do is fascinating to me, and you always do it with such grace that it’s like, just another gig. But I truly think the world will run out of talent before you’ll run out of energy.
Sounds like I can’t keep a job.
What I love about you most is, other than the fact that, of course, you enjoy food so much, too.
Your food?
Thank you.
Come on.
That’s great about you, you love the best of everything. We had our chicken chili, and then the roasted pumpkin seeds. I love the crunch they add to a salad, so you get some texture. The spinach is creamy, the seeds are crunchy.
Also, I’m not a big cilantro fan, but you balance the cilantro with the lettuce.
That was dangerous. If you’re not a cilantro fan, you still liked it because I used the cilantro as part of the salad mix. Basically, you have cilantro leaves mixed in with spinach, but somehow they’re like long-lost cousins or something. They hang nicely together, too.
It was great. Normally, I hate cilantro. It’s like soap. My father-in-law couldn’t stand it.
That’s a real thing, by the way. They say that there literally is a chemical DNA thing where, for some people, the reaction in their mouth literally creates a flavor of soap.
I didn’t get, I swear to God, I got a lot of soap.
Good thing I put some degreaser in the dressing, so it must have balanced the soapiness out.
Let’s go with that.
That’s what I love, but I think it’s fascinating. The whole idea of this podcast is I truly want to leave people other than I found them. I really believe that everything in life is not about what happens because you can’t control it anyway. Things are going to happen. Maybe you’ll tell the story of how you got in with Count Basie, but it’s the reaction. It’s what you do with what happens that makes people thrive. I think a lot of people suffer from focusing outside of that circle, and it just brings them down. What I’m curious about with you, as a wild success, and all the people you’ve had the pleasure of working with and thriving with, does that make any sense? Have you seen how somebody’s ability in the circle of control is something that makes sense to you in your life? With Monica and your wife, do you find examples of where you’ve lost or thrived because of that?
A hundred percent, because I’m hearing this expression, this nomenclature, for the first time, I suppose. When you think of something as being outside of the circle of control, what does that obviously imply? That there may be something you want that’s outside of that circle, and maybe you fear not being able to bring it into your circle. For me, when you include fear, fear, for me, is a belief system, and it tends to push things away. What I find is that something I’m passionate about, I’ve learned not to need it.
I love that.
Because need brings an entirely different set of choices that you might make. It’s like, “If I don’t get this, if I don’t have, if I’m not able to pull this in or that in or get this job or whatever,” I find that that tends to push things further away.
God, you’re good. I’ve never heard anybody say that, and I really like that. Need makes you make decisions you wouldn’t have otherwise made.
A hundred percent.
Less quality ones.
You’re making decisions out of fear. You referenced how I got Count Basie’s gig. For those of you that don’t know, Count Basie was a Duke Ellington in the 20th century. Probably had the most successful big jazz band of them all. Sinatra recorded with him, Ella Fitzgerald recorded with him. They were the gold standard. It was an all-African-American band of eighteen guys that did over 300 concerts a year and had been together a very long time.
Almost daily.
Almost. Exactly. I heard the band when I was ten years old at Disneyland. I’d been playing drums for about a year, and the hair stood up on the back of my neck. I was seeing something that I literally had a physical reaction to music. Nobody else around me was having this reaction. I’m thinking, “Wait, why am I freaking out?”
I love that.
There you are. Is everybody hearing this?
I’ve never seen their cotton candy.
Exactly. I asked my dad to buy every Count Basie record he could find.
A ten-year-old, “Give me every Count Basie record.”
He did. I would come home from my junior high school, elementary school, and practice to these records over and over and over. I could sing every trumpet part and every trombone part and every sax part. I knew the drums, what they were doing, and I would try to do them. This went on for seven years. I’m a senior in high school, and we had a really great jazz program. I grew up in East Bay, outside of San Francisco.
How Gregg Landed His Dream Gig With Count Basie
It’s December of 1973. I’m 17. I’m a senior in school. I read in the newspaper that Ella Fitzgerald and Count Basie and his band are going to play for a week at this theater. I asked my dad, I said, “Can I go every night?” He said, “Sure.”
I love that your dad was that supportive.
He was great.
Hats off to your dad.
