Written by Charles Waring Thursday, 22 September :20 - Last Updated Thursday, 22 September :19

Transcription

1 One of the most respected and prolific drummers in the neighbouring worlds of jazz, soul and funk music, New Jersey native HARVEY MASON (who was born and raised in Atlantic City) began his career forty years ago in the early 1970s. He had a tough upbringing in an impoverished family but imbued with a strong work ethic he was fiercely determined, ambitious and aspired to self-improvement. A productive stint at college studying music led to Mason playing percussion, vibraphone and eventually drums in several jazz bands before his found his vocation - making a living as a session drummer on America's west coast. He played on Donald Byrd's seminal fusion bestseller for Blue Note, 'Black Byrd,' in 1972 and appeared on all the trumpeter's sessions helmed by the Mizell brothers, Larry and Fonce. In '74, he was asked by keyboard maven, Herbie Hancock, to join his new band, with which he aimed to fuse jazz with funk and reach a larger audience. What resulted was another bestselling jazz crossover album, 'Head Hunters.' To his amazement, the modest Mason was offered a solo deal by Arista boss, Clive Davis, during a Brecker Brothers' session in 1975 and over the next several years the drum maestro served up five, very varied, albums for the label (while still working long hours as a session drummer). Now, in 2011, his vintage Arista titles 'Marching In The Street,' 'Earthmover,' 'Funk In A Mason Jar,' 'Groovin' You,' and 'M.V.P.' have all just been reissued for the first time via Soulmusic.com and in an exclusive and revealing in-depth interview with SJF's Charles Waring, the Fourplay co-founder and sticks man talks about his solo albums as well as other fascinating aspects of his long career... 1 / 19

2 What circumstances led you to sign with Arista Records in 1975? I was working on a record with the Brecker brothers. I was in the studio and (Arista boss) Clive Davis came in and I met him for the first time. He asked me if I had thought of being a recording artist. I said not really, but I had a couple of demos I was working on and he asked me to send them. I sent them and he gave me a contract. What was ironic was that I had just finished reading his book (his autobiography) so I was really excited but I didn't realise that I might meet him. But it was really interesting, his book, and then I met him. Things just fell together. Going back to your first album, 1975's 'Marching In The Street,' what can you recall about the sessions and what did you want to achieve with the album at the time? Personally, my mentor was Quincy Jones. I never felt the drums were an out-front instrument where people and the masses would just want to listen to drums and really understand it and get excited about listening to drums, because there's no melody and no harmony. All there is just rhythm. So I set up to make musical albums and that's what Quincy Jones did. I used the same canvas and format that he used for creating records to show my producing, my playing and my ability to bring together musicians and create great music that makes me shine at what I do. That was my goal, to create great music to listen to and not focused on drumming per se because listening to drums is boring for me. By then the great drummer bands had passed - like those led by Art Blakey and Buddy Rich. They focused on songs and playing with the band. They didn't just focus on drum licks and solos. It was about making the music happen. I produced all my own albums and drummers make good producers because they listen to everyone and they react and so you just get in the habit of doing that. Were you aiming for a particular audience with your first album and with the second one, 'Earthmover'? 2 / 19

3 I think it was just thinking more about my youth and my growing up and my development. 'Marching In The Street' had to do with when I took part in city parades in marching bands when I was in the drummer/bugle corps. So I was paying homage to that part of my life. I was very raw and didn't get polished until I joined the bugle corps. The songs derived from incidents and feelings that I had growing up. So that's what that's primarily about. I don't think I had much direction except that they (the record company) wanted me to crossover. They didn't want it to be a jazz album so it wasn't a straight ahead jazz album in any way, shape or form. I have been involved in so much music that was crossover. It was the beginning of crossover music going on back in the Blue Note days in the early 70s. I made a whole bunch of records at Blue Note with Donald Byrd and Bobbi Humphrey so I was definitely aware of the audience and subsequently the audience was aware of me because at that time the recording artist and the people that played on albums received a lot of notoriety. DJs at that time would name the song and name the musicians that were on the records. It was fun so I was aiming towards that audience that was familiar with me and hoping that they would support me as well as a leader. Your third LP, 'Funk In A Mason Jar,' was a pivotal album for you, wasn't it? It was definitely a large-selling record. I don't know if I recall it was pivotal. I never really looked 3 / 19

