Grammy-nominated saxophonist, producer, composer and multi-instrumentalist Terrace Martin joins Air Time in advance of his appearance for UCSB Arts & Lectures on Friday, November 6 at 7:30 p.m. at UCSB Campbell Hall.
In a wide-ranging conversation, Martin reflects on his roots in Los Angeles, his creative partnership with Herbie Hancock and his belief in music as a force for peace, healing and community. He also discusses his ambitious Love Is Louder Than Algorithms project and previews his upcoming performance at UC Santa Barbara, a celebration of the style and sound of Miles Davis featuring fresh interpretations and spontaneous improvisation.
Charles Donelan
Welcome to Air Time, the UCSB Arts and Lectures podcast. I’m Charles Donelan, and my guest today is saxophonist, composer, producer, and band leader Terrace Martin. He’s one of the most influential musicians working at the intersection of jazz, hip hop, R&B and soul. His extraordinary list of collaborators includes Kendrick Lamar, Herbie Hancock, Snoop Dogg, Kamasi Washington and Robert Glasper. His latest projects include the four-part instrumental series Love Is Louder Than Algorithms and a new album with the collective group Dinner Party. Terrace Martin comes to UCSB Campbell Hall on Friday, November 6 at 7:30 p.m. leading an ensemble. Terriace, welcome to Airtime.
Terrace Martin
Thank you for having me. I’m excited.
Charles Donelan
You know, I love these podcasts because I get to do research and I get to listen to music. That is one of the great joys of this role that I have. And wow, you are a revelation. I can’t believe how prolific you are, and what – I want to come up with a really positive way of putting this – you’re a shapeshifter. You’re always recognizable, but you cover so much. So maybe talk a little bit about your musical identity, how that developed, how you’re able to maintain a sense of individuality and who you are across genres and projects. Some of these genres, a lot of people would maybe say they aren’t really related, or that they aren’t ordinarily related, but you kind of make it all work. So tell me about that.
Terrace Martin
Well, first of all, thank you for all the flowers. I definitely appreciate it because for me, you know, it’s not coming from a negative perspective or anything, but I don’t tend to look at myself as all those things. How I do look at myself is the one thing I’m 100% confident about, and it’s my place in this world and in this culture. I do know I am a workable piece to the puzzle, part of a solution, You know what I mean?
Charles Donelan
Yeah.
Terrace Martin
I know that, and I also know I’m not the only one. I’m not the first. I’m not gonna be the last. And I know that we need more pieces of the puzzle. And I hope that I’m doing the job of the universe, and just inspiring people and trying to just give whatever I give. I try to get brothers. Now I try to give whatever I can, just to make sure that we are building more soldiers on the front line of love and solutions to this crazy world. Whether it’s music, being a doctor, being a lawyer, or just being a sweet, kind person. You know, I think these days, being a kind person should be up there with being doctors and lawyers as well. You know what I’m saying?
So that’s how I look at my place in this world. I think as long as I forever look at myself as a student and a servant to peace, love, solutions, and questions, and just a servant to whatever somebody has that could create a roadmap to a better life for themselves, as I follow Miles Davis, my father, and Snoop. And I’ve found that’s what brings me peace and a better life for myself. Hopefully, I could give clues that people could find within them, that a young, insecure kid with hella codependencies, an only child from South Central Los Angeles, gathered and used music as a refuge.
So when you ask how I do that, I just say, you know, I think I grew up with a lot of people. A lot of people will tell you I’m Terrace’s friend, and a lot of people are my friend. But when you grow up an only child, you kind of grow up with this thing where it’s like once you leave the house, you kind of have a mask on, and you just deal with humans around you because when you spend so much time alone that you build this world in your own head in your own spirit to eat off of and to navigate through, and luckily there’s been heroes and mentors and you know different things I’ve gathered and just what I believe having a mother that really instilled God in my heart, and to treat people kind. I think you know treating people kind has helped me maneuver through this shit more than music because just being kind is possible.
Charles Donelan
I so appreciate the way you describe the fact that you are a piece of a puzzle that you’re serving, that you’re trying to express something that’s bigger than music that has to do with helping people to have better lives. But I just want to come back to the fact that look at these people who have found you so valuable, you know, and for decades now. I mean, you’ve been somebody that Kendrick Lamar calls on. Now Herbie, Snoop Dogg, and now Christian McBride. These are the premier artists of the world, and clearly that piece of the puzzle? That’s an important piece. Or it’s a piece that you have been able to keep finding a way to make work. Let me put it this way: the puzzle is not static; it’s a moving thing.