He was a surgeon. My mom was a nurse, but if you wanted to go after music, do it. Complete, 100% support. I would drive to the theater. Concerts at 8:00. I would stand there at 7:00 outside the stage door, and the band bus would pull up, and the guys would get out, and I recognized every one of them. This is a crazy story, but I swear to God it’s true. I did this Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Saturday, they were going to do an earlier show and a later show. My girlfriend and I were going to go to dinner and go to the later show.
Coincidentally, which I don’t believe in coincidence, but what will appear as coincidence, she called me that afternoon, and she said, “I’m not feeling good.” I thought, I’ve got nothing to do. I might as well go to the early show. That night, I’m standing out there like I had every other night, and one of the guys in the band stops because I’m doing total fanboy.
Who is this guy?
He said, “You work here?” I said, “No.” He said, “Why are you out here every night?” I said, “I’m just a big fan of the band. I’m a drummer. I’m Gregg Fields.” He said, “I’m John.” I said, “I know. You’re John Calvin Williams. You’re from Greensboro. You joined the band in 1970, and you play baritone saxophone.”
I want to see that movie. You’ve got to make a movie, I love it, honestly.
Where it ends up, maybe so. He said, “Why don’t you come back?” I’m in the green room of this theater.
How are you not shaking uncontrollably?
I pretty much am. I’m looking, and there’s Eddie Hawk, John Davis, and Freddie Green, the famous guitar player, Al Gray, trombone player, anyway. Basie hadn’t shown up yet. He was coming by private car. It’s about five minutes before the concert’s going to start, and the band is assembling in the wings, and up comes Basie. John said, “What’s your name?” I said, “Gregg Fields.” He said, “Basie, this is Gregg, and he’s a drummer.” I don’t remember what we said to each other. All I remember is that he was really warm. The band goes on stage, and they’re about to introduce Count Basie, and the manager comes up and said, “Sonny Payne’s not here,” to Basie. Sonny Payne was the drummer. I just put my hand up.
The rest of your life, you should thank your girlfriend and this guy, because these two people changed your life on accident.
A hundred percent. Basie said, “Do you see her drummer?” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “Do you want to play?” I said, “Yeah.” I walked out on stage, and I got to tell you, when you’re a musician and you’re traveling on the road, you meet a lot of really whacked people. I have to think the guys in the band are going, “What is this kid doing?” Coincidentally, I showed up in a gray suit. The whole band was wearing gray suits.
You do?
I sit down.
See, again, that’s you putting it out there.
I’m telling you.
In your head, you were already part of the group.
I wanted to be, but I didn’t need to be.
There it is. Even at seventeen.
Here’s the reason that me playing with this band was not even something I was considering. Because probably the youngest guy in the band was 40, all African American guys, and the absolute elite of the jazz world. This was the gold standard gig.
No offense, not to get down a wrong path here, but that wasn’t exactly the time where they would be thrilled to bring in this white kid.
Absolutely, but it would be. A hundred percent. As a matter of fact, we can talk about that. Duke Ellington hired his first white musician in 1951. It was a drummer named Louie Belson, who was my teacher. Those guys operated from a different planet.
I love it.
I walk out, I sit down, and I said to this trombone player, “Where’s the music?” He said, “We don’t pull the music out. The drummer knows.” Right at that moment, I hear, “Ladies and gentlemen, Count Basie.” Basie walks out, he sits down, and he starts to play a song, Jeff, that I played in my bedroom hundreds and hundreds of times.
You were like, I got this.
I got this. I played the whole set. Basie introduced me at the end. He had me stand up. He said, “Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t remember this young man’s name, but he just came out and helped us out.” While we were on stage playing, I look over in the wings, and there’s Ella standing in the wings, just watching and grinning because somebody went back and told her, “It’s some high school kid who’s playing drums.” I needed a little bit more seasoning, a lot more. I moved to L.A. and I got Ray Charles’ gig. I toured with Harry James. I started working with Herbie Hancock, and it was seven years later, and I was at my little apartment in West Hollywood, and my phone rang.
It was Count Basie’s manager. I became the youngest musician that he ever hired in his entire career. Within a year, I recorded an album that went on to win the first Grammy album, the first time I played on a Grammy. I did a TV special with Frank Sinatra called Men in His Music.
You became Sinatra’s last drummer, right?
This is where I’m going with this, yeah. What else? In December of 1981, at the Kennedy Center Honors, they were honoring Cary Grant, Helen Hayes, Rudolph Serkin, Jerome Robbins, and Basie. Basie’s band was going to perform on the Kennedy Center Honors, and the host of the Basie segment was Henry Mancini.