4 at them like that. I just made them and continued to make them but that album received a lot of critical acclaim. I think it boosted my ability as a recording artist. What memories do you have of making that album? It was 37 years ago so the memory is very, very foggy. I used the same formula as on my previous albums. I remember a couple of songs came from Kenny Loggins. I hired an arranger for a couple of songs. I'd worked with Jeremy Lubbock on Minnie Riperton's records and I called him and asked him if he would arrange a couple of songs and we arranged one together. I used the same formula as Quincy (Jones) because it had been successful. I chose some great songs. I had some of the guys from the Tuesday Night Baked Potato Band playing. We played some songs with Lee Ritenour and that crew and Patrice (Rushen). It was a bunch of different kinds of music and I produced it and got great performances from everyone. I think George Benson might have been on that record as well. Yes, he was - he played on your version of 'What's Going On' by Marvin Gaye. Yes, I used the same formula that they used to record his (George Benson's) records. His records were first takes. The 'Breezin'' record was all first takes. We used the same crew in the studio, the song format, the ideas, the songs, and we started playing it and that was it. So it was all live and great and a lot of fun and it was not complicated. It was just a matter of putting the right people together and playing. Keyboard player Jerry Peters played on the album with you. What attracted you to working with him? I'd been working with Jerry since 1969 when I first moved to Los Angeles. I was out there one year before graduating from school and I met Jerry. He heard me play in a club and we became friends and he invited me to work with Jerry Butler and then Isaac Hayes. I was helping him arrange and he was doing a lot of Blue Note stuff. So I worked with him with the Sylvers and all that stuff and he was using my songs and we became good friends. He was a great musician and that's why I ended up using him on the album. 4 / 19

5 Given your session commitments, did you take the album on the road? No, I may have done one or two concerts. We went on a little tour. I made albums but I wasn't really interested in being a big artist and going out there and struggling with that because I had a pretty large band with me and it was tough to take that kind of band on the road. But we did the west coast. If the money didn't warrant being on the road, then I generally didn't go because I really wanted to record. That was what I set out to do in my life and my career and I was so happy doing that. Everything else was a bonus. I was happy being in the background and recording and becoming an artist was just something that happened by chance. If it wasn't financially feasible to do it then I didn't want to pay out of my own pocket to go on the road and perform. I didn't tour much at all. Very rarely. Your next album was 'Groovin' You' and the title track proved very popular with clubbers. Yeah, that was a disco hit. All the time I had been guided by the label (Arista) to really tap into the crossover market and the disco thing was happening at the time and I was playing on a lot of those records. I had my finger on the pulse because I was making so many records and working on so many projects and I kind of knew what was going on at the time. And then when I made my own album I was definitely influenced by those things and I tried to make my records in my own way but using the influences and the knowledge that I had from working on the other projects. There's a very nice version of Antonio Carlos Jobim's 'Wave' on that album. There again, it was Jeremy Lubbock. I told him that I'd decided to record this song and we got together and conceptualised it. He went to work and put all the touches on it and it was 5 / 19

6 nominated for a Grammy. Your next and final album for Arista was 'M.V.P.' It was quite a stylistic departure from your previous work, wasn't it? That was almost all commercial, wasn't it? Yes, definitely. What was the reasoning behind it? Well, when you've just about broken through and achieved major hit status (with 'Groovin' You') the record label said give us more to work with. So that's where the album came from. I just gave them more to work with. 6 / 19

7 What prompted the album's title, 'M.V.P.'? I was looking for some kind of a hook. Something interesting. And at the time I was winning these the 'most valuable player' awards as a drummer in Hollywood and I won a couple of those as I started to put the album together. Also I was heavily involved in sports. I loved sports. I was running hurdles, playing basketball, skiing and all that stuff. I put those two ideas together 'most valuable player' with sports - and that was the theme. You're always looking for a title for an album and that was the tie in. 'M.V.P.,' most valuable player, was the music influence but everything else came from sports. Did all those pictures on the back cover of you running, horse riding and skiing truly reflect your own genuine leisure interests then? Oh, yes. Definitely. I used to run track and played basketball in a basketball league. My daughter rode horses but I took lessons for the picture because I wasn't a regular horseback rider. I was a recreational rider. I rode and jumped a couple of jumps. Your brother Kenny had quite a prominent role on the album. Can you tell me a little about him? Kenny is six years younger than me. He graduated from the New England Conservatory also. I recommended him to the school and they gave him a scholarship. He's a good trumpet player and arranger and when he got out of school I had him come work with me a lot. So he was working with me and we wrote together. He was writing arrangements. I let him step up to try and help him in his career because he was so close to me and stayed with me a lot and at the time I think he was working with Mandrill and Marvin Gaye - in his band as a trumpet player - so he was starting to get studio work. I trusted him; he knew exactly what I wanted. He did a couple of arrangements and wrote with me. I relied on him. You recruited an unknown singer, Karen Floyd, for the album. How did you hook up with her? 7 / 19

