[music]

Kousha Navidar: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Kousha Navidar in for Alison Stewart today. Musician and composer Luther S. Allison knows how to play all kinds of venues, from intimate New York jazz clubs to the Grammy stage. Allison won a Grammy this year for his work as a pianist backing Samara Joy, and this summer he released his debut LP as a bandleader. The album is called I Owe It All To You, and it features original compositions, his renditions of jazz standards, and even an interpretation of a classic Stevie Wonder song, which I got to say is one of my favorite parts of the album. Lucky for us, Luther S. Allison is with me now to perform live from the album along with a band he's put together today. Luther, hi. Welcome to WNYC.

Luther S. Allison: Hey, how's it going? Thank you for having me.

Kousha Navidar: It's going great that you and your band are here, and I'm so excited to hear the music. As a heads up for listeners, if you like what you hear, Luther is performing at Dizzy's Club at Jazz at Lincoln Center on August 29th starting at 07:00 PM. All right, let's get right into the music. You are going to play, I Didn't Know What Time It Was. You want to set it up? Let's hear it.

Luther S. Allison: Yes, sure. This is an arrangement that was inspired by one of my heroes, the great Donald Brown, and I expanded this from his solo piano arrangement that he did some years ago. This is another kind of reimagined version inspired by Donald Brown of I Didn't Know What Time It Was featuring Zwelakhe-Duma Bell le Pere on bass, Ryan Sands on the drums, Imani Rousselle on vocals.

[MUSIC - Luther S. Allison: I Didn't Know What Time It Was]

I didn't know what time it was

Then I met you

Oh, what a lovely time it was

How sublime it was too

I didn't know what day it was

You held my hand

Warm like the month of May it was

And I'll say it was grand

It was grand to be alive, to be young

To be mad, to be yours alone

Grand to see your face, feel your touch

Hear your voice say I'm all your own

I didn't know what year it was

Life was no prize

I wanted love, love and here it was

Shining out of your eyes

I'm wise and I know what time it is now

I know what time it is

I'm wise and I know what time it is now

I know what time.

Kousha Navidar: Wow. That was Luther S. Allison performing I Didn't Know What Time It Was from his new album, I Owe It All To You. It's out now. We were all there just nodding our heads together with the same beat. Luther's playing at Dizzy's Club on August 29th at 07:00 PM. Luther, that song was your rendition of a classic tune inspired by Donald Brown. What inspired you enough about that composition to make you want to put your own spin on it?

Luther S. Allison: Sure. I went to University of Tennessee for my undergrad, and while I was there, a lot of really good friends of mine, we would sit around and listen to records, listen to CDs, and we would always listen to our teachers as well. We tried to find all the records that we could with Mark Bowling on guitar or Keith Brown on drums, or John Hamer, Rusty Holloway teaching bass there. Especially, when it came to Donald, we tried to find as many records we could. From his solo piano record, one of them, I think it was piano short stories, he did this on.

We just had this on repeat, over and over, and it was kind of a rite of passage where when you got to UT, you had to have checked out his solo piano records, and you had to have at least been familiar with just the weight of that recording and the power of that recording. We just listened to it so much to the point where I said, "I have to do something with this, expand this for my own group."

Kousha Navidar: Like, I Owe It All To You in a certain sense.

Luther S. Allison: Absolutely.

Kousha Navidar: I heard that you banged out the recordings for all these songs in a single day at the studio. Is that true?

Luther S. Allison: Yes, it was a long day. [laughter] It was a long two days. One day in the studio, one day rehearsing before, but, yes.

Kousha Navidar: How do you think that helps an album in terms of how it's taken in? Is there sinew and connection between all the songs they could hear because they're in such close proximity to each other?

Luther S. Allison: I feel like there's something that happens when you record everything in one day that's different than if you record over a few days. This is something I would love to experiment with. This is just my first record. I'd love to experiment with maybe doing more days in the studio, but I feel like throughout each hour, from hour to hour, throughout the progression of the recording, there's just a different feeling and a different energy that you develop with the band. I feel like, whenever I listen to records, at least the ones that I've been on, where I know we recorded everything within one day, you can hear certain things develop over time.

You can hear when it's really raw, and you just met the cats and you're just figuring everything out, and then you can hear where, "Okay, we kind of know each other, and we figured some things out throughout the duration of our time in the studio." It develops over time, but I feel like even when I hear it, I can tell, even though we didn't place the songs in order of how we recorded them-

Kousha Navidar: Interesting.

Luther S. Allison: -I can still hear certain things with each song of our development and our connection in the studio over that day.