Crazy. I’m not going to blow this.
Trusting The Flow: The Journey To Working With Frank Sinatra
I’m going to draw the line. I end up as Basie’s drummer. I spent three years with him, did almost a thousand concerts.
A thousand from being the kid standing in the alley?
Yeah. Probably somewhere between 900 and 1,000 concerts, somewhere in there. Probably closer to 900. Anyway, a lot.
Now we know that’s only three years’ worth.
Because we were always on the road. There was no tour. You took a couple weeks off in July and a week off at Christmas. Otherwise, we’re doing 5 or 6 nights a week, and all over the world. I end up leaving Basie, and I got offered a teaching position at USC, and I wanted to start working in L.A. studios, and then Ella hired me. I spent a couple of years with Ella until she had a heart attack on the road, so she retired. My studio career started taking off, and then I got a call from Frank. Here’s where it gets really crazy. I was Frank’s last drummer. That’s why I usually toured. I did the duets records with him. At the Kennedy Center, Henry Mancini sees me. He comes up to me, and he said, “Kid, you’ve got the greatest job in the world. You’re Count Basie’s drummer.”
I’m like 25 years old. I thought, Henry Mancini’s talking to me. If everybody out there doesn’t know who Henry Mancini was, he wrote The Pink Panther, Moon River, 18 Oscar nominations, 73 Grammy nominations. Won four Oscars. Anyway, when I look back, I ended up marrying Henry Mancini’s daughter. I ended up working with Ella, working with Frank. This was a very long answer to your question about not putting me into the equation. Because the likelihood of a young white guy from San Leandro, California, getting the most coveted job in jazz was nothing that you would even let into your someday.
There was no someday. I never thought it would happen. When it happened, I came to it quite purely. It was something that I was passionate about, but I didn’t need. I’ve had gigs that I thought, If I don’t get that gig, I’m going to be really disappointed, but cut to all these years later, it’s been 50 years since that night.
It sounds like that’s a great example of you didn’t focus on what was outside your control, which was “Where will this lead? How can this be?” Sounds like you just showed up and played.
I do, because I use it as a technique, I don’t find there is coincidence. There is what you experience in the conscious awareness, physical awareness. There’s past, present, future. There is what appears to be coincidence, but when you start digging a little bit deeper into what’s the unconscious mind doing, what’s the subconscious mind doing, how is that impacting what I’ve experienced? It’s completely reasonable to me after 50 years of this kind of thing happening, that where I put my passion and my attention, doors start flying open. And when the door doesn’t fly open, I trust that. I never let need come in.
Where you put your passion and attention is where doors start to fly open. Share on XThat is like the best example of the circle. I trust that. You’re just letting it exist. You’re not forcing anything in or outside of that world.
Don’t force a thing.
I like that statement. I trust that. Not “I accept that” or “I’ll deal with that,” but “I trust that.”
Celebrating Henry Mancini’s 100th Birthday
I’ll give you a great example of this. We’re celebrating Henry Mancini’s 100th birthday. I recorded an album.
He did the TV show, too.
We’ve got a PBS Great Performances. It starts airing on November 29th. The first song we wanted to record was Peter Gunn, and you know, da, da, da, da, da. That won the first Grammy for Album of the Year for Henry Mancini. The piano player on that track in 1957 was John Williams. Star Wars. He was Henry Mancini’s piano player. He played on The Pink Panther, Moon River. That’s John. My wife called John and said, “John, you want to come in and re-record your part?” He said, “Sure.” I called Quincy Jones, who I’d worked with for years, said, “You want to conduct?” He said, “Absolutely.” Called Herbie Hancock, “You want to be the other piano player?” He said, “Absolutely.” Called Arturo Sandoval, said, “You want to be in the band?” “Yes.” A friend of mine knows Dave Grohl from Foo Fighters.
Right, of course.
Dave’s a great drummer. I thought, If I could get Dave Grohl on this track. When we put the word out to him because we have a mutual friend, he wouldn’t say yes, he wouldn’t say no. He wouldn’t say yes, he wouldn’t say no. Finally, he said no. I was initially disappointed. If I didn’t trust the way things can flow, I might have been trying to figure out another way to get to him, play some more cards, but he said no? Okay. We make the recording. If you want to see it, you can go to CBS Sunday Morning Mancini. You’ll see the session. Here’s what I hadn’t considered, John Williams and Herbie Hancock and Quincy Jones had been friends for 60 years. Had they ever been in the studio together? No.