Terrace Martin
Oh yeah.
Charles Donelan
It evolves, right? And then you know obviously that affects your own music. I mean, how does the fact that you live in these different worlds or you participate in these groups like Dinner Party, how does that impact what you do when you’re, like you were saying, the only child right? When you’re off on your own because I know you do a fair amount of music where it’s just in your own space with your own thoughts.
Terrace Martin
I got a keyboard right now. [Plays some notes] It’s four studios in my home.
Charles Donelan
Yeah.
Terrace Martin
So I wake up to a studio. One of my mentors and a dear friend of mine, somebody I’ve really admired and looked up to since the ’90s, is a producer and a pastor now named Warren Campbell. Warren Campbell wrote a lot of records with Brandy, Snoop Dogg, Jay Z, Mary J. I mean, he’s just a huge producer from Los Angeles, and when I was young he was always telling me a recording artist’s job is to record every day.
Yeah, like if I was a police officer, I probably would be on overtime. We are servants. So not only should I be recording every day, but once I took this oath, and I took it, because… Just to be clear, sometimes it’s really hard for me to go with some of these interviews because everybody’s so opinionated on spirituality, and I don’t feel that way. I don’t give facts; I just say what I feel. I made a deal with God in seventh grade that if He gave me something to do, I would commit to it, and two weeks later, out of the blue, I fell in love with the saxophone. That’s a whole nother thing. But what I’m saying is, man, every time I get on that… what was we talking about again? What were we saying?
Charles Donelan
Well, just what it’s like when you work on your own. You know where you’re going.
Terrace Martin
Yeah, so when I work on my own it’s getting all the ideas out I didn’t get to get out on the previous artist’s record. So it’s all the trash. It’s all the trash in my brain because that’s what Herbie Hancock taught me. Herbie Hancock taught me even the trash is used. So it’s all the trash and all the gumbo and all the goulash and all the mixtures and all the cut off fat that was left over from everybody else’s records I’ve done, that I’ve worked with throughout the week, throughout the days. It’s all these things that sit on my shoulders, and I feel the pressure of ideas that don’t get out of my spirit daily on my shoulders, so it’s a thing where I have to get up and they have to go somewhere into the world.
Cause don’t forget, I’m on an assignment, so I have to get it out to the world so somebody else could grab it quick. None of these ideas are mine. I’m just grabbing them in the air before somebody else grabs them, and I want to get them out there quick so somebody else could grab them. Rather, they want to grab and be music, like I said earlier, whether they want to grab, be a musician, or maybe they want to study at UC Santa Barbara, or maybe I don’t know, but just grab them. I just want you to grab! I want to get them out of me because the weight on my shoulders of having art that’s in my body stuck is just painful physically.
Charles Donelan
Yeah, I’m going to change the subject a little bit, but I think it comes right from the same place, from the heart. I’m looking at your L.A. hat, and I’m thinking that the place is a big part of who you are and how you think and how you feel. Maybe you could talk a little bit about walking. And you know, living somewhere, the sense of belonging to a community. This seems like this is a really core part of what you are. I mean, your label is called Sounds of Crenshaw.
Terrace Martin
Yeah, I’m big on village. Big on village. Big on my ancestors. I’m big on honoring my ancestors. I’m big on honoring the soil that I come from because nobody would be themselves if they didn’t come from where they come from. So I’m big on it, and I’m proud. I’m proud to be from Los Angeles. It’s so much thick culture in Los Angeles. It’s so much separate thick culture in the Crenshaw district; I’m very proud. I’m very excited when positive things happen. I’m very sad and hurtful when hurtful things happen. It affects my household. My wife, she’s from the Crenshaw district. My children, we all are. This is what we are. So everything affects us, good and bad. We’re just very connected people. No matter if we go to Paris, if we go to Africa, if we go to Japan, it’s a piece of me.
It’s just a piece of me because I have so many important memories and lessons that I teach my children and hope they pass down to their children. They’re the same lessons that I learned on those couple of blocks I grew up on between Crenshaw and Slauson. We moved even further down the Crenshaw, and then moved back up towards Leimert Park. One of the biggest lessons you learn growing up in the Crenshaw district is about different walks of life. Yes, it is a black community, but it welcomes everyone, and everyone came through.