Kousha Navidar: Is raw not as good as when you hit the groove, or is it raw different? Because I'm thinking raw might be good sometimes, right?

Luther S. Allison: Yes, you tapped it. Raw is good. Sometimes raw cannot be too good.

Kousha Navidar: Sure. Sometimes the chicken needs to bake.

Luther S. Allison: Exactly. Sometimes you need to let that thing thaw. I'm vegan, but they're probably going to tear me up.

Kousha Navidar: The mushroom needs to ferment, whatever.

[laughter]

Luther S. Allison: There you go. Sometimes I think it is good. I think a lot of times it's really good. I feel like when something's raw, I feel like it's always good when everybody is sensitive, when everybody's checking out what's going on, when everybody's in tune with what's happening on the bandstand, but also what's happening in the room and what's happening within yourself. I feel like when people are attentive and sensitive to all those things, then raw is always going to be happening. I feel like raw is dangerous when nobody's paying attention and nobody's being considerate and nobody's being mindful as human beings, as people. Because that's going to translate to how we address one another on the bandstand.

I'm definitely blessed to have everybody in the bandstand. I see Ryan's over there still rocking to the music.

Kousha Navidar: The drummer, who's like 10 feet away or 20 feet away.

Luther S. Allison: He's still tapped into the feeling of what just happened.

Kousha Navidar: I am still swiveling in my chair to that feeling, so I feel that, too.

Luther S. Allison: Exactly.

Kousha Navidar: You're from Charlotte, North Carolina, right?

Luther S. Allison: Yes, indeed. The Clean City, baby.

Kousha Navidar: 704. I went to school in Durham.

Luther S. Allison: Oh, snap.

Kousha Navidar: Knows some about Charlotte, used to visit.

Luther S. Allison: Nice.

Kousha Navidar: I think that one thing that connects a lot of performing artists, whether you're a musician, actor, stand-up comic, is that when you're just starting out, there's always a dream venue in your hometown where you'd love to perform. When you were growing up in Charlotte, were there any jazz clubs, like Middle C or, like Petrus Club, where you were really, really wanted to play?

Luther S. Allison: You did some research, okay. Charlotte, growing up, I would always hear people at-- Well, there were a few spots. There weren't a whole lot of jazz clubs necessarily when I was growing up. There's an organization that started doing a lot of incredible things in Charlotte called-- It was Jazz Arts Initiative when I joined, and now they're called Jazz Art Charlotte. They've expanded, and so they have something called the Jazz Room. When I was in high school, I would see, every once in a while, some bigger acts come through town. Christian Scott came through, Donald Harrison would come through every once in a while.

I think they would rent out maybe, was it Blumenthal? I can't remember. It was somewhere downtown, actually, or uptown, as we say. That was one of the spots that I would see pretty often when I was maybe 16, 17, later high school. When I was younger, there weren't a whole lot of clubs. Petra's always had music. Middle C is a newer spot. There was a really cool jam session that happened at a place, I think it was called the Bistro, maybe. Honestly, I would just see cats playing around town, and it was just always inspiring.

It wasn't even like I had a specific venue I always wanted to play for in my hometown. I just saw incredible musicians, whether it was gospel musicians, funk musicians, people from John P Kee's band, Fantasia's band, Anthony Hamilton, who's from Charlotte, a lot of people from his group. I would just see them play. Man, there's this one spot. Sorry, I'm talking long, but what's new?

Kousha Navidar: No, it's all good.

Luther S. Allison: There's this one spot, it was a hookah lounge. I don't know if my parents noticed. [laughter] Sorry, mom. Sorry, dad. They're probably listening right now. There was a hookah lounge and in the back, they had Anthony Hamilton's band. It would be all the cats from John P Kee's group, Fantasia's band, all these cats. They'd be in there playing their tails off. I would go there, and I want to smoke hookah. I would just hustle the pool table. I got pretty nice at pool there. That was my way was, I would go there, play some pool, but I would always try to hang with the cats and listen to the music. That was another very, very inspirational place for me to be around.

Kousha Navidar: You don't just play the piano, you don't just play pool really well, you play the saxophone and also the drums, which you asked for on your fifth birthday, right? The drums.

Luther S. Allison: Yes, that's right.

Kousha Navidar: How do you think playing those two instruments, the sax and the drums, informs what you do on the piano?

Luther S. Allison: That's really good. I feel like it informs me in ways that I don't even know because I've played all those instruments for so long. I know when I picked up saxophone, that was-- I actually didn't even want to play saxophone, but when I first got into my middle school at Northwest School of the Arts in Charlotte, North Carolina, I was there middle and high school, and your 6th-grade year, you couldn't play drums in the band. You had to start on a wind instrument.