No way.
Not the three together recording. Dave Grohl doesn’t know any of those guys, so If his energy had come in.
Changed everything.
It would have changed everything, and not for the better.
Interesting.
Right. I didn’t know that was going to play into it until after we recorded it. I went, No. As great as it would have been musically, it probably wouldn’t have reached the heights that it did because there were no strangers in the studio.
I love it.
These were people that love each other and had known each other for so many years.
Your energy in the interaction is everything. That brings it all to life. Like a great photographer, there’s a reason why one gets a different picture than another. It’s the energy they create in the interaction. It’s still the same camera.
To watch the hardcore studio musicians, because it was a band of about twenty of us, to watch their reaction. This is the cream of the crop, the L.A. guys. To see these legends standing at the podium, and we had just come out of COVID. It was really emotional. The emotion is in that track.
I love that.
CBS Sunday had cameras on it. November 29th.
I can’t wait.
CBS, Great Performances. We were going to show that entire session.
You put that together. That’s what’s up. You said something earlier that I want you to go in on more. You made me think about the circle differently because a lot of times I frame it as, like, outside the circle is the war in the Middle East. We can’t affect that, so why are you going to let it bring you down and affect your energy and everything else? You said, you gave me an interesting twist that I liked, fear can stop people. Correct me if I got it wrong. You said fear can stop people from reaching outside the circle to something they think is outside the control that they actually could have in their life. Is that right?
A hundred percent.
Give me some examples or thoughts on that because I love that concept. Don’t let fear be this Berlin Wall of the circle.
The trust part and the removal of fear in your day-to-day decision-making, I find that the fear tends to put you on a very myopic path of, I want to get from A to B. I want to possess B, whatever it might be, the thing that you might fear not owning or getting to. It tends to put you on a path to find that that’s the door I want to go through. Maybe that door is opening over here and opening over here and opening over here, but your fear is limiting you. It’s, again, putting you on a very narrow path of, This is how I’m going to get to this. I’m going to get Dave Grohl to show up. I’m going to get this to show up. When somebody back here is saying, You’re going to have a much better session if that doesn’t go in that direction. By this time, after 50 years of living this, it’s easier for me. Listen, there’s still stuff I want. I want this new Aston Martin, but I can’t afford it. The need doesn’t come in anymore.
Fear often forces you onto a myopic path, blinding you to opportunities that lie further down the road. Share on XI love the fear angle as well, because you’re right. The fear can just make you blind. You’re so fearful. On the outside, it looks like motivation or drive, but the truth is, the way you’re saying it, which makes a lot of sense, is it’s actually you’re so afraid of not getting it that you’re doing things, saying things, going places you don’t need to go that might end up being worse anyway.
I had a teacher, I just remember this, that put it in very simple terms. You’re standing at a stoplight, and the light turns green, and you want to walk across the street. The person without fear sees the light turn green, looks both directions, and walks across the street. The person with fear, the light’s turned green, they look both directions, and they’re still afraid to put their foot out. I might get hit. Even though it’s green and there’s no cars coming, that’s another way of looking at this. Is the fear paralyzing you? But really for me, it’s the fear blinds you from opportunity that may be a little bit further down the road.
That’s how I feel about optimism too. I think I annoy some people because I’m the endless optimist, but I really believe that when you’re an optimist, you don’t pay attention to challenges that other people won’t step off the curb for, over and over and over. You just believe it’s possible. You end up achieving things. Great things don’t come from lack of belief. They come from beautiful optimism, but there’s a balance, of course.
Normally, I’ve had a few guys in my life that were great teachers, and they weren’t trying to teach, they just did.
Well said.
I had a thing that came up a couple of years ago with a friend of 30 years, a colleague, a very close friend, that made a really bad business decision that affected me really negatively.
Interesting.
It was a trust issue.
Tell us.
The knee-jerk reaction of me 30 years ago would have been, Go F yourself and throw away a 30-year friendship and blah, blah, blah. Total reactionary. I called Norman on the phone because he knows this guy, and I said, “What would you do?” He said, “Over and next.”
Just like that?
Yeah.
Over and next.
