August 10, 2014
Via phone call from
Shanghai, China to Austin, TX USA
Photograph of Robert Turner, jazz pianist
AUSTIN: You have such a sweet sound as a jazz
pianist. People from the US all the way to China love your playing. I’m interested in your roots. How did you first come to start playing
gospel piano in that Baptist church?
ROBERT: I
think it was ’89, I believe I was in the 9th grade, and that was my first time of
actually getting enrolled in a music class. I used to go to the concerts and watch the
drums. I watched the orchestra play, and my favorite part was when the drums
would have a drum solo. They used to have 2 drum sets. The junior high school
kids would just be all into it. So I
wanted to be like that because I was kind of a square, and I figured that that
would be where I could have more friends. So I got into the class, and I learned
how to play the snare drum and then I got into it and I started learning. They
finally put me on the drum set the end of the semester. I did a drum solo, and
people appreciated it. I think I did a drum solo and a snare drum solo. People appreciated
it. So when I got into high school, I was in the jazz band, and I was learning
how to play drums, you know. I just was in there, just practicing, and this guy
comes out of nowhere. He’s a drummer. He looks like a rap guy. I was scared of
him. I thought he was going to beat me up.
AUSTIN:
That’s funny.
ROBERT: He
got on the drums and played some shout music. He just played there like real
fast, kind of like all of these new drummers that’s coming out now. He was just as bad as them on the gospel.
Then, he told me to play something, and then he played some shout music on the
piano. That’s what did it. I recorded it, too, on the cassette. We had a
cassette player recording I think or something. I recorded it, and he played
like 2 songs, and it was real bad. That’s when I listened to that tape about
500 times. I would call my friends and asked them to show me the chords, and
that’s what it was. Then I went to a Baptist church, and a piano player was
playing something kind of different. I would just ask the piano player at the
end of the service to show me what they played, and that was kind of hard
because they’ll always be in a hurry to leave.
AUSTIN:
Right.
ROBERT: So
they were gracious enough to kind of show me that. I just practiced then. I was
around, you know. I still wanted to play Jazz too. I liked Jazz chords. I’d
record all the piano players -- go to the mall and record what they’re playing
-- and I would always have my small tape recorder, and I would have it
recorded, you know. I would go back at home, and that’s the pretty first time I
did it. That’s how. That was me.
AUSTIN: That
sounds like a really good foundation you had there. So you became a member of
the church band then, I guess, or were you just playing on your own?
ROBERT:
When I got to the Baptist church, I joined that church. Before I joined the
church, I was Methodist. I would go to [my friend’s] church and play drums, and
he would play the piano. I did that for about 8 years or so. I was around them.
They were always you know showing me chords, and then I would take what this
other piano player showed me and showed it to him, and we would put it together
and write a song and get ideas and stuff.
My father turned me on to the Baptist church. It was close to my house,
and I started going in, and that was a whole dozen times. It was a completely
different kind to [my friend’s] church. I just kept going there, and then what
happened was after about a year, was the pianist quit, and it was graduation
time from high school for me. That’s my time to graduate my high school. So I
was playing. I was sitting in, but mainly I was playing a little bit of drums. Once
the pianist quit, I was the only one there, so I was the one filling in until
they got a new pianist too.
So that’s
how that worked.
AUSTIN: What
was the instrumentation of that church band?
ROBERT: At
the time it was organ, piano and drums, and people probably played the tambourine
at time. I remember a few who played guitars now and then.
AUSTIN: How
receptive was the church community to jazz music?
ROBERT: A
lot of people in church liked jazz. They don’t know the lyrics to the song. I
bet you if they saw the lyrics they had with the song, they’d be like, “No, we
can't do this and do that,” because “Since I Fell for You” talks about a
husband and how they fall in love with their mistress. I still really liked
playing that song, but one time I heard the lyrics -- the lyrics buried down in
my mind. I was like, “man, how am I going to play ‘Oh, The Blood of Jesus’ on
Sunday and then Saturday, I'm going to play ‘Since I Fell’, talking about this
guy hooking up with another woman because I don’t like this other one anymore.
You see what I'm saying?
AUSTIN:
Yeah.
ROBERT: So
my point is if the church people knew the lyrics to some of those songs, they
will be
like, “No,
you can't play that.”
AUSTIN: So
do you see that as being kind of an advantage of being a piano player versus
being a vocalist is you know in that you can reach people that you might not
necessarily have been able to reach with lyrics?
ROBERT: Yes,
but at the same time, these are old songs, and I don’t think part of the
intended goals are for me to do a change the lyrics of the song. I don’t think
anybody would know that I changed the lyrics of the song, you know what I mean.