So when you live in the Crenshaw district, usually you go to Crenshaw High or you get bused to Westchester High. Some of us got bused to Santa Monica High. Some of us got bused to Culver City High. So we bring back all these different influences. You know we have a strong relationship with the Hispanic brothers and sisters in Los Angeles, with the Asian brothers and sisters in Los Angeles, with the middle, all these different networks because LA is full of everybody. They may not live in South Central, but what happens is, we go to these other schools and we bring it back and we bring back a piece of everybody’s culture. It’s like culture swapping, which is beautiful. Yeah, we got pictures of everybody’s culture. We bring it back. So the Crenshaw district is a gumbo in L.A. of everybody’s culture, and then you put us on top of it.
So to me, all the soul in L.A. comes from South Central Los Angeles. Period, and it always has. It always has. So I’m very proud to walk those streets that Dexter Gordon walked, Eric Dolphy walked, Buddy Collette walked, Charles Mingus walked, Billy Higgins walked, Art Farmer walked, Sonny Criss walked, Ornette Coleman walked, Don Cherry walked, Nate Morgan walked, like Dr. Art Davis and Juno Lewis walked. I’m proud, extremely, to be from that tree, and I know how I’m blessed. Like I said, I’m spiritual. I’m so blessed that the Creator chose this environment to drop me in, and to rest there.
Charles Donelan
I love that list because you’re taking it all the way back to Central Avenue, to a whole other era.
Terrace Martin
I didn’t mention one rapper.
Charles Donelan
Right. And still you were part of some of the most consequential rap music to come out of LA.
Terrace Martin
Because of those people, though.
Charles Donelan
Yeah.
Terrace Martin
The building blocks, and then all those mixed up into a saint. All those mixed up into a saint named Reggie Andrews [legendary LAUSD music educator and producer], and that’s who we got. That’s who got me, Kamasi, Thundercat. That was the guy that said, “Okay, now this is how you live it. Go on.”
Charles Donelan
Wow. “Love is louder than algorithms.” [Title of Martin’s recent 4-album solo project, including individual volumes titled Passion, Peace, Purpose, and Perspective]. Yes. I think you’re addressing something that is on everybody’s mind right now. But you’re doing it primarily through instrumental music. I mean, there’s some lyrics on there too. Maybe you could talk a little bit about that project because it’s a giant statement. I mean, four albums worth of music.
Terrace Martin
It’s actually five. The fifth one is dropping next year. The fifth one is with all the features; the fifth one wraps up the story. I wanted to put out those four individual albums because I wanted to put out four bodies of work inspired and written off of those titles, off of these things I feel it takes a person to have to live. You know, to find happiness within, so they could be happy on the outside. It takes understanding your purpose. And if you don’t understand your purpose, that’s okay. But it takes putting effort in and working towards answering “what is my purpose?” because at least if you start that, you’re on the right track. You know what I’m saying? And Peace.
Charles Donelan
Peace: that one really came through for me in terms of you could hear that the concept is clear in the music.
Terrace Martin
Yeah.
Charles Donelan
On all four, but with Peace in particular, maybe you could say a little bit more about how you made that connection between the sound, the instrumentation, and the concept.
Terrace Martin
With Peace I wanted to deal with an instrument and space that represented peace. I wanted to deal with an instrument that could capture what I feel to be all the elements of the musical circle of ideas and fixtures, which is harmony, rhythm, and melody. Which is the piano. You know what I mean? I just wanted to be free, and I just kept meditating, saying as I’m playing “peace, peace, peace, peace.”
I remember the news was on; it was so much drama going on with the world, I just kept saying peace, peace, because the interesting part about peace, as I understand peace, is you can’t understand peace without war. Like you can’t understand it, you can’t really have faith on anything, unless you know what it’s like not to have faith on anything. You just can’t. When people say I believe, I always say, “Have you ever not believed?” Always believe. I say, how do you know you’re believing? You know, it’s like you need one [to have the other]. But my thing is, peace is what we need more of. So I wanted to focus on that.
And when I say love is louder than algorithms, I wanted to give what are some of the things under love? What are some of the words and the feelings you need under love to really love peace? To really love someone, to really even like them, you need peace. You got to know it’s peaceful. You got to know when you come. You you got to know when you go to the environment that it’s peaceful. You got to know when you coming home to a lover, it’s peaceful. To really feel warm, peace is such an important factor on a small to a huge scale. Yes, the world needs peace, but before the world needs peace, we need peace in households, where everything starts. Yes, because if it’s more peace in households, the world will be more peaceful. These are all my beliefs, though.