Over and next. I initially took that to mean, “Over, you’re done with them, whatever’s coming next.” He called me the next day and explained it to me. He said, “Over is over the anger.”
Get over it.
He said, “It’s not doing you any good. The next is, why don’t you make decisions that’ll create positivity with this person?” It was a challenge because I wanted to say, Go F yourself. Because we spent so much time together, musically and away from music, I knew I was going to have to deal with it. I was literally sitting, watching this guy walk toward me, and I thought, I had a couple of choices I could make. I could play, hold back a little bit. I thought, Next. What do I want next? If I could have anything the way I want it, I want my friend back.
I love that.
I want to hug him, so I went up and hugged him.
That’s beautiful.
He knows that I know that he messed up. Excuse me. It’s a case of, “Do I want to have some punishment in our relationship?” Quincy died two days ago. Quincy was one wise, incredibly wise man. If you go on to Facebook, it’s on his page. It was an interview with him two years ago. He talked about a very famous composition teacher named Nadia Boulanger. She was from Paris. He studied with her in the ’50s. She was a classical composition teacher. She was a really wise woman. A lot of very famous people studied with her. She said to Quincy, “You’re only going to make music as good as who you are as a human being.”
Letting Go Of Anger And Embracing Positivity
He brought that up. He said, and he’s sitting in this chair, “I’m working on getting rid of all anger in my life. He says it’s toxic. It was going like this. It doesn’t do me any good. I don’t need revenge. I don’t need any of that. I’m getting it out of my body,” and that, coupled with Norman’s line.
Bravo.
Those are great lessons. That person, are you still friends?
Yeah, of course.
See? And you’ve done great things together. Good for you. Isn’t it funny? Good for you, because, like, our ego will kill us every time. I always say, I haven’t found anything in my life to be less valuable than being right. It never gets you anywhere. It ruins friendships. It makes people feel bad. Right doesn’t help anybody. Get to the right place. That’s what it sounds like you did with that person.
It wasn’t easy.
Because you would have been, “Apologize. You messed me up. You owe me.”
How about look in the mirror and say that every time that I did something stupid?
Loving you more. That’s such a good attitude. Start with, like, what I can do better.
I’m at the point where you make stupid decisions, and they’re fear-based. This was true with this guy. He wanted something really bad, and he went around me to get it. It wasn’t cool. Have I ever done anything like that? Hell, yeah.
We all learn.
Right, so I don’t feel like I need to do that anymore. As a matter of fact, it’s exactly the opposite. It’s that if something’s not coming, I trust it.
Trust it, like you said.
Move on.
Like you said, isn’t it great? Because you’re the one that’s being tortured anyway. That’s the irony of all this stuff. Even with this election stuff, the more angry and bitter you stay, it’s only hurting you. You’re not hurting anybody else with all the dialogue. It’s like, we just got to love and be kind because you’re the one that suffers otherwise, and it doesn’t solve anything.
It’s so true.
It’s a double negative.
It’s interesting you bring up the political thing. Obviously, we have people that we love, and they’re on the other side. A colleague of mine on Facebook, a really fantastic percussionist, I have no idea if he’s a Republican or Democrat, or who he voted for, but he said, “We need to evolve our lives and do what we do, which is making music.” I thought, that’s perfect. Monica and I, my wife, we’re news junkies. We get up in the morning, we’re turning on MSNBC or CNN, so that’s the side we’re on. It’s on all day and into the night because we’re political junkies.
You’re like one of the exceptions because I got to tell you, I preach, I practice it, zero news because I always joke that I’ve never met somebody that can give me an example of how their life is better or something’s better because of taking in news. But I would have never pegged you as that person because you’re always joyful. You’re always light. You have an incredible ability to be a human filter, process, let it go, let it pass you. But most people that watch news like that, it just makes them heavier and heavier and heavier because it’s just like brainwashing. Like I say, I get up in the morning, I read my peaceful stuff and all this stuff that starts my day. If I woke up to the news, I think I would just want to jump off a bridge.
I get it. I know a lot of the players, some of the higher players. I was really disappointed. It was painful, but Monica and I both made the decision, we’re not going to turn on any news. I’ve just got to get to a place of trust. I’m not there yet, but I will be.