So basically, the words and the lyrics of
some of those songs I was telling you about, those songs are dialed in. Those
songs are in fact a hit. So my job, if you narrow it, is just to sing that song
on the piano, sing those lyrics on the piano even if it is my old piano. That’s
my job as a pianist. So to me, “if I call Me And Mrs. Jones” -- if we got a
thing going on -- talk about the culture we have. If I played that instrumentally,
people know the lyrics to that song. On my part, let’s make those lyrics sing
on the piano. So yeah, it’s the same as
the songs singing, if you know what I mean.
AUSTIN: In a
little bit of a different turn here, is home for you in LA?
ROBERT:
Yes. Well, now I live in Sacramento.
AUSTIN: What
was your experience like finding venues to play Jazz in LA and Sacramento? How was it for you getting into that scene
starting to play Jazz as a style?
ROBERT: Well
for me, I was taught that we had to play a whole style, and we liked to play
funk and R&B and jazz since high school. I liked it all. I was interested in anything, even a little
bit of classical. I guess it started with: people would ask me, “Hey, do you
wanna jam in my business? You wanna play in my band?” I would go to rehearse,
and maybe rehearse like once or twice a week, doing light gig here and there.
That’s sort of the story of it. I’d gotten professional. I got to get professional
with the ministry you know. I was on stand at the ministry and then I hooked up
with a singer, a professional singer. And when she came to LA. I was her
pianist. I sounded like Billy Preston. She loved it, so I was her pianist up to
now. I was 18 years old. She had all these musicians, and I was the musician
called in. And that’s how I became a full‐time musician in LA: because somebody
always needed a pianist.
AUSTIN:
Alright!
ROBERT: If
there was jam, gig, R&B gig, or gigs like that, they left me packing.
AUSTIN: Would
you say, overall, you had more success being called to play in other people’s
bands versus going out and booking your own gigs with your own projects?
ROBERT:
Yeah at that time, yeah. It was harder for me to get my own gig, my own solo
gig. I still have a hard time doing that.
AUSTIN:
Yeah, I feel you. I'm kind of the same way.
ROBERT:
Yeah. It’s getting harder just like here [in Shanghai].
AUSTIN: Who
stylistically affected your playing the most?
ROBERT: Gene
Harris is my favorite piano player. I appreciated other musicians but Gene Harris
was my favorite. So it furthered my style.
AUSTIN: I’d
like to get into some more detail on your time living and performing in Shanghai
in just a second, but for right now, how would you contrast your experience
finding venues and gigs in China versus in Los Angeles?
ROBERT: I'm
sure you know about you know all of your friends want to hear you play. They
start calling you for gigs: “Hey, would you go do this on December 8th? Show up on
time.” The bass player from that gig then calls you: “what are you doing
tomorrow? Can you go down and play the piano?” I said, “Yeah, I ain’t doing nothing. I’ll
come down and play.” I would take all his gigs, all these opportunities. So I'm getting called. I think I was 19 or 20;
somebody hooked me up with a band that came through LA. They said, “Come with us.” They called me up
and took me to Japan. They got me there. I started working there. So of course
I, you know, that kind of thing was happening for about 5 years. Even with
China, this gig came from LA because Dnotes and I played together for about 15
years since I was almost a kid. We played this gig with each other. So he came over
here [to Shanghai] first. He came in and
said, “Hey”. So I called him and talked with him and he invited me to come down
here. So that’s how I came down here. So you see what I'm saying: it basically all comes
from LA. All the gigs for the most part did come from LA. This being down here [in Shanghai] is kind of
like an extension of an LA gig. You know what I'm saying?
AUSTIN:
Yeah, man. I definitely understand that. That’s really cool. How did you first
realize that you love jazz enough to focus on that?
ROBERT:
Well to be honest, I was around Jazz. I was around Jazz then, and I was
listening to a jazz station. This is before I left my family: I was listening
to Jazz. I was around Jazz. I didn’t know if I could tell I was going to play
piano back then. I was thinking of a man who played Gospel. He didn’t play any
Jazz chords. He played Gospel chords. He had a blues scale run. He had a vague
chords. He was “boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.” It was something he grabbed. I
never heard that before, and it was so straight up. It was raw. So when I heard
that, I was inspired to play the piano. Now, I liked some Jazz. I'm like one or
the same. One of my first songs that I really liked was “My Little Suede Shoes”
by Charlie Parker. I always got the chance to play that song. So I could jab a
chord. I liked some of the jazz songs and when I heard Gene Harris, he put it
together. Gene Harris is a solid player. He liked gospel. He liked his parents.