Charles Donelan
You know, I’m going to make a connection here that I hope it might not be perfectly logical, but I hope you can appreciate it. We had Herbie Hancock up here a couple years ago.
Terrace Martin
I love Herbie.
Charles Donelan
Big turnout for Herbie. You can imagine. You know everybody loves him, and I was running around right before the show was about to start doing stuff in front of the house, dealing with things, and I happened to get in proximity to Herbie’s green room, and I heard him chanting,
Terrace Martin
Yeah?
Charles Donelan
From inside the green room. And I just stopped there for a moment and stood outside the door and listened to him doing his chant, and it was like everything fell away. All the stress, everything else. I just suddenly thought, you know what? You are so lucky to be here right now. Just be in this moment for a couple of minutes. Don’t let this pass by without acknowledging it. So maybe you can talk a little bit about Herbie. He seems to have had a big impact on you. I hear that in your piano playing and stuff too, for sure. What did you do for him? What was your role when you were working with him?
Terrace Martin
A few years ago, me and my friends got together and we created an album called To Pimp a Butterfly, and he had got familiar with that album, so he called another friend of mine named Flying Lotus that worked on the album as well. He said Fly, I love this album, blah blah blah. This album’s amazing, and pretty much, Flying Lotus said, “Well, if you love this album, then you need to check out these guys that did this album, you know, alongside.” Fly Lo turned me on to Herbie as far as my name, and then Herbie got with Robert [Glasper], and pretty much told Robert – I think they was in Korea, something like that, backstage. And Herbie said, “Man, I’m trying to get with Terrace Martin, you know. And Robert said, “That’s my brother. I’ll call him right now.“
And the next day, they flew back. Robert called me down to the studio. When I walked in the studio, it was Herbie and Wayne Shorter sitting down. You know what I’m saying? So I just started talking, and they both showed me how they had my music on their phones. Like it was crazy, you know? And my role with Herbie was, we’re working on an album. We’re still working on an album forever. And you should hear some of this music we have. But my role for Herbie? I came in just as a producer for Herbie, producing music.
I spent so much time with him, every day for years. And I end up going to Robert,and I ended up becoming the saxophonist and keyboard for him, and and just getting real close with him. And I looked up to Herbie way before I met him. Herbie’s one of my father’s heroes, so whoever was my father’s hero is automatically my hero by default. So I always loved Herbie. When I got with him, it was a spiritual dream come true. So I wanted to obey what I had prayed for, and I stayed with him every day. And man, for five, six years, I just went over to his house, and toured the world. Actually, I’m about to go to his house next week. We toured the world, and I really learned from him. And you know, we chanted every day before the gig, and that’s one of the things where I developed howI found peace. I found peace there with him. I found a deeper peace within my life with Herbie Hancock. I found solutions on how to deal with my problems through Herbie Hancock, because chanting nam yoho renge kyo is very powerful. Very powerful.
Charles Donelan
Yes.
Terrace Martin
I think of it as a mirror, and I’m just really trying to dig into my inner God and myself, and just you know, chant for accountability, responsibility, peace, things like that. Of a sudden, you know,
Charles Donelan
That’s so powerful to me because, like I said, I heard his voice, and at first I didn’t really quite realize. I was like, “What? What is that?”
Terrace Martin
Yeah.
Charles Donelan
And when it clicked, I was like, “I’m being blessed right now. I’m receiving something that not everybody is gonna get from life.
Terrace Martin
Yep.
Charles Donelan
So that takes me to my next question, and we’re going to wrap pretty soon. I’ve already kept you for most of the time that we allotted, but I could talk to you all day. You’re amazing. I really appreciate the kind of insights, and especially just the level at which you approach your life and music. So, this is the question: What do you think music can do for people, not just musicians, but just you know the people who love it and listen to it because it makes their day better. Yeah. How do you understand that? Go ahead.
Terrace Martin
I feel like you don’t even have to be a music lover to feel frequencies.
Charles Donelan
Yes.
Terrace Martin
So I feel music, with all those frequencies, that’s why it touches so many people. Sometimes the words, sometimes the bass line, sometimes just that sonic frequency. Sometimes the white noise behind the music. Why are you addicted to the song? It’s frequency based, and I feel what music can do, what it does scientifically, is what it does for different people. They tested people and they tested animals with music. Certain music can soothe you. Certain music can give you confidence. Certain music could give you insecurities. Certain music can make you live longer. Certain music can kill you the day you listen to it. That’s how powerful frequencies is.