Isn’t it funny? Knowing doesn’t make anything better. I know more experts of January 6th or whatever, both sides. It’s like, what’s changed? Nothing. They’re just heavier. They’re more frustrated. It’s really interesting. I call it expiring information. When you put your love and passion into music, into producing, into being with your wife, into spending time with friends, into cooking, those things are lasting. News is expiring information. It really has almost zero value here the next minute. Interesting. Who’s somebody you’ve worked with? Because again, this guy’s list of people you’ve worked with, there’s almost nobody left for you to work with.
I don’t think so unless they’re either dead or they’re not famous yet. You already talked about a couple of great examples, but who else did you watch and say, “They had such an incredible ability?” If you can think of anybody, or somebody, don’t say their name, that wasn’t able to do it. You watched them suffer as a result. Be able to separate what’s in their control, their career, their decisions, their talent. How did they stay in their circle of control and not get bogged down and either excel or not?
Music’s a wonderful place for pushing the rest of the world away when you’re making it, but it always doesn’t work. I’ll give you a really funny example. For me, I love working with singers. That’s my thing. I produce mostly, I produce singers.
Throw out a few. You’ve done Bublé, right?
I’ve done tons of albums with Bublé, Gloria Estefan, obviously Sinatra, Ella, Luther Vandross. I read the front, and it goes on. But Frank put it more succinctly than anybody. He said, “I never let my singing get in the way of my storytelling.” For me, when I hear somebody sing, in a perfect world, it’s like they’re opening up a window and letting you see inside of who they are.
When I hear somebody sing, it's like they're opening up a window and letting you see inside of who they are. Share on XI never let my singing get in the way of my storytelling.
I’ll give you a great example of that. Frank recorded a song in the ’50s called One for My Baby, and he called it a saloon song. It’s about a guy sitting at a bar, and it’s 2:00 in the morning, quarter to 3:00. There’s no one in the place except you and me. “Set ’em up, Joe,” talking to the bartender, “I’ve got a little story I think you should know.” Frank recorded this thing, and we did it at every concert. Cut to all the years later, 40 years later, 30 years later, we’re recording that same song on the Duets record, Frank Sinatra Duets, which I played drums on. Frank sounded really old on that track.
Interesting.
People would always say, “He doesn’t sound like he did in the ’50s.” He did.
He’s older.
Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” And The Power Of Authenticity
Here’s what I figured out, thanks to Phil Ramone, the producer. We finished recording it. Frank had all of his parts done, and they were mixing it. We were over at Capitol, and anytime somebody would visit the studio, they’d want to hear some of it. Phil would always play One for My Baby. The track was, back then, really old. One day, I turned to Phil and I said, “That sounds really old on that track. Why do you always play that one?” He said, “Gregg, you don’t get it.” He said, “In that vocal is 50 years of whiskey and avocado.” It’s like, Jeff, the heavens opened up. I went, “Oh my God.”
It was the epitome of the story.
I learned that it’s the antithesis of The Voice or American Idol, where somebody holds a note really high and loud. That’s a circus act.
Bravo.
What I want to do is become emotionally involved in music. Frank was that way. I’ll tell you, the singers I’ve worked with that did it better than anybody, Tony Bennett, Luther Vandross, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald. Whenever they sang, they were somehow wired not to be distracted, and they were in the story. Two of the opposite examples of that are Billy Joel was performing at Madison Square Garden, which he did all the time. I think he just did his 100th performance. He said on some interview, I’m never going to sing Just the Way You Are again. The interviewer said, Why not? He said, “I was on stage at Madison Square Garden. I was staying at the Waldorf or something.”
He said, he’s on stage, he’s in the middle of the song. He sings, “Don’t go changing.” He thinks to himself, “I wonder what time room service stops at the Waldorf. Trying to please me. Crap, I think it’s at midnight.” He said he realized that he was so disconnected. He said, “I can’t go up there and sing a song that I’m disconnected with.” There was another singer that I’m not going to mention who it is. We were doing a concert at Royal Albert Hall in London. The song was this really heartfelt song about coming out of a very dark period in their life. We were in the middle of playing it. They were standing at the front of the stage, singing these break-your-heart lyrics, smiling and shaking hands with the fans in front while they’re singing.
That’s such a disconnect.
A complete disconnect.
That must have felt so insincere. How weird.
Completely. Everybody remembers Frank Sinatra’s My Way, right?
Yeah, of course.