8 I was writing with different people like Deon Estus and I met a lady called Marti Sharron. As an artist, songs always come to you. A song came to me from a girl called Marti Sharron as a demo for my record. I heard the song and the girl singing the song was a girl named Karen Floyd. I loved the way she sang. She sang differently from anyone else I'd heard. So I cut the song and used the singer that was on the demo. That was probably the last time I've seen her but in recent years she tried to get going again and she sent me a couple of songs. She still sounds wonderful but she's got a whole different life outside of music and now wants to move back into music but I think the bar might have passed and the window of opportunity has gone. But she still sounds great and is a wonderful singer. You also you had Deon Estus, who you mentioned, playing bass for you. How did you find him? I worked on a record with the band that he was in. They were called Brainstorm from Detroit. I was playing drums because a lot of times drummers in a band aren't really studio savvy. So that happened a lot. I was working with his band and because of that we hooked up. He was great, very enthusiastic. I loved playing with him. So I had him on a couple of record dates and he pushed a couple of songs on me. I had to do a couple of live gigs, and he played with me. He could sing and play so I used my record as a conduit to try and get him out there. He hadn't done an album and no one knew anything about him. So I did one of his songs and he sang on it and it was a good relationship. Shortly after that, I think he moved to London and played with George Michael, Sade and a few people like that. So what happened at Arista after 'M.V.P.' as it turned out to be your final album for the company. I think at that point I was getting frustrated and don't think I wanted to really record with the sort of constraints and demands that Arista had put on me so we mutually agreed to part. I think I had one more album left to do on my contract but I didn't do it. If I can take you back a bit earlier than your Arista career, to Herbie Hancock's 'Head Hunters' album; how did you get to play on that album and how did you get to meet Herbie and play with him? 8 / 19

9 I'd met Herbie years before because I was an ardent Miles Davis fan. I'd travel around to hear him play. When Herbie formed his band Mwandishi, the drummer in the band was an old friend of mine whom I'd met as a kid, Billy Hart. I stayed in touch with him and went to different gigs and he knew me as a young drummer. He recommended me to Herbie when Herbie started his new band. So when Herbie was forming his new band after Mwandishi he called me and asked me to come over and play. So I went to his house and played and we fell in love together. After that we started trying to find a bass player. At that time I was really involved in recording a lot and I think that that interested Herbie because I played on a lot of big records at the time and he was looking to crossover and was trying to move in that direction. He'd been travelling up and down the road with this band Mwandishi and financially he was probably scuffling but musically it was very, very rewarding. But he was interested in reaching new audiences and that was happening with a lot of guys that he knew, in particular Donald Byrd. At that time I was very, very busy but I devoted almost all my time to rehearsing and hanging with the band and we did some live gigs prior to doing the record. We almost lived as a family. It was like a commune. Then we went in and did the record ('Head Hunters'). Following the record, I went back to my career full-time despite requests to travel with the band and go on the road. I didn't go because I knew my future would lie with what I'd already been doing, in the recording studio. So I finished the record with Herbie and then went right back into doing what I was doing full-time and never thought about going on the road. 9 / 19

10 You're credited as a co-writer of the classic track 'Chameleon' from that album do you recall how it came about? When you write together in the studio together you're coming up with grooves, you're coming up with lines and everybody's contributing. There wasn't anyone who brought any music. We were creating as we went along. Sometimes you're playing a particular song and something else will come out of it and when you're in the creative process it happens a lot of different ways. We could be playing and then one guy might play a groove and say "wait a minute, wait a minute! That could be a song." You stop playing and you go from there. This guy will put this in and that guy will put that in and the next thing you know you've got a song. You create it, then hone it, edit it and add to it and that's how we created that song. I don't know where the groove came from but they just started playing along with it. It's just one of those creative moments that just happens. I think with every song on the album - regardless of who the composer was - everyone chipped in and took it to a different level. I remembered helping to create a couple of songs on Herbie's next record ('Thrust'). 'Butterfly' was one. As a matter of fact, I was a little bit jealous when that album came out because I had helped to create a lot of that vibe and had special feelings about the way to play those songs. But it was a great time and I was very happy to be involved in that. Weren't you responsible for the updated arrangement of Herbie's '60s hit, 'Watermelon Man' on 'Head Hunters'? Yeah, I was in the shower and at the time we were creating new music and of course, this music was just playing in my brain all the time. I remembered one of Herbie's songs, 'Watermelon Man,' and kept thinking about it. So I was in the shower and heard music in my head running water creates something in the brain where you hear music and I heard this arrangement and I put it together and took it to the band and Herbie loved it. The idea of having the African Hindewho whistle came from (percussionist) Bill Summers. He was an ethno-musicologist and he was heavily into African drumming in a traditional sense. He had this whistle and we decided to put it in at the front (of the track). Again, it was a collaborative effort. 10 / 19