Kousha Navidar: Oh.

Luther S. Allison: I said, "Well, my sister always said she wanted to play saxophone because it looked cool." I was like, "Well, it looks cool to me, too. Let me just try the saxophone." It's funny because I couldn't even get a sound off the instrument, and there's a guy named Nick Kuzar, Nicholas Kuzar, and I think he was in high school at the time, and he grabbed the horn and he said, "Man, you just got to blow that thing," and then he grabbed the saxophone and made this huge honking sound, and then I was amazed. I thought he was the best saxophonist in the world, and he played drums.

I feel like back home there were a lot of people who played multiple instruments. I feel like it was just a thing where we would just kind of jump on whatever instrument was there, and I feel like even when I got to saxophone, I would think about the piano when I was playing saxophone. I would look at the notes in my head, and I feel like that helped me maneuver the instrument better. I knew the technique. I feel like I picked up the technique pretty quickly, but as far as the musicality, I just kind of thought about the piano, or when I'm playing the piano, I tend to think about the drums. It's not even that I think about it, but I feel like I'm just naturally inclined to just feel the drums on this instrument.

Kousha Navidar: They are both percussion instruments, technically.

Luther S. Allison: They are. I feel like on each instrument, unintentionally, I'm thinking of another instrument, and even as I've been talking with some of my heroes in the music, I was talking with Sullivan Fortner about it and Bill Charlotte just a couple days about it and thinking about the piano as not even the piano, but thinking about the piano as an orchestra. Now, I'm like, "Man, I want to learn how to play violin and cello and all these other instruments." I definitely don't have time for that, but I always tend to think of another instrument.

Kousha Navidar: It's baked into the language of music-

Luther S. Allison: It is.

Kousha Navidar: -and how you approach just the idea of performance and composition.

Luther S. Allison: Absolutely.

Kousha Navidar: We got to take a quick break. We'll be back right after it. We'll hear some more music from Luther S. Allison and his fantastic band. Luther is the creator of the new album, I Owe It All To You. It's out now. Also, is going to be performing at Dizzy's Club at Jazz at Lincoln Center on August 29th beginning at 07:00 PM. We are going to take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to start off with another song, so stick with us.

[music]

Kousha Navidar: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Kousha Navidar. We're here talking with Luther S. Allison, the Grammy award-winning musician and composer. New album is I Owe It All To You. It's out now. Luther's going to be performing with his quartet today and also will be performing at Dizzy's Club at Jazz at Lincoln Center on August 29th. That's starting at 07:00 PM. All right, let's hear another song, Until I See You Again. Luther, set us up. What should people listen for in the song?

Luther S. Allison: This song is rooted in longing. That's where this came from. A newfound relationship that I had just entered into about five years ago now. I moved to New York City shortly after meeting her in Michigan, and I wrote this song shortly after I joined a band with the great drummer Ulysses Owens, and he asked me to write a piece for the group, and I wrote this one. That's where my heart was, and actually, we'll be getting married in about six weeks now.

Kousha Navidar: Oh, wow. Congrats.

Luther S. Allison: Yes, indeed.

[MUSIC - Luther S. Allison: Until I See You Again]

Kousha Navidar: Until I See You Again, Luther S. Allison. That was really beautiful. Hearing where it came from in your life. I heard, when I was listening, a sense of hope, of resolve, of excitement, maybe mystery.

Luther S. Allison: Absolutely. Completely right.

Kousha Navidar: You're getting married in six weeks?

Luther S. Allison: Something like that. September 28th, so it's-

Kousha Navidar: It's coming up.

Luther S. Allison: -right around the corner. However many weeks it is, it's coming up.

Kousha Navidar: I got married two months ago.

Luther S. Allison: Oh, congratulations.

Kousha Navidar: Thank you. Congrats to you, too.

Luther S. Allison: Thank you.

Kousha Navidar: How big a role is music going to play in your wedding?

Luther S. Allison: I am recording a few songs. I'm recording something for her to walk down the aisle to, and I have a couple of other surprises to come, maybe shortly after the wedding. I have some stuff I'm working on.

Kousha Navidar: Which you are not going to share.

Luther S. Allison: That I'm not going to share. She may be listening, and she doesn't even know this. I have some surprises that I'm working on that are wedding related, but there's a few things I'm doing, just recording-wise, for the wedding, but we're keeping it pretty traditional. We just want to dance and have fun, and we're going to have a DJ. Sorry, all the musicians, everybody's getting on my head about it. It's not really a whole lot of musicians that are going to be there anyways. It's going to be a good time, and we're excited for it.