Frank used to love to grouse about it. I hate that song. Realize, most of the time, I was looking at Frank’s back while everybody in the audience was looking at his face. At least half the time, Frank would turn around after singing My Way, and there would be tears coming down his face, and the audience didn’t see it. But in 1992, two weeks before the Olympics, we were in Barcelona in one of the stadiums, arenas that were built for the Olympics. They shot it for TV. You can go on YouTube and you can see it. Just put in Frank Sinatra, Barcelona, 1992, My Way. We were behind him. Frank finished singing it. He turned to his left. There was a camera directly on him. He starts losing it.
The long answer to your question was, those people, and most of us that make music, when we’re actually doing that, we’re completely not distracted. You mentioned something earlier, which is really, if I had to pick one thing I’m most passionate about in my life, it’s race relations. Because I’ve lived in the African American music world most of my life. With rare exception, I’ve never felt separated from anybody, and I’ve never been made to feel separated.
I’ve always felt that about you. You’re truly colorblind, if there’s such a thing.
Norman was exactly that way. Norman said one time, somebody interviewed me, he said, “I feel like whoever I’m with, whatever tribe, I’m part of that.”
That’s awesome.
I don’t feel disconnected from anybody.
That’s your gift.
I just don’t. I’m not wired enough.
That’s a gift of yours because you find connection. You do. You’re just naturally interested in common ground in a positive way, in like a fulfilling way, which is so beautiful. When we’re together with Chris, you guys have your music thing, and it’s so clear when we’re talking, it’s the food thing or it’s the travel thing. It’s beautiful.
As I get older, I don’t find the need to have a get to know you period. It’s like, I can talk to a waiter like I’ve known him twenty years, and that came from Norman. Norman was the most amazing human being I’d ever encountered. One time we were at a restaurant, and the waiter came over and Norman said, “How are you, Mr. Waiter? Happy to see you.” It wasn’t a flip comment. He meant it. I watched him live his life that way. I want to be that guy.
You are that guy. Because I remember we were at, what was the restaurant? It was the guy that’s the sound studio.
Verse. I’ll be there.
Great restaurant in LA, Verse. I’ll never forget, you did the same thing to that waiter. The girl, you acknowledged where she was from, and you started throwing out a few words, and she felt so acknowledged in a sincere way. That was the best story I’ve ever heard. You were so kind and sincere to have that waiter have a taste of the wine. Remember, she assumed it was a gift, and he took the whole bottle. That was priceless.
“You got to try this wine.”
“Thank you. That’s so nice. I’m off tomorrow night.” I love it. You were so gracious. You were just like, “Enjoy.” It was so obvious that wasn’t the problem.
We’re probably having more fun laughing about that than if we had the wine.
Exactly.
There’s trust.
Thank goodness it was your wine, so you can have more of it. At your young age of amazing experiences in life, what is still your personal goal? What is the thing that you would still love to say, “I want to get that done?”
I spent the last two years making this tribute-to-my-father-in-law record and this TV special. We opened Hollywood Bowl Season, which is part of the special. We just did Albert Hall. We just did the Library of Congress. This whole dynamic around Henry Mancini has been incredible, and all the artists.
Full-circle special too.
It’s crazy.
You told me that story about him being at the Kennedy Center.
Is that crazy? I just want to make more music, obviously, but it’s like, this is a hard act to follow, this one. I’ve got albums lined up, and I’ll keep doing my thing. I love it. I can’t wait to get to work. Can’t wait.
It’s really not any one specific goal.
Not anymore.
The goal of continuing to do what you love to do.
Having those opportunities and being able to do it. I can say this, announce it. I’ve got a crazy one.
Please.
Here’s the universe doing some crazy shit. There’s a company out of New York called Primary Wave, and they’re really big players in the music world. They own the Luther Vandross estate. They own the Bing Crosby estate. They manage our estate, the Mancini family. They called me about a year ago, and they said, “We want to do a new recording of White Christmas using Bing Crosby’s original 1942 vocal. We want to get some huge pop star.”
See, I love those crossovers. It’s so cool.
Sometimes I’ve done all that work. It can be cool if you get it right. They said, “We want you to produce this, and we need to find a male pop star.” So, crazy universe, I don’t watch TikTok very often, but I happened to be on TikTok this one day. Do you know the Korean boy band called BTS?
Of course.
They’re huge.
Huge.