11 You also worked with Donald Byrd in the early '70s. What was it like working with the Mizell brothers on his Blue Note albums? It was similar to Motown sessions. We went to work maybe three or four days a week at an old studio called The Sound Factory. I think Fonce (Mizell) had moved from Motown to LA and Blue Note was just beginning to try creating crossover music. We were in the studio just cutting tracks and we didn't know who the artist was half the time. We just worked for several hours and read some music and it was fun. It was the same guys on all the sessions and we all had a ball. It was very creative - you just went in and played. No one said anything: you just played. When you listen to those records, they sound so effortless in relation to the rhythm section. 11 / 19

12 Yes, it was very uncomplicated. They didn't have stands for music. We didn't know when we were going to change. They had a piece of paper with the A, B, or C section or bridge or whatever on and as we were playing along they would hold up the charts and then count one, two, three, four and then you'd go to the A section and then go to B and than they would go to C and then they might go back to A. Then they might go back to the bridge and then they put C in and you would just play out. So it was very, very relaxed. You didn't have to think about reading the music - they just put up a sign when they wanted to change. Did you imagine when you were cutting it that 'Black Byrd' would become such a big seller? Well, we just made the music. It was just great music and they marketed it well. There were a lot of records in that time that I was happy with. That was one of the first and it was great. It was a lot of fun. Can you describe what an average day was like back in the '70s when you were in demand as a session drummer? Most of the sessions started at 10 am for a record date. But I also did movies and TV films and they started generally at 8 or 7.30 am. So I'd get up and go to a date at 10 or I'd have a motion picture call or a TV call at 8. I generally worked about three sessions a day, even on Saturdays. Sometimes you're working later than that - you may not start till 8 and might not finish till 12 or something like that. So it was a lot of fun and it was amazing. The music was so varied and it was exactly what I wanted to do with my life because I never knew what music I was really going to be called upon to do. I might go to work with (arranger) Oliver Nelson one day, then I'd work with the TV guy over here (in Hollywood) one day, and then I'd go work with Tom Jones, or Carole King and I come over here (back to Hollywood) and work on a jingle for an hour in between. It was a golden age for recording and I'm so happy I had that experience. It was amazing. I was playing not only drums but percussion as well because that was my training. The first couple of years I lived in L.A. I was playing almost exclusively percussion - not even playing the drums. I think when I started making the Blue Note records and the notoriety came, people started calling me to play drums. Prior to that, I was playing percussion: a lot of percussion. Once, I was playing vibes with (saxophonist) Gerry Mulligan when the drummer didn't show up and I said 'I can play until he gets here.' Then they fired the drummer and let me play drums. There was a session with Dave Grusin that I played on and when he heard me play drums, I became his regular drummer for about 20 years on everything he ever did. It's funny 12 / 19