Kousha Navidar: That's wonderful, so congrats again about it. Listening to that song, you composed it. How would you describe your evolution as a composer so far in your career?

Luther S. Allison: I feel like when I first started composing, I don't know. I don't really know about my evolution, to be honest with you. I feel like I've just learned a lot about music. I've listened to a lot of music, and as I've lived and listened and learned and asked questions, all of those things have influenced my compositions. I don't think there's any things that I've intentionally changed or that I can really track that have changed in my writing outside of just learning more about music and trying to always be a student of the music and take that into everything that I do, but I try to be as honest in all of my writing and composing as I can possibly be, and even in my arrangements. I don't know if it's really changed, to be honest.

Kousha Navidar: That's interesting. What does honest mean to you? What does honest composing look like or sound like?

Luther S. Allison: For me, it's not really allowing my mind to get in the way of what needs to be said, so I feel like, for me, honesty and composing is just being true to myself and not limiting myself. If I want something to sound a certain way, but not thinking that, "Well, I learned in school or I learned from this, that this should be the--" Well, this is my time to say what I want to say, so I can be selfish in this moment, compositionally. I feel honesty also has a sense of deference, and I feel like in that honesty, you have to be inviting and welcoming, and whoever it is that I'm inviting into that vision, compositionally or artistically, that I'm also allowing them those same liberties.

There's so many times when maybe Zwe or Ryan or Imani will do something, and I'm like, "Actually, let's just do that instead." They're like, "No, what did you want?" I'm like, "No, that was actually better." I feel, for me, there's a sense of openness to that as well. It's ever-evolving. Even Zwe made a joke earlier. He was like, "I learned the other version, but now we're doing this version," because even the next tune that we're going to be playing after this, I made some other changes, and we have vocals now, and I wrote some lyrics, and she also helps with writing some lyrics to this, too. That's really what it means to me.

Kousha Navidar: I love what you said about not getting in the way of what needs to be said, which I think is really powerful. If you think about this album, its title is I Owe It All To You. Looking back on it, what do you feel like it says that needed to be said for you?

Luther S. Allison: Thank you is what it's intended to say. To all my mentors, first of all, my family, my mother, my father, Carolyn Allison and Luther Marvin Allison. My sister, Christina Allison. All my good friends who have poured into me and mentored me back home in Charlotte. Tim Scott, Harvey Cummings, Eleazar Shafer, OC Davis, Lonnie Davis, everybody. My good friends that I grew up with. I mean, everyone. Donald Brown, Michael Dees, another good mentor of mine, Rodney Whitaker. Countless people. You know, it's really just me saying, thank you. Ulysses Owens. Their names are endless. It's just my way of saying thank you to all of them for what you've done, and it's also a way of telling myself, this is the beginning. We're just getting started.

Kousha Navidar: Acknowledging that you stand on the shoulders of giants [unintelligible 00:22:33].

Luther S. Allison: Absolutely. That's the only way to do this the right way, I believe. Even if I'm not playing their music, even if I'm writing music that's of my own, that's coming from my own inspiration, it's still coming from them, from the people who came before me.

Kousha Navidar: Is Samara Joy somebody else that [unintelligible 00:22:49]?

Luther S. Allison: Yes, absolutely. She's another person who's profoundly impacted my life.

Kousha Navidar: You gigged with her for a bit. It even won you a Grammy and led you to perform live at the Grammys playing piano for her. What do you remember most about that Grammy's performance?

Luther S. Allison: You know what, the funny thing was I feel like everybody's just so young, the whole band is young, and everybody's just so excited, so I remember getting to LA, and I was just geeked to just be in LA, and I had other good friends I was seeing, and it's just the entire experience was just so fun that I feel like even when we were at the Grammys, it just felt like the continuation of the hang with the band. We were all still clowning. We were all having a good time. We played the show. You see all these crazy stars, but it's something about it wasn't as-- It was just different than what I expected, I guess.

I feel like when I was younger, and you grew up watching the Grammys, I felt like, "Man, when I get there, I'm not going to know what to say and I'm going to freeze," but I feel like it was just so relaxed and so calm, and all of us come from similar backgrounds, and we were there for each other, and we just have fun. I feel like it sunk in afterwards. When I got home, I'm like, "Man, I just played at the Grammys. That's kind of crazy."