So I feel like with music, what it could do for you is whatever you want it to do for you. If you want to feel better about life, and you believe in it, it’s going to happen. You just have to believe in the music, but it’s so powerful; I’ve seen it do other things as well. Like don’t ignore the power of music. Power is power. I’ve seen music do some very different things that I care not to discuss. I do some beautiful things. That I do care to discuss. It’s all how you want to use the power. You know, I look at music like a gun. You can protect your family with it, or you can do something stupid with it. I choose to protect my family.
Charles Donelan
Yeah.
Terrace Martin
Too Short said it the best. Too Short said hip hop to him was if you wasn’t tall enough for a little bit of basketball, you wasn’t short enough for this. You wasn’t perfect enough for this. Hip hop always had a home for somebody. Any race, any nationality, any whatever you identify with, it has a home. A home, H O M E. What does a home need? Peace. A home doesn’t have to be a building. A home starts here. You know that’s why, when people say “Look at the homeless people,” I tell my kids, “Don’t ever say that. You don’t know who’s homeless over there.” That’s right. Homeless is different now. Displaced or without shelter, but homeless is different. Yep. Even if we don’t have shelter, I’ma always have a home in my heart. I have a home. I built a home. I don’t depend on this world to protect my home and my children. I depend on the home I played in my heart that I can transfer to them. That’s what I depend on. I don’t depend on politics. All I care about is cool, respect. I actually told somebody. They said, “How important is love?” and I said, I think respect’s more important than love. Because we don’t have to love each other. We don’t. I’d rather, but we don’t. But if we respect each other, at least we can make it on home. We can make it on home to our families. We don’t have to. We don’t have to, and we don’t even have to. But let’s just make it home.
Charles Donelan
And with respect, if you have it, you can heal.
Terrace Martin
Yeah, you can heal! Here we go. It all lines up. If you have respect, you can heal. You know when I was young, I used to go through really, not angry things, but I had a hard time forgiving because I didn’t know how to forgive myself for things. I had a hard time forgiving, and I used to build these voices in my head that would, if I got into it with a friend of mine or with a girlfriend, all these voices would tell me why this person was a bad person. It would never tell me why I was a bad person. I was missing that accountability chain, and I ruined a lot of bad early relationships for not understanding respect and not understanding that I did something too.
Charles Donelan
This is so good. Listen, we’ve used our time, I believe, very, very effectively. Great value was created here. Say a couple of things about what people can expect when you come to town. Maybe something about the group you’re bringing. Yeah. And about what the night’s going to be like for people.
Terrace Martin
You know, musically, right now I’m always on different music tangents to what I promote, what I talk about, because I think my music is totally not all of what I’m like. I use my music to have these conversations, so hopefully we can touch somebody, we can help somebody start the process of healing no matter what they’re going through. The music is just a byproduct of me being able to give some game, or the game that I’m giving. You know what I’m saying? That’s what the music is.
But my musical tangent this year is we are celebrating the centennial of Miles Davis. He’s 100 this year, so the group I’m bringing is, we like to consider it, and I like to call it “Terrace Martin celebrates the style and sound of Miles Davis.” The style and sound of Miles, where you’ll hear a lot of interesting things. You’ll hear a few Miles Davis songs that you may be familiar with, but may not be in our own twisty ways. And we’re going to be creating a lot of music based on ideas, things that I started writing, but then didn’t complete. I want to complete them live in front of people where we don’t know what to expect, and literally 60% of my set most of the time is feeding off the energy of the people. Even when people don’t clap, it’s still energy there because I feed off that and I write to that. So I’m very affected by the environment, and we gonna bring it, and we celebrating. We’re really musically.celebrating Miles Davis. We’re gonna celebrate Miles, but we not.
Charles Donelan
I love it.
Terrace Martin
We about to twist the stuff up though.
Charles Donelan
Fantastic. Thank you so much, Terrace Martin. Great interview. See you November 6. It’s a Friday night, at UCSB Campbell Hall, with a great group and great love in your heart.
Terrace Martin
Santa Barbara. I’m gonna get out there early, man, so I can get some good food out there, man.
Charles Donelan
Please do. We got it for you.
Terrace Martin
Well, man, thank you so much. I appreciate you, and I’m excited for everybody in the city of Santa Barbara and all the students at UC Santa Barbara. I love y’all.
Charles Donelan
Awesome. Take care, man.
Terrace Martin
All right. Peace.
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