13 how things turn out. You also produced two CTI albums for the group Seawind in the late '70s - how did that come about? A friend of mine who was travelling as a music conductor for Trinnie Lopez spent a lot of time in Hawaii and he heard this band that he was freaking over called Ox. He sent me tapes and said: "You have to hear this band, they're amazing." I heard the tape and they sounded incredible. I'd never heard a band sound like that so I just started corresponding with them and asked them if anyone had ever recorded them and they said no. Different people like Cannonball Adderley and a couple of other people like George Duke had desires to produce them but no one had done anything. This went on and on and then they finally said we are coming to LA. So they came to LA, we met and I said let's go work on a record in Bill Withers' studio. He was going out of town and he was going to be gone for quite a while. He said "stay here and use my studio" so we went to the studio and started recording the record. That's how it happened. I played percussion with them. They were great, great musicians. They had a great horn section featuring Jerry Hey, didn't they? Oh yeah, I introduced Quincy (Jones) to those guys. Did you ever have any sessions you had to turn down but now wished that you hadn't? I got called to do a record with Chaka Khan, a bebop record, 'A Night In Tunisia.' I got a call to do that but then they moved the session and I couldn't do it. I would've loved to have done that record. I would've loved to record on the David Sanborn and Bob James album with 'Maputo' on it ('Double Vision'). I almost did that record. Other than that I can't think of many others. I played one day on a record by Asia but I left. It was too slow for me. I was supposed to work for a week but I worked one day. The recording process was painfully slow to me: I'm not that patient. But I heard the record and it was a great record and I wished I could have been involved but not if I'd have to suffer that pain for that time. 13 / 19

14 You grew up in Atlantic City, New Jersey. What was it like from a musical perspective growing up there? Atlantic City was nicknamed 'The Playground Of The World' and they had a lot of jazz and R&B clubs there. It was a very thriving music community and I began working pretty early, when I was about 14. I was working and hanging out in clubs and got to meet a lot of great jazz masters and R&B people and everything. So I had a ball playing shows and playing all kinds of music. It was an amazing, amazing place to grow up in: there was so much music going on. What led you to take up the drums? Actually, when I was really small, my mother said I was banging on the floor and banging on oatmeal boxes with my hands and was always banging on something. In the third grade they had a demonstration of music in the school and people would show you instruments and say who wants to play what. And I went right for the drums. I started public school music education and that was all I had. I never had any private lessons but I thrived immediately. That was the one thing that I could do that I could do better than anyone else. I didn't think of any other way except gaining as much knowledge and playing as well as I possibly could. In my senior year I read an article in 'Downbeat' about studio musicians like Larry Bunker. They went to work every day and they wore jackets and a shirt and tie. So I said to myself I want become a session musician. Prior to that, I had no aspirations of being a professional musician and making money from it. But I was looking for a better life because I came from a pretty deprived background. I was looking for something stable. I used to see musicians coming through and see how they lived and it didn't appear to be stable to me until I read that 'Downbeat' article. I went to college to got my degree but always had an eye towards being a studio musician and teaching was just a mere backup. I know you play the vibraphone as well as the drums. Do you play any other instruments 14 / 19

15 at all? I play piano. Enough to write. I use a piano to write songs. What prompted your songwriting? When did it start? Actually I started theory classes in my junior high school. They had a very progressive music program in there. I stayed there and I went and had theory lessons and began writing back then. I wrote a couple of marches and things like that. I was into orchestration even then before I went to college. So my writing goes way back and then I went to Berklee for a year and a half and first studied improvisation and it encompassed writing. And then I went to New England Conservatory and I continued writing. After I graduated from New England and moved up to L.A. I was writing immediately. I started writing songs and stockpiling them and getting songs on different records. That was just automatic. Even today, when I'm not working, I write all the time. Fourplay is an outlet now. Every CD I have at least two songs on and I've had as many as four. I continue to write and on the new Chuck Loeb record I've got two songs. Now a lot of my albums are being sampled, so the writing has paid off. What was the first professional work you got as a jobbing musician? I believe you worked with the pianist George Shearing. Yeah, that's when I came out of college. I played with him. Prior to playing with George, after I graduated from New England, my first gig was with (jazz pianist) Erroll Garner and I came to Europe. I spent several weeks in Europe with Erroll Garner. Then when we were on a break, I went out to LA because I wanted to move there to find studio work. While I was there I heard George Shearing who was based in LA - was looking for a drummer so I went to audition and got the job. But then I had to leave Erroll. That was perfect because it allowed me to move out to Los Angeles with a job. So what did you learn from Erroll Garner? What was it like being in his band? It was amazing. Everything was amazing - that's a great word for me. My life has been amazing. 15 / 19

