Will Lee

Yeah.

One was a sort of minister, and the other was this guy who kind of befriended Gauguin, and he really, most of the friends came from the same sort of group of painters, fellow painters.

This guy who was his friend, actually, his name is Daniel de Manfrede, was very helpful and helped Gauguin through his whole life in Polynesia.

When he would get paintings that Gauguin sent back, this guy was one of the people who would receive them, just get them from the boats as they came in.

So here's an example of that kind of a tune.

It's another Jeff Miranoff demo.

It's a conversation between some of Gauguin's friends, his painter friends especially, and this was at the Café Voltaire, a little place they all frequented, where his friends arranged a little exhibition of his paintings, hoping to sell some, right before he got on the boat and went to Tahiti.

And Degas speaks, and Pissarro, and a guy named Emil Bernard, who was kind of a younger friend, a younger painter, friend of Paul's.

I was just doing some programming and stuff.

I wasn't actually playing, but it was Chris Parker and I think Will Lee.

And because Arif knew that they would understand how Laura liked to change tempo.

And when everybody followed, it would be like watching like a flock of birds in the sky,

going to take this into the homestretch and move on to This Is My Town, Songs of New York from 2017.

You co-produced that record, David, and what we want to know, our first question, we were reading the lighter notes and we saw that one of our favorite bass players, Will Lee, plays bass on the record, but it doesn't say which songs that he plays on.

So, which songs did Will Lee play on?

Well, he did two.

One of them was on Broadway, and the other was, I think it was New York, New York, was the other one that he played on.

So we knew we were going to come back for another session.

And that's when we decided, okay, you know what? let's think about this, who do we want on this session for these songs? And the two guys that were different that only came in for that session, besides the rest of the orchestra, because it was a full orchestra session, it was John J.R.

Robinson on drums, and Will Lee on bass.

That still is her.

But she has Will Lee, who later on became a part of David Letterman's band

as a

bassist.

But when I started really looking into the business, I never wanted to be the guy in front singing.

I just wanted to be like Will Lee or Nathan East or somebody.

Just have a decent voice.

and get to travel and eat and see places that I would not.

Howard Dietz was born in 1896, theatre lyricist who partnered with Arthur Schwartz to write great American songbook standards like That's Entertainment.

Will Lee was born in 1952, session bassist who achieved fame as being part of Paul Schaeffer's CBS Orchestra on The Late Show with David Letterman.

Also, when it was Late Night with David Letterman on NBC, Paul Schaeffer's CBS Orchestra was called the world's most dangerous band.

And Will Lee was part of that, too.

Shinsuke Kikuda was born in 1966, Japanese-born blues guitarist who moved to Chicago and achieved international blues fame by touring and recording alongside legend Junior Wells.

Artists who unfortunately passed away on September the 8th include Oscar Pettiford, who passed away in 1960 at the age of 37 from a sudden illness.

building the versatility that would later define his career.

He has performed and recorded with artists including Will Lee, Steve Gadd, Chuck Loeb, and Emmy Rossum.

Many listeners will also know Giulio from the Pat Metheny Unity Group and the album Ken, where his instrumental range, voice, and arranging instincts became part of an extraordinary ensemble.

In this conversation, Giulio shares the unlikely story of the first circle video that helped open that door, the pressure and discipline of performing with Pat Metheny, his transition into composing with Brian Scarry, and what great rhythm sections can teach us about confidence, listening, and human feel.

But the second we step out of music, we're like one step removed from homeless people.

Yeah.

it's very true I completely agree was the first after you were in the US was the first I guess we can call it major actor big name was it Will Lee was that the Will Lee band

I had a first six year stunt in Los Angeles before moving to New York so I did six years in Los Angeles then I did six years in New York and then now I've been back for 12-ish years in LA okay The first six years in LA, within less than a year, I was signed by a major label as a rock bass player.

Yeah.

I was doing an interview piece with Rob about Evening Train, and we talked about Will Lee just on one of the songs on Fat Man, just doing these big glissando bass lines.

And Rob's listening to him play that going like, really not liking the

idea.