They accepted blues. He would start with that, and he would go into a song like
the Green Dolphin Street. He puts in the jazz, and he would play Jazz chords.
He’ll put the Jazz right together with the Blues. That’s what I like about Gene
Harris. So that I wanted to play like Gene Harris. So that was what I planned
from the beginning. I wanted to do that. I ain’t like, “go into Gospel first.”
Oh, jazz was perfect. I wanted the Jazz. No, no, that did not happen like that.
I wanted to take the old style and tie
it together and make it just like Gene. That was how I started.
AUSTIN: How did you initially get turned on to Gene
Harris?
ROBERT: I was listening to the jazz radio. He was
still “in” at that time in LA. I heard
the pianist. I heard cool piano stuff. It looked like playing jazz makes you
better. It was raw and loose, and I would record it on my cassette recorder. That
was the first time I heard him. I don’t know what happened to that tape but if
I find it still, I would be so happy but that’s how I got turned on to Gene
Harris. Man, I started going to the record store, started buying that. I got a
couple of records, my first CD that I bought of James Black, and all. On day the
TV broke down: so I had to go to the store.
I mean, once you hear it, any of Gene Harris’, you will be hooked.
AUSTIN: Is
there anyone in China that is a jazz musician that you have enjoyed listening
to the recordings of?
ROBERT: No.
I hate to say it man. They don’t really have first‐class jazz singing market
here. They have a Chinese festival once a year. They try to push out Jazz
again. Most of these are from abroad. I don’t really hear a lot Chinese Jazz
musicians here. They don’t really care a lot about that. I actually heard a
couple of key musicians that were really good, you know what I'm saying. I sure
did, but I’ve never seen them or played for them. Jazz here in China? They have
a certain change on special occasions. On special occasions, you have Jazz or something.
That’s what I noticed.
AUSTIN: So
why would you say that you originally moved to Shanghai? Because of the gig
offer itself?
ROBERT:
Well, the recession there back in 2011, so I was told that there by Dnotes: he
told me about this China new gig that he had. At first, I didn’t take it. I
didn’t take it when he first offered, but then I called him back and said,
“Okay, I’ll take it” because that recession came. So basically, I was trying to
get a break all that by doing my Gene Harris tribute record called “Blues for
Gene.” I was trying to work on that. I had been writing and putting it
together. So I remembered when he called up. So I remembered how it was then.
Basically, I didn’t have money. It’s just not the same offer as to go and buy
whatever I want whenever I want. So I said, “Hey I need this much.” It was
supposed to be: I wasn’t to be coming to China for 3 years, I'm thinking 3
months. But when I got down here, I saw a lot of opportunities. So I said well
I’ll do a Chinese record real quick, you know, but the Chinese saw through my
old style. So we did my album “Chinese Piano”
and that record just took time and money. It took time, more time, and that’s
what made me take so long. I wasn’t supposed to be here that long. I got the opportunity and had a distribution
company. They put it in the store and everything. It got up their way. It’s an
opportunity. I got to take this opportunity. That’s why I had to stay in China
for 3 years.
AUSTIN: I met you in Shanghai in 2011. How many years
have you been there?
ROBERT: 3
years.
AUSTIN: So I must have met you not long after you
moved there.
ROBERT:
Right.
AUSTIN: How
is your Chinese, or do you speak Mandarin?
ROBERT: No.
I speak a little Japanese but not Chinese.
AUSTIN: I
had the pleasure of meeting your bassist friend of 15 years: Dnotes Harris. I remember him. How did you all originally
meet?
ROBERT: Me
and Dnotes?
AUSTIN:
Mm‐hmm.
ROBERT: A
saxophone player. I remember that Yeah, so here’s what I'm saying. Dnotes and
me is like a whole music scene. So when I met [this sax player], then I met
Dnotes. He introduced me to Dnotes. I’ve been playing with Dnotes for a long
time.
AUSTIN: The
Melting Pot seemed like a really great Jazz and pop music hangout when we were
there for that month in Shanghai. Was that the first place that you started
playing at or how did your relationship with that venue start?
ROBERT:
That was it right there.
AUSTIN:
Cool. And that, I remember, I loved meeting the vocalist and drummer you had at
the Melting Pot. How did you meet the two of them?
ROBERT:
Well, they were already working with Dnotes before I got there. So once I got
there, I started working with them.
AUSTIN: Have
you performed in any other countries other than China and United States?
ROBERT: Bali,
Indonesia Jazz Festival. I was a featured artist for that.
