Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. I wanted to preview some of the conversations we're planning on having on the show later this week. Tomorrow, jazz trumpeter Theo Croker will be here to preview his new album and perform live in WNYC's Studio 5. That's in the future. Now, let's get this hour started with Patrice Rushen.

[theme music]

Alison Stewart: My next guest is a pianist, a singer, a producer, and the first woman to serve as musical director for the Grammys and the Emmys and the NAACP Image Awards. For another installment of our series, Equalizers: Women in Music Production, I'm joined by Patrice Rushen.

[MUSIC - Patrice Rushen: Forget Me Nots]

Alison Stewart: That is Rushen's 1982 hit, Forget Me Nots. It's a song written, arranged, performed, and produced by Rushen, one of a number of hits she's had on the R&B and Dance Charts, but Rushen got her start as a jazz pianist. In 1993, she put her jazz experience to use as the producer of Sheena Easton's standards album, No Strings. In the years since, she has contributed and performed music and worked in the studio and is a faculty member at Berklee College of Music and USC. She was also recently given a lifetime achievement award by the National Association of Music Merchants. We're honored to have her here. Patrice, nice to meet you.

Patrice Rushen: Thank you. Great to talk to you.

Alison Stewart: What do you remember about the first time you stepped into the studio as a producer?

Patrice Rushen: Wow. Well, I had had a little bit of experience with it co-producing most of my own records and in doing so much studio work for other people, observing other really fantastic producers in terms of how they would get the best out of the musicians. I gathered a lot of information before I actually had an assignment to have to produce a project on my own.

What I learned is that a lot of the things that I took away as a music education major in school and leading bands, little small combos, and things like that, a lot of the information was transferable in how you empower others to be able to give you their best and keep the goal in mind for what it is that you want and cast things correctly, and it was always fun for me. Always enjoyed doing that.

Alison Stewart: What do you see as your job when you're the producer?

Patrice Rushen: Well, the producer, I think the job has kind of morphed. The word has kind of morphed into a different place than it actually was when I started. The producer used to be the person who would, in addition to handling all of the budgetary considerations, would also be able to get into the head of the artist enough to understand that the idea was to create the environment for them to be at their peak. That would mean everything from the choice of the studio, to the choice of the musicians, to the order and methodology that would be used in order to record the songs.

It was a given that the artists were worth documenting. The producer's role was to bring the best out of everybody, to get the best performances of these songs. Sometimes you were involved in picking the songs, but I think that the biggest thing was to create that environment for everything to be at its best.

Alison Stewart: Had you always been interested in producing or was it something that you discovered in the process of making your own albums?

Patrice Rushen: I think it came out of the process of making my own albums. There were so many, as I said earlier, similarities to being a band leader. In college, I would play in small bands. We played for dances and parties and things like that. Putting those kinds of things together, those were some of the same kinds of characteristics that I think really good producers have. To be organized and then to be able to take big things, break them down into smaller actionable bites, and empower people to give you the best so that at the end of the day, everything that you needed to have done is done.

Alison Stewart: I'm speaking to singer, pianist, composer, and producer Patrice Rushen, for our March Women's History Month series, Equalizers: Women in Music Production. I want to play a track from one of your earliest albums that you also produced, Shout It Out, from 1977. Okay, you go on Google, you look it up, and there's a picture of you and an ad [chuckles] for a Rhodes keyboard that you played on this track. First of all, what was special about the Rhodes?

Patrice Rushen: Oh, the sound. That was the thing. When the Rhodes first came out, that was really one of my first hands-on opportunities to be able to experiment with electronics. There was a relationship between that and the piano, obviously, because it had keys, but the sound was so amazing. I was always attracted to how it could either blend well with other instruments or be a solo instrument as well.

Alison Stewart: We're going to hear the album's intro track, The Hump. Before we play it, is there anything about the production of this song or the album overall that comes to your mind that we should listen for in this track?

Patrice Rushen: Well, I think this was one of the tracks that I guess was sort of the beginning of the integration of dance music and commercial sensibilities right alongside aspects of the tradition of jazz, because jazz is the music that has improvisation in it. You'll hear the solo, and you'll hear those kinds of aspects included, but also in a way that lends itself into the idea that instrumentals can also be commercially viable.

Alison Stewart: Let's listen to Patrice Rushen.

[MUSIC - Patrice Rushen: The Hump]

Alison Stewart: I'm speaking to singer, songwriter, pianist, and producer Patrice Rushen. You trained as a pianist. How was your training useful to you as a performer when you spread out into R&B and other genres? You first started as a jazz pianist, I should say.

Patrice Rushen: Well, I guess that's the first way that people saw me in a performance context, was playing jazz, but long before that I was-- I started playing piano when I was five. The type of music that was used to teach me that was actually music that was classical music.

Alison Stewart: Yes.

