L05_Interview_Mullings

[TRANSCRIPT]

 

I had the pleasure of interviewing Bryant Wilder, a virtuosic funk bassist that has been featured in Bass Player Magazine, All That Jazz, and many other publications in his career. 

 

In addition to his featured projects, he's toured with major label artists, including Berklee Honorary Doctorate Awardee Missy Elliott. He'll talk a bit about his first SNL performance. He's had a hand in providing spaces for premier musicians, including Melonie Daniels, Nathaniel Townsley III, Antonio McClendon, and Antonio's prodigious daughter, Samara Joy. 

 

We talk about his origins on the bass and his mentors, as well as his challenges and successes as a band leader, sideman, and producer. Here's an excerpt of our hour-long conversation. 

 

GRANVILLE: How do you define the art that you create? How would you describe it? 

 

BRYANT: I describe it as funky. Then you add some soul in it. It's kind of earthy. Does that make sense? It's rooted in funk, soul, backbeats, syncopation. 

 

GRANVILLE: I get you on the pop reference. Music sounds a certain way. you know and i mean i get it like you know your music is definitely– you can feel the room with your music.

 

What gave you the purpose to kind of do it? There's one thing about being able to play and “okay i'm gonna show up every Sunday and i'm just gonna play.” What made the shift for you to kind of take it to task?

 

BRYANT: That's a good question. And the answer is, although my beginnings in even church and gospel were humble, I sat behind, (listen to this) the son of the pastor played bass. But when he started to hear what I was doing, he moved to the organ. 

 

That's how it started, but although I was playing in church, I always had my cousin's reference or what he was doing in the back of my head with the fusion jazz with Urbaniak and the stuff that he was doing with his band, and he introduced me to, so my mother had the Motown and Arethas and stuff like that, but he introduced me to Chaka, Rufus, Slade and bands like Cameo and stuff like that.I wanted to do more of that. But, being in church, you really couldn't. So,I had to kind of sneak and do it. So I sat up under him for years. And so that's how I developed. And that was the catalyst for me to do more of the funk and R&B type stuff.

 

GRANVILLE: Nice. And this was this in New York or…?

 

BRYANT: Bronx, New York! But I went to every place that he played, whether it was Connecticut, New Jersey, played parks in the Bronx… I hooked up with another bassist. His name, you probably know, Ron Long. 

 

GRANVILLE: Yeah RON! Yup.

BRYANT: And we would practice the fusion and the funk in the basement of his apartment building. Bassists sort of came to the forefront with guys like Stanley Clark And Jaco Pastorius. Although I hated his tone, I loved his ideas. His ideas were mind-blowing! What is this guy doing? And why is he doing it?! We're not supposed to be doing that! So those two— it made me want to do more than just be the guy in the background. I've honed leadership skills, so I just transposed those qualities to music and developing bands, leading bands, and doing my own music. 

 

GRANVILLE: What are the successes and failures that you feel shaped the way that you moved in you know in music as a producer 

 

BRYANT: You're talking to a man who picked up the bass and started playing. I never knew failure, and that could be to my detriment. Because at first I never wanted more, you know, I'm doing it, I'm doing the damn thing! So I didn't need to learn how to read music.

 

GRANVILLE: Yeah, yeah…

 

BRYANT: I didn't need it. But then later on in life, when I started playing with guys like Tyrone Burkett and even Richard DeBrew, I found that, not necessarily the notation, but I had to learn how to play chord charts. And within those chord charts, you see a C minor [C, D, Eb, F, G, Ab, Bb], I can't play a major scale [C, D, E, F, G, A, B]. So that taught me. So I guess, I'll retract. My failure was not reading music, and having to learn on the fly with artists who were more seasoned in the arena of reading than I was. 

 

Recently, I've taken private lessons to better sight read. And so even now, at this age I've learned, this year, how to sight read. Now, you can't put a sheet of music in front of me and I'll spit it out like this. If it's very simple, yes. You know, quarter notes, half notes, [blah, blah, blah, blah, blah]. I know the bass clef and I know the notes and you [can] see [that] I got it! i got it! Time signatures don't throw me off, but the rhythms still throw me off a bit. So I should have learned to do that earlier. 

 

GRANVILLE: [Yeah]

 

BRYANT: And that'll be my lesson for young people; even though you think you're someplace learn how to read music, because that'll lead you into [things like] Broadway, if you're in New York or LA; places like that. 

 

And also when you learn how to read it expands what you can do on your instrument as far as how do you use those scales to approach solos and things like that. It's helpful. So that would be my failure. 

 

GRANVILLE: I think that it's super cool, learning it now, because I'm sure you have all this library of information so you’re probably learning it *snaps twice* much faster. 

BRYANT: Thank you! My instructor did say that my pace was almost shocking. And that's what he said, so, I mean, I'll take that with a grain of salt. That could be a pat on his own back to say, what a great teacher he is, 

 

GRANVILLE: [like I'm killing it! *laughs*] 

 

BRYANT: But at our last gig, I read. 

 

GRANVILLE: [yeah yeah yeah i saw it. I saw that you were charting!] 

 

BRYANT: I wrote it and I read it!

 

GRANVILLE: What is your greatest accomplishment you feel as an artist? 