AUSTIN: How
did you end up there?
ROBERT:
Dnotes.
AUSTIN:
Nice – Dnotes. What a great guy.
ROBERT:
Yeah. He’s amazing.
AUSTIN: I loved checking out that new Chinese film “Just
in Shanghai” which features both you and Dnotes preparing for and then
performing a concert. That must have been lots of fun.
ROBERT: Damn
right. Yeah, it was.
AUSTIN: How
did you decide what tunes to play for that concert?
ROBERT:
Well, I don’t know. I just find my feel when I do a concert or you want a program.
[Chinese audiences] want it in order so
I just try to think -- kind of put a show together. You know that’s how I did
it. I go by how I feel and then hone it wherever, go over all those songs. I
think about the oldest songs, and I started to think of Gene’s songs and
anybody else, and yeah, just trying to keep it simple, but we rehearsed a lot. [We
had] 20 songs.
AUSTIN:
Yeah. Well, how’d you meet the filmmaker and of getting to do that documentary?
ROBERT: Oh,
they came to the Melting Pot. I think maybe the oldest things will groove
people.
AUSTIN:
Cool. How would you compare the appreciation of Jazz standards by your Chinese audiences
versus American audiences?
ROBERT:
Well, you know if I can say it all, you know, I barely have a good audience. I
think the audience that I have [in the documentary] is the first audience that
I had that was good. I can hear a pin
drop. I can drop a coin on the ground across the room. The Shanghai Symphony [gig]
was a good audience. Same thing. I could
drop a quarter on the stage and then you can hear it all the way to the back in
the room. Melting Pot, unless I did was
a Chinese song or a fast song or a loud song, they want an end to it. It was hard. They came to us and asked us to
shut [a jazz song] down. They did not like us. It was even the climax in the
song. Now, it was worth it of course.
AUSTIN:
Wow.
ROBERT: So,
I would say overall, I would say that [Shanghai] isn’t a concert city. They
don’t actually love music. They don’t ever listen to us, so I can play anything. I can play a Chinese song or a
Jazz song. So whenever I want to play soft music, they now pay attention to the
one I'm playing, but if I go to an R&B song, I would have to play something
that they knew, either some Chinese song or a pop song, whatever song I want,
just as long as they know the song, and I would have to do a breakdown performance.
They never listen to us. I hate to say
it but I don’t think that it [because of] playing in China and even in Bali,
Indonesia. I played some really heavy stuff and I was fortunate that our band
did pay attention, but I don’t think I have 100% of their attention, you know
what I'm saying? When I say all over the world, the Jazz is gone. The true jazz
appreciator is gone. So to do it is to do all these [hits], you know. If they’re
kind of bored, you got to change up if you want them to pay attention to you. To
answer your question, it’s the same all over the world. I believe so. You know,
it’s the same in Indonesia, it’s the same, I believe it’s the same in Japan,
same in America, same in China. I think that’s pretty fair.
AUSTIN: Talking
about classical music versus Jazz music, do you find that people in China
usually are able to appreciate both styles or usually does an audience only
like classical music or only like jazz?
ROBERT: I
know that China is a classical market so I like the classical keys. They don’t
know the jazz standards. When you go out, people are interested in it. They
want to try to go check it out, but at the same time, they don’t know it and
it’s like you have to require a change to jazz. So the Jazz audience is slowly
coming up in China but the classical audience is now. China is definitely a classical
market.
AUSTIN: I remember when I was in Shanghai that you
were teaching a masterclass, but I was unable to attend it because we’re doing
some performances with Tapestry Dance Company. I remember you showing me some great
voicings. How did you start teaching in
the first place?
ROBERT: Well,
it’s been their call. I got a called to teach private lessons. You get these
calls [after] you do an exhibition. You get it the first time. When I went to Sacramento,
I started playing this church song. I had a few people that wanted to learn gospel
music and talked to me about that. I said, “If you ever want to come, just come
down and take a music class.” So at that time, we did it for a couple of years
like on a Tuesday. Every Tuesday, they’d come down, probably Wednesday they’d
come down, you know, and learn how to play and stuff. I did choose that for a
change. That was fun too. I liked teaching a big class. In that way, I can play
it out to everybody.
AUSTIN: So
are you just doing master’s classes or what types of teaching are you doing currently?
ROBERT: I
kind of did a masterclass [in Shanghai].
It was cool. We had 100 students. I wanted to get the video on, but you
saw it probably on Facebook. It was a really big class. We got some information
out there. These are high school students. They’re very good by the way.