Kousha Navidar: Do you feel like that comes natural to you, putting fun as a part of the center, or is it something active? I imagine you go to the Grammys, there's a lot of nerves involved. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Luther S. Allison: Oh, it's definitely nerve-wracking. You look in the crowd, and I remember seeing Geoffrey Keezer and Sullivan Fortner and Cécile McLorin Salvant and Wiz Khalifa and GloRilla and Sam Smith, and you just casually see them walking by you. That's definitely nerve-wracking, but I feel like one of the biggest things I feel like I learned from that time is just to believe in myself, because I noticed, for me personally, those nerves came from some ounce of lack of belief in myself and my ability and what I can do and what I've already done. Without having any sense of ego pride about it, it's just being able to be comfortable with where I am and who I am and what I've done to get to this point, and that helps me to understand that what I've said before this has earned me this place to be here.

Kousha Navidar: Not getting in the way of what needs to be said.

Luther S. Allison: Yes, not getting in the way of my-- Getting out of my own way.

Kousha Navidar: Getting out of your own way.

Luther S. Allison: That's really what it comes down to.

Kousha Navidar: I think a lot of people can relate to that or the challenge associated with it.

Luther S. Allison: Absolutely.

Kousha Navidar: The New York Times just wrote a piece about you, and they quote Samara saying, and this is a quote, "What sets Luther apart for me is the fact that his openness and generosity as a person translates to how he interacts with everyone in the band on his instrument. The passion that he plays with uplifts those around him and inspires everyone to play at their best." Those are really kind words.

Luther S. Allison: Absolutely.

Kousha Navidar: Thinking about this album, a way of saying thanks. Thinking about that quote, who developed that generosity in you?

Luther S. Allison: I have to say, my faith is a big part of my life, so I have to give it up to the Lord, to God, Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior who I declare to be my Lord and Savior of my life, so I feel like that's truly where it comes from. That is definitely the center of my life and my personhood, my humanity, my being. It's also to my parents and my community, my tribe back home in Charlotte, everybody who I grew up around within the household, in school, my teachers, my educators, I feel like it's all of them, but I feel like it's something that God just put inside of me.

I feel like there is a sense of joy that I'm able to carry with me throughout whatever the circumstance is. Not that I'm always joyful. Because there's definitely things that happen, and it can be difficult to deal with those times and to deal with what's happening in your own mind, in your own heart, but I have to give it up to my faith and my family.

Kousha Navidar: And those influences and carrying it with you, and that sense of joy permeates, I got to say, just like sitting in here hearing you warm up, there is joy at the center of what you're doing, which is beautiful. It's so hard to hold on to that, too, especially as a professional musician. Got about a minute left before I want to get to the next song. The last question I want to offer you is, what advice would you give musicians who are in the kind of place where you were a few years ago, either in school or just starting out?

Luther S. Allison: Sure. I would say my biggest piece of advice is probably, number one, to realize that we're always students, regardless of what stage of development we're in. Everybody is a student of the music. None of us are bigger than it, none of us are bigger than each other, regardless of how far everybody is along their journey musically. Don't let the glitz and the glam fool you. Always be working and always be progressing and trying to grow. Ask questions, have mentors, have people that you can call on and learn from. None of us will ever make it. It's a journey.

Kousha Navidar: It's a lifelong journey. Making it is the journey.

Luther S. Allison: Yes, so always do that.

Kousha Navidar: We've made it to the last beat of the conversation. Not to make a musical pun, but I just want to say thanks to--

Luther S. Allison: [unintelligible 00:28:04]

.

Kousha Navidar: You are very generous. Luther S. Allison, the Grammy award-winning musician and composer. His new album is called I Owe It All To You. Luther will be performing at Dizzy's Club at Jazz at Lincoln Center on August 29th. That's beginning at 07:00 PM. Do you want to tell us the name of the last song, reintroduce your band, and take us out?

Luther S. Allison: Absolutely. This last song is the title track of the record. This is I Owe It All To You, and once again featuring Imani Rousselle on vocals, Ryan Sands on the drums, and Zwelakhe-Duma Bell le Pere on bass.

Kousha Navidar: Wonderful. Here's the song, and thank you all so much for joining us.

[MUSIC - Luther S. Allison: I Owe It All To You]

I owe it all to you

Your love is ever true

Sweetness I never knew

Beauty that changed my view

You have seen all of my victory and pain

Sorrow and shame

Forever I will hold a debt to you

I'll never be the same

You've held me up and never let me go astray

I know I'm safe in your arms

And I have no worry no matter how far away

Here, I will be

Never leave, no escaping

I know I can always trust hope and dream

Long as you with me

I will always be close to you

Be close to you

Be close to you

Be close to you

Be close to you

Be close to you

Be close to you

Be close to you

I owe it all

Your love is ever true

Sweetness I never knew

Oh beauty that changed my future

Your love is ever, ever true

Sweetness I never knew

Beauty that changed my view.

 

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