16 But it was great because I worked with Erroll in Boston for a week or so as a sideman and so he knew my playing and he invited me to join his band. What I learned from Erroll Garner was how to accompany someone and how to swing - when you swing and accompany all the frills go out of the window. The most important thing is to swing and play with him. So that was the deal: play with him and wherever he went, I went, and we'd just make it swing. That's it. It was a lot of fun. It was amazing playing with him and I had a great time. It was also the first time I'd been to Europe. I had a great time. How did working with George Shearing compare with Erroll Garner? That was a different discipline. We had a book of maybe 300 songs or so. It was a quintet initially and everything was very arranged. The playing was pretty subdued and very disciplined and you read a lot. You tried to swing it but it was very regimented - but it was still fun. George was a great musician and it was fun to be able to pull the music out and read it and perform it perfectly and hear his sound. He was clearly into that sound. What's been the highlight of your career so far? Well, to tell you the truth, I'm proud of my entire career. And again, I feel amazed to have done such a lot and are happy and still looking forward to new things to do. I'm never satisfied and always looking for new things to do. I was talking to George Benson a few days ago. I played on a new record of his and I called him to tell him "let's go out and play bebop." He doesn't do that but we had such a great time in the studio - it's a sort of jazz CD where he sang and he played the guitar. It was so much fun. I said "George, let's go play. We got to go play." (Mimics Benson's voice): "yeah, yeah, man. OK, Let's go play." He was at the airport. He said: "I'll call you back in a couple of days. We gotta go play." That was about playing and having fun and doing what you want to do. 16 / 19

17 Last year I went to Europe with a band, Chuck Loeb and I - he's now the guitarist in Fourplay - and we were off for the month of September and Nate (Nathan East) took a tour with Toto so we were looking for something to do and Chuck said "let's put a band together." So we called everybody and went to Europe for two and a half weeks and toured with Til Bronner, Eric Marienthal and myself and we had a ball over there. It was great. So those are things I'm looking forward to - having all kinds of fun and looking to record a new record. I've been recording playing in Japan a few times for solo projects over there. My last solo project over there was with a band called The Chameleon Band. It was Patrice Rushen with Jimmy Haslip, Azar Lawrence and Bill Summers. We played a lot of music from the Herbie Hancock days. It was amazing so I'm looking to record The Chameleon Band with new material but with the basis of what we did back then but moving forward. So that's the project I'm working on now and I'm trying to get a deal for the CD. Another band of yours, Fourplay, are still going strong. We started Fourplay 20 years ago. Bob (James) and I go back to the CTI days and he came to 17 / 19

18 LA to record and asked me to put together a couple of bands for him, which I did. I called Lee Ritenour and Nate (Nathan East) and I had another band. He liked the band with Lee and Nate most and while we were recording he asked us "would you guys ever want to be in a band?" Everybody said it would be fun. Bob didn't think it would ever happen but he was an executive at Warner's at the time and went back and told (Warner's exec) Mo Austin and Mo Austin immediately said "yes." So within a very short order, they had a deal on the table and we were signed and went in the studio. The first record went platinum. Now 20 years later we're still going even though we've had several guitar players - Lee (Ritenour) lasted six years and Larry Carlton lasted 13 years and now we've got Chuck (Loeb) who's been with us just over a year. A different guitar player brings a different energy and Chuck's brought a brand new energy to the band and the band's flying real high as a matter of fact. We're going to be in London in November. Who's been the most inspiring musician you've ever played or worked with? Oh, what a question. Who is the most inspiring musician? You know, that's so tough. I've been inspired by Quincy Jones, John Williams, by Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock and so many people. There are so many great musicians I've played with but I just take inspiration primarily from music and not any particular individual; I just take inspiration from music and songs and being in music and playing music and interpreting music. That's my life and it's my greatest joy. I love playing all kinds of music: playing in an orchestral setting, playing in a country setting. I don't care what it is, I just get great joy out of creating music and making it the best I possibly can. Over the last couple of years I've adopted the moniker 'Harvey Mason - The Chameleon.' That really describes me. I like that moniker. It's ironic that I was involved in a song called 'Chameleon.' So I'll work with Streisand and then I'll go work with Herbie or I'll go work with McCoy (Tyner) or I'll go and do a motion picture with John Williams, or I'll go work with Placido Domingo and so on. That's been my career. Yesterday I was recording music from the '30s with a Billie Holiday type feeling. So chameleon is what really describes me and that's probably what I take the greatest pride in. Not for being the loudest drummer, or the trickiest drummer or the flashiest drummer but being the most complete drummer and being able to play all kinds of music. Is there any kind of music that you're not keen to take part in or play? Not really. I find it challenging to play everything, to tell you the truth. I'd like to play some more rock and roll. I'd never really been involved in a big rock and roll record so I'd like to do that. We'll see. 18 / 19

19 Harvey Mason's Arista albums are out now via Soulmusic.com 19 / 19