They’re very talented musicians as well, and so yes, it was a fun class. That
was a fun class. I mean if someone comes up to me and said, “I wanna learn,”
I’ll teach it.
AUSTIN: Do
you see yourself doing more teaching as the years progress?
ROBERT: I’m
interested in doing a masterclass. They are just there for me that kind of
collaborate with all of this talent -- you
know, the need for energy, skill, more
energy – and just get these persons again out there. I'm proud if I die, I put a lot here -- and
all that crowd. Yeah, that’s kind of fun. So that’s kind of what I want to do
right now. That’s why I do masterclass.. I kind of want a video of the audience above
all that. That’s a lot of talent.
AUSTIN: Do
you have any goals you are hoping to achieve as a performer?
ROBERT:
Well, my goal is to conquer it all. My life is all of piano. I really want to
have solo keys at a concert. I like playing in the concert hall, you know, a
truly the gift of a little artist, you know. I enjoy it more when I really play
and the audience would uplift me or appreciate anything, and they will repeat
this for 5 sets. [At the bar] they’re
not really there for art. They’re there for this and all. So I was like, my
goal is just to carry these songs. I mean I would like to play any song from my
records, my own composition or song.
AUSTIN: Having
spent 3 years in China, why have you finally decided to return home?
ROBERT:
Well, you know I'm married and I got [kids], just that. So I get to go home and be a dad. You know
what I mean. I see that I don’t get the same opportunity with my kids in
America.
AUSTIN: What
are you going to do when you first get there?
ROBERT:
Spend some time with the family and then you know cook beans and some fried
chicken and gravy, pancakes, relax, watch some movies, maybe go to the beach. So,
I’ll kind of enjoy LA a little bit. That’s what I would like to do.
AUSTIN: Well,
you ought to come to Austin, Texas some time. We will show you around and take
you to jazz clubs.
ROBERT:
Yeah, man, that would be great. That would be wonderful, man. You call me.
AUSTIN:
Cool. So how about musically? What are you going to do first when you get back?
ROBERT: Well,
I'm working on a concert hall. I haven’t told a lot of people about it but it’s
kind of a long shot. I always put it in my craft, you know, ever since I’ve
started but I encourage it in my albums. When I started to do a concert, I'm trying
to focus up a bit on a big hall [that] holds about 700 people. I'm thinking about trying to set that up, you
know, pull that, and I believe that would help get more opportunities because there’s
much jumping up too. My name is not strong enough to like stand out. It’s one
of the places I really want to play. So
I'm planning to set it up by playing at other venues. I’ll play it to perform
it to many. That will keep my thing going. It’s flowing down into my vein as an
artist. That’s one of my plans. I just want to do something about that. I can
relax and do my thing.
AUSTIN: I'm
sure you’ll let us all know about that via your mailing list. I have to ask,
how did you get to play with Stevie Wonder and with the Temptations? I saw that
on your website.
ROBERT: Temptations
-- I was working with a friend of mine named Dennis Nelson. He’s a jazz player,
and he was working on his record called “Back on Track.” You should check that
out. He did a track with the Temptations. He sang as a backup, for I think
anyone. So, yeah, that’s how I met The Temptations. I talked to the guy.
AUSTIN: How
about Stevie?
ROBERT: Oh,
Stevie? Well, while we were doing a soul show, I mean this was back in 2003
or
something [2002, actually]. Neo-soul came out. Stevie was very popular. I got
called to play in somebody’s home with a house band – I thought it was maybe a
birthday party for Stevie. First set we played
some of his songs, stretching out. It was a really good band. Stevie came up. He started singing a whole set of all his
songs. Very nice too. It’s on YouTube. You can watch him in action. He can play everything, very nice too. He can
do very challenging stuff. He can play Giant Steps, He can play in A the same
way I play in B flat.
AUSTIN: Is
there anything else that you would like to say to whoever will be reading this
interview?
ROBERT:
Yeah. Like my man Jesse Jackson said: “Keep Hope Alive!”
Robert
Turner currently has three jazz albums available for purchase, with a fourth in
the works.
Robert
Turner - "China Piano" Turner Music Ent./CSCAV (Beijing Conpnay)
Robert Turner
- "Soul Piano" Turner Music Ent.
Robert
Turner - "Silent Night" Seedless Records/Turner Music
If you have a question for Robert, please leave a comment.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Austin Kimble is a professional jazz pianist, music director, educator, and composer based in Austin, Texas.
Questions? Comments? Booking Inquiries?
Email Austin Kimble at austin2.0@gmail.com or Tweet @JazzAustin
