Lenny White

this point.

I mean, yeah, like if Lenny White called me for a gig, I'd love to go do it with him.

You know, I mean, I saw him recently.

And I've only played with him maybe once or twice years ago.

After that, we heard pianist Donald Vega from his Spiritual Nature recording, and he played First Trip.

Now let's move on to drummer Lenny White, who I had the pleasure of reconnecting with that evening.

Here he is with Kenny Garrett at the alto sax, Tom Brown trumpet, Michael Urbaniak violin, and John Dryden keyboards on Cannonball Adderley's sack of woe.

That's drummer Lenny White from an album he did in 1994 called Urbanator, and that's Cannonball Adderley's Sack of Woe.

Lenny and I have known each other for quite some time, but one of my fondest memories is of a tour we did in the early 80s.

I've been called to play as a sideman for Stanley Turntine, Gene Karn, Patrice Rushen, Lenny White, and Roy Ayers, and I found myself being featured on that tour as my debut record had just been released.

Wow, what a memory.

All right, here's drummer Kobe Watkins, Sonny's final drummer with MBDC.

You know, Bernard was a little bit of, or somewhat of a child prodigy.

He was, uh, touring with Lenny White at the age of 13.

Keyboardist extraordinaire, and he also played with, uh, Tom Brown, and they're actually signed to the same label.

Speaking of Tom Brown [upbeat music] let's get a rendition of his track from Mr.

And the reason behind this twist is because even though Stevie Wonder's cult album is not a jazz album, it has plenty of jazz connections.

In addition to the fact that it features jazz musicians like Herbie Hancock, Dorothy Ashby, George Benson, Glenn Ferris or Bobby Humphrey, In addition to the fact that among the musicians whose influence is acknowledged by Stevie Wonder in the liner notes of the album, and we find Alice Coltrane, Chick Corea, Quincy Jones, David Sanborn, or Lenny White, this is an album whose songs have hundreds of jazz renditions, and today we have been playing some of the best, following the same song sequence of the original record.

Which means that up next we get to the end of side B of the first LP of Songs in the Key of Life, with two more jams.

Two songs that would be Highlights on almost anyone's album, but on songs in the key of life, are simply two among many.

Was there a collective where like...

I mean, I'm talking even deeper, like with Chaka's brother, like Mark Stevens, and all these monsters, Lenny White and all those cats.

Yeah, we used to hook each other up, man.

Oh, yeah.

Ron Carter bass.

Lenny White on drums.

Joe Henderson on tenor sax.

Freddie Hubbard was a member of the finishing school of jazz, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers.

I could tell it now.

But he kind of forced Lenny to sign something to give away his rights to everything.

I didn't sign it.

Wow.

You know, so that's how he posed it to Chick's lawyer.

He says, either you send the signing money by tomorrow morning or we're going to go for the whole contract.

And of course, next day I got Lenny's money and I got my money.

Wow.

So yeah, I got a lot of music in store for you, including my first special guest on the show for almost a year now, which is crazy.

Kicking off like this, we're going to take it back with some Lenny White.

Stay tuned with us for the next hour.

It's Natural Element.

Acoustic guitar at that time.

Lenny White on the drums.

Now, Chick Corea founded this band back in 1972.

I had the pleasure of seeing Chick Corea perform a solo piano concert at the Sheldon quite some years ago.

That's 30.

Donald Vega, Pete Washington, Jeff Tain Watts, Lenny White, Eric Wyatt, and Victor C. UN.

36.

Right? 36 musicians going to be performing at the Sonny Rollins Memorial.