One of the members, a guy named V, is driving down the street in Seoul with his camera, his iPhone, filming himself lip-syncing to Bing Crosby. I went, “Come on.”
No way.
I know their publicist, and I called this woman, a friend of mine. I said, “Do you think V would want to do a duet with Bing Crosby on White Christmas?” She said, “Yeah.” It took me a couple of months to get it all done. Full orchestra.
That is going to be epic.
Let me tell you how epic. We announced it. It comes out on December 6th. They had 41,000 views of the swag you could buy in two hours, all Bing and V White Christmas swag.
Talk about a combo you would never put together in a million years.
Never.
I cannot wait to hear that.
It works great. There’s no AI involved, but there’s technology that allowed me to take off Bing’s voice from that recording and mix it where it sounds like I had Bing in the studio.
It is so cool.
There’s another one.
What an honor to their legacy. How cool is that?
That’s cool. To put BTS on my resume.
Exactly. You know that name, don’t you?
Audrey Hepburn sang Moon River in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. You remember the famous scene?
Of course.
She sings it on the fire escape. I had this dream to get Gustavo Dudamel, the most famous conductor in the world, with the LA Philharmonic and the LA Master Chorale and Stevie Wonder, and get them all in the studio and have them accompany Audrey Hepburn. I got permission from Paramount, got the clips of Audrey up on the screen, and then I was able to extract her vocal. We got rid of the guitar, and we got rid of the strings. I had the most famous session player of them all, Dean Parks, find the actual guitar that was used in 1960. He got it, brought it to the session, so it’s live with the LA Philharmonic. Anyway, we recorded it, and I was able to mix Audrey’s vocal really up front and for our 2024 ears. You can go on YouTube, and if you type in Moon River, Audrey’s Letter, Stevie Wonder, you’ll see the whole thing.
It’s there?
It’s there. It’ll be part of the PBS special, but it’s these new things we can do.
That’s amazing.
That technology that didn’t exist five years ago.
Again, kudos to you for adapting. I’m so grateful for all these lessons. I want to wrap it up with something you just made me realize.
We’re out of time.
There’s no such thing as out of time. With you, we could go for twelve hours with this guy, believe me, and you wouldn’t get bored. It’s like there’s so much, but something else that’s, I suppose, obvious, but I’m realizing is so valuable for people. Maybe it’s, I think, a lot of your success is your amazing ability to bring people together, to be cherished, trusted, loved, whatever you want to say. More than once, you’ve said, “I just called. I knew.” That’s what makes these things happen. What’s your parting advice for people on how to build 50 years, or whatever it’s been, of these kinds of relationships? What do you attribute that to? Because it’s not just being great at what you do. There’s plenty of people that are great at what they do and probably can’t pick up the phone like you can.
Why would you let somebody else’s limitations be yours? I taught at USC for eighteen years. I have a lot of students.
Don’t let somebody else's limitations be yours. Share on XI didn’t know that.
Why You Shouldn’t Let Others’ Limitations Define You
I stepped down in 1999, and then I actually joined the board in 2006. I’ve been chairing the music school board, the board of counselors, for a long time. Anyway, so I had a lot of experience in academia. Inevitably, I was teaching drummers, and you’d have three drummers of different levels. The one guy would say, “Geez, when I get out of school, by 25, if I don’t have it happening” because they already have a job and they’re 25. You start living your life by somebody else’s measure.
Well said.
Somebody else’s limitations or successes, don’t compare yourself to that. One of my teachers said, “You get a new Porsche. You got a really beautiful girlfriend. You’re driving away from the dealership. You pull up to a stoplight, and you look over. There’s a guy in a new Ferrari with a girl that you think is prettier than yours. You go from, ‘Ah,’ to, ‘Ah, crap.’” That’s the part of things. It’s your path. Pick up the phone and call anybody you want to. I don’t know how much you love them. If it’s supposed to happen, it’s supposed to happen, and it will. Don’t give up. Just swing. Just keep swinging, and trust. If you don’t hit the ball, it’s fine. If you lose the game, it’s all fine. It’s all fine.
That’s so powerful. You are the best. Thank you so much.
I love you so much.
Love you. Brilliant.
This is so much fun.
That is some killer nuggets.
You cooked that lunch.
It’s the least I could do.
I’m honored.
We got to get Monica over here next time.
Absolutely.
Thanks, brother.
Bye, everybody.