Patrice Rushen: So I was doing that for quite a long time, but at home I was hearing jazz and I was hearing the pop music of my parents' day. Also, as I was growing up as a teen, I was listening to Stevie Wonder, Sly Stone, and The Beatles, and The Rolling Stones. I'm hearing all this different kind of music and I don't separate it, in my mind, by category. More just from the standpoint of how it makes me feel and what I like. I guess a long time ago I determined that if I was going to be involved in music, it was going to be trying to be in a situation that would allow me to explore all of these different things, because they weren't so different to me.

They were different in certain kind of nuance, maybe had a certain different lineage as far as the sociology and the history that brought that music forward, but the idea of music being a communicative art had always been front and center for me because of the reaction that I had to music. While people saw me in the jazz context probably as a professional initially, it was a platform that obviously led to me being able to explore some other areas as well. It set a certain basis for me and for certain kind of credentials, I would say, because jazz is so, so much a part of American music. All of the music.

Alison Stewart: When you started in production, did you have a mentor?

Patrice Rushen: I had several. I had several. My first mentor was my first producer who happened to also have been my high school teacher.

Alison Stewart: No way.

Patrice Rushen: It was Reggie Andrews. Just watching him get the best out of all of us and work. Then Reggie shared the co-production with myself and also Charles Mims Jr., who was the producer of many of the Elektra albums that I did after I left Fantasy Prestige. I think also doing studio work and watching other producers, like Quincy Jones, and at that time, Richard Perry. I did a lot of sessions with a lot of different people who just in watching the way that they got the most out of the musicians and, again, I keep using that word, empower people to give you their best.

Those were very, very, very big-- made big impressions on me in terms of how you treat people. I think that for me, again, production is an offshoot of the music. It has to be that people come together and it has to be that they have a common purpose and the producer's identity there is to help to keep all of that in mind.

Alison Stewart: Let's jump ahead to a song from your 1987 album, Watch Out. We're going to play Breakin' All the Rules.

Patrice Rushen: [chuckles]

Alison Stewart: Oh, no. Why does that make you laugh?

Patrice Rushen: I guess that's kind of apropos for where we are these days. [laughs]

Alison Stewart: Let's listen.

[MUSIC - Patrice Rushen: Breakin' All the Rules]

Alison Stewart: Our guest is Patrice Rushen for our March Women's History Month series, Equalizers: Women in Music Production. We'll have more with Patrice after a quick break. This is All Of It.

[theme music]

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. I am speaking to singer, pianist, composer, and producer Patrice Rushen, for our March Women's History Month series, Equalizers: Women Music Production. Patrice, in the early '90s, you worked with Sheena Easton on the jazz standard album, No Strings. How did the two of you get connected?

Patrice Rushen: Well, I had met Sheena years before that and was a fan of her work that she had done. In the popular music area, she had had some big, big hits and amazing, amazing voice. She called me because she had received a call to perform in a movie called Indecent Proposal. The movie was with Robert Redford and Demi Moore. This was going to be a big, big picture. She was supposed to sing a particular song, The Nearness of You. A beautiful, beautiful standard. She asked me if I would work with her to put it together. Just a trio of musicians playing as it was going to be seen in the film. So, that's what we did.

It came out so successfully, and she enjoyed the process so much that she said, "I'd like to try to do an album of things like this. I love these songs. I've never done anything like this before." They went to the record company to talk about, and the record company said, "Yes, sounds good if you want to do something like that, but no strings. You can't use any strings." Because it was expensive.

I guess they felt like they weren't ready to invest that kind of money in a budget on some music that was not associated necessarily with Sheena, even though she was going to do an amazing job. So what we decided to do, said, "Okay, well, you've been backed by a trio, let's do backing by a quartet, let's do quintet, let's do sextet, let's do nonete, and we'll use no strings."

Alison Stewart: Like, let's check it out. This is The Nearness of You.

[MUSIC - Sheena Easton: The Nearness of You]

Alison Stewart: Her voice sounds so intimate in the way she's singing the lyrics. What did you bring out in Sheena Easton in that performance?

Patrice Rushen: I think the confidence of knowing that the musicians who were playing with her were really listening to her and that the lyrics of the song, everybody-- a lot of people don't think about this, but the lyrics of the song inform how we play. The lyrics of the song inform my touch on the piano, where I decide to play at a particular time or particular voicing of a chord based upon-- in a song, the most important things are the melody and the lyric. I think for her to feel confident that there was this listening that was happening at the whole time allowed her to be able to really, really go into the character that she decided to go into for this song.

On the album, there's different iterations of that, where she would want to change tempos or do something interesting of the other songs. That was brought to the table, and that may have been an environment where that was maybe a little different for her at the time. Then the singer just comes in and the track is there and you just play. You just sing. No, you're part of what is happening in the moment. Nearly all of the things were recorded live, meaning that everyone was there at the same time. She sang with us. If she wanted to replace a line or something like that, it was an afterthought on the basis of how she wanted to do something.