 

BRYANT: That's a good question. I'm very proud of the Fingerprints album. Yeah, very proud of that. Another great accomplishment of mine was doing a tour with Missy Elliott and doing some shows with her, some television shows, Saturday Night Live. 

 

*video clip* Missy Misdemeanor Elliott featuring Timbaland and Magoo. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know what, we are super fly, super fly….

 

BRYANT: Not only was it amazing to play, but it was amazing to see the timing and the coordination that goes on to put on a show like that. You do a run through. You do a dress rehearsal, and then you do another rehearsal. Now, in that last rehearsal, that is the one that's going to switch in if there's a mistake going live. And it's so perfect.They'll hit a button, and all of a sudden, it's seamless to the audience, but they don't know that they're watching something that you did two hours ago. So that was fascinating and that put me in a mind[set] to always be able to want to coordinate and time things.

 

[Another achievement, a moment for me that I really take pride in, is in the Bass Player magazine, June of 2004, I know this was a long time ago. They had Prince on the cover and inside they charted out, with a picture of me, a song that I did on the Right Track album called Seven which is in 7/4 timing and they showed the notation including the plucks and thumbing and [blah blah blah blah blah] and, the guy, he called me when he was charting and he says “how did you play this?! Did you thumb and then pluck; thumb pluck?” I said, “no, that's all thumb; no plucking,” and he said, “I do not believe you,” so I had to play it. 

 

GRANVILLE: [yes yes] 

 

BRYANT: So those two things with[in] that one achievement, I'm proud of that.

 

GRANVILLE: What are your goals as an artist today? I mean, you've lived lifetimes and,you've seen a lot of genres of music. You've seen the music industry shift in different ways. What are your goals or what do you think of your trajectory and your thought as an artist today?

 

BRYANT: Well, I'll tell you what my goal is not. My goal is not to make money. Not with recordings, because now I do recordings… it's pride to me. Something that I want to do, and I think I want to share my music with other people. I just released a single called One More Chance [with] Melonie Daniels, and it's 160 beats per minute or more and I just wanted to do that because it's a song I like from the past, So i did it! I spent some money (I'll never make that money back, I’mma tell you that now), and I put it out there and the response has been amazing. And I love that. So right now, I guess my goal is,I have a funk band called the Schtank Machine. 

 

It’s a large band; three-piece horns section, bass, drums, keys, me, three singers (they alternate lead parts), and you know who sang in that for me back in 2019? Samara Joy. 

 

GRANVILLE: Whew! Listen! I'm telling you! Our area is such a rich area of music. I don't know if you know Eli?! 

 

BRYANT: Eli Sotomayor 

 

GRANVILLE: Yes! And Phil Jordan. That's Uncle Phil! I called him Uncle, but I came up with a lot of those guys, and anytime they didn't have a drummer show up, they might ask me to come and sit and just keep time and things like that. So I tell people all the time, I grew up knowing Antonio McClendon. I was very familiar with him as a bass player, as a singer. I had never put it together that that was his daughter [was Samara Joy].

 

BRYANT: So Antonio McClendon, her father, [he] was one of the vocalists for me and I had other female vocalists, and one couldn't make it.  I said, “I need another female vocalist” His daughter was 18. He said, “try out my daughter.” 

 

GRANVILLE: I went to Grammy House [NYC] the other day and she was one of the featured performers. Everything [popular music] is processed. Everything sounds the same and she is dynamic! 

 

BRYANT: On my Fingerprints album I have a song called WTF (Where’s The Funk) Samara's singing background on it and a couple other tunes she's singing on. People! WTF. Bryant Wilder, Fingerprints. I'm very proud of that. *shameless plug* 

 

GRANVILLE: Well done! I am excited that that's the thing that you're very proud of, because sometimes we value the things based on how everybody else is valuing it. It does excite me that you're excited about it because of the work of it 

 

And, honestly, I'm sure you didn't know the impact that the Right Track had on me, and we kind of just met [IRL]. So, you know, I mean, you're making records that really stand the test of time. That's something that definitely needs to be valued more in artistry, for sure. 

 

I'm curious, how did coming from church shape your music? 

 

BRYANT: Not that we were bored, but we had something to grasp our attention that didn't have a screen attached to it.

 

GRANVILLE: Cheryl Pepsi Riley. 

 

BRYANT: She was on the Missy tour with me. 

 

GRANVILLE: Right, right. Yeah, yeah. Listen, I miss that [Village Underground NYC] Jam session so much!. 

 

BRYANT: Were you there when Ron Grant was there? 

 

GRANVILLE: Yeah, yeah. Oh, man. And I think that [his passing] might have been the turning point. 

 

BRYANT: Be a good person. That's the key to the whole thing.

 

Well you answered your own question right there! 

Be professional. I'm gonna take that and use that as my advice.

Be timely and I have a special one for bassists and drummers to play the music that's before you. Everyone knows that you can play. Everyone knows it because you wouldn't be in that setting if you couldn't. But you don't have to prove it every other measure. Bass and drummer, you're the foundation. 

 

Keep the main thing the main thing.And when it's time for you to take your solo and shine, by all means, throw the bass in the air, flip it around your head like Victor Wood and Verdine White. Do whatever you have to do. But when the artist is singing or the spotlight is on another player, you do your job.