Being in the moment was a big part of that session for her and making her comfortable enough to feel that she could do that safely and without feeling inhibited at all, I think, was a big part of the session, and again, part of the producer's role at that time. As well as I was the arranger on the project. I also was able to, for some of the other songs, when we had a different instrumentation, be able to write for those different instruments as well.

Alison Stewart: As I mentioned in your intro, you worked as musical director for the Grammy Awards, the Emmy Awards, the NAACP Image Awards. How did you begin working as a musical director?

Patrice Rushen: It kind of came out of an experience that I had when I was asked to compose the score for a motion picture called Hollywood Shuffle, which was director Robert Townsend's-

Alison Stewart: Townsend. Yes.

Patrice Rushen: -first big picture. As a result of the success of that movie, he got five HBO comedy specials. He called me to ask me, "Do you know anything about how to do this?" I asked him, "What are you trying to do?" He said, "Well, I'm going to do like a sort of a comedy/variety show. I'll have some film clips, I'll have sketches, I'll have comedians come on and play, and I'll have other musical guests, and I need somebody to help me put that together. Do you know how to do that?" "I said, "Yes."

There were aspects of it that I was quite familiar with and well within my wheelhouse at that time, and other things that were going to be new, but I knew that I would be able to rise to the occasion. We had a terrific time. It was from that show that other shows happened. One of the directors that was helping him with those comedy specials was doing the Emmys. The producer of the Image Awards watched the comedy special and noticed what was happening. Each thing sort of enhanced the idea that I would be able to do these other things. So, one job kind of helped the other one.

Alison Stewart: It's interesting, because you're the first woman to serve as musical director for each of those ceremonies. For the Grammys, at least, that was at least since the early 2000s. What do you think about those milestones? What do you think about that milestone?

Patrice Rushen: Well, there's a part of me that if I had been thinking about that at the time, I may have not even done it. It was pretty major. The work and the music and the idea of being respected for the work, overrode everything else, and the desire to do a great job. As I look back on it now, sometimes I don't receive necessarily the kind of credit for some of those milestones.

It's interesting because it's not necessarily that the credit is for me, as much as it is to offer the idea to maybe other young women, that pursuing what they are about and what they do with the idea of the work and the integrity behind it, the joy of doing it, the love of doing it, that that can also help to create a platform for maybe you to do some things, and you might happen to be first.

I also know that sometimes being first is overrated, because when you're first, sometimes, a lot of the biases and concerns that people have, some of which are completely unnecessary, can take you off your goal if you're not very, very, very careful. I think that the way to combat all of that is to know your stuff, be prepared, do everything with a certain confidence and joy and humility, and it worked out.

Alison Stewart: You got your flowers a little bit from Alicia Keys.

Patrice Rushen: Hi.

Alison Stewart: She gave you a shout out at the Grammys this year when she got her Global Impact Award. Let's listen.

Alicia Keys: Female producers have always powered the industry. Patrice Rushen.

[applause]

Alicia Keys: Missy Elliott.

Alison Stewart: How did you react when you heard that?

Patrice Rushen: I was floored, because I met Alicia a few times on some television shows where I was music directing and she happened to be a guest, and I had to interact with her to prepare, help to prepare her for her appearance on a particular show. Of course, I'm a fan of her music, and I've really enjoyed what she does and what she represents, but I had no idea she was paying attention like that.

I was flabbergasted that she mentioned me and that she mentioned me first. Obviously, it was a big moment. My phone was blowing up with people saying, "Did you hear?" Which was also fantastic. It's wonderful to feel like, especially someone as gifted and wonderful as her, would acknowledge. That's really cool.

Alison Stewart: You are still performing. How can people see you? When can people see you?

Patrice Rushen: [chuckles] Well, they can go to my website. That's the best way to find out when I'm performing. That website is www.patricerushen.com, and there's a calendar there, and you can see all the things that I'm up to and that I'm doing, because I do so many different things, that sometimes people don't catch one-- be doing one thing, they'll catch me doing another. Of late, I've been doing more dates, because people want to hear some of the music that you've just played. They want to hear me do that. I've been kind of responding to that a bit and doing some concerts, and I'm enjoying doing it very much. It's nice.

I did some dates in Europe last summer. On one of the dates, it was a big festival, and I looked out into the audience and I saw a little girl, seven years old, and she was obviously with her grandmother, who probably was 70 plus, and they're singing the same songs. That blew me away.

Alison Stewart: That's amazing.

Patrice Rushen: That they're singing Forget Me Nots and all of these songs. It was fantastic.

Alison Stewart: I have been speaking with Patrice Rushen for our March Women's History Month series, Equalizers: Women in Music Production. It is so nice to speak with you, Patrice.

Patrice Rushen: Thank you so much, Alison. This has been a blast, and continued success.

Alison Stewart: Patrice did a video for Roland recently, where we see her talking about her career, and playing keyboard, let's go out on it.