Patrice Rushen Interview on
The TrevBeats Show 

Intro Trevor Lawrence Jr.: Welcome back to another episode of The TrevBeats Show. Today, we have an absolute legend on the show — a true trailblazer, a master of the keys, and a legendary vocalist, composer, and producer. She is the genius behind timeless anthems like “Forget Me Nots,” “Remind Me,” and “Haven’t You Heard,” plus, of course, so much more. She was the first and only woman to serve as musical director for the Grammy Awards, the Emmys, and the NAACP Image Awards. She is a musician’s musician, and her influence spans generations. Please welcome the iconic, incomparable Ms. Patrice Rushen. Patrice Rushen: Hey. How are you doing? Trevor: I’m good. What’s up, Patrice? Patrice: Yeah. Trevor: I am so glad that you’re able to do this. Just from being from LA, but also just being a fan of the music — truly a fan of music — and all the moves you’ve made, especially when you’re from LA, you can really feel the influence. I have listeners and viewers all over the world, and I really can’t wait to share some of the things that I’ve known, but also your story and how you became the genius you are. Thank you so much for coming. Patrice: It’s really a pleasure. Thank you so much. Locke High School and the LA Music Pipeline Trevor: There’s something to be said about an institution that you went through, and so many people, even to this day, have gone through and influenced music for another generation. That is Alain Leroy Locke High School, now Locke College Prep Academy. You went there, Ndugu Chancler went there. Tell us some of the other people from your generation who went there as well. Patrice: Gerald Albright went there. Gary Bias and Reggie Young, who I’m playing with in Earth, Wind & Fire and who has been there for 30 years, went there. There were people who did other things, who were musicians but also worked in other areas, like William Allen Young, who was an actor and played bass. There were so many people who came through there. I think at that time, that was really the start of something, or the restart of something. There was an awareness about what was possible, especially for African American kids. We had three very innovative, fearless teachers. There was Donald Dustin, who dealt primarily with the orchestral area. Frank Harris handled the marching band primarily. They all overlapped, but that was his big thing, and he brought that kind of authenticity to it. Then there was Reggie Andrews, who was the young leader of it. It was during Reggie’s earliest days of becoming a teacher, so he brought into it the idea of what all the different professional musical environments looked like. We went to clubs. We went to studios and saw the studio players — the nameless, faceless people you wouldn’t know who play on everything. We learned about people who were teaching music. We learned about all the different aspects of arranging. These were things brought into the mix for us to consider. It wasn’t just about playing the instrument. There were all these other things that had to happen, and music was the foundation. Trevor: Reggie, rest in peace — what a great guy. For those who don’t know, in the following generations from that same school, that’s where you get the Bruner brothers, Thundercat, Terrace Martin, and so many other people. This school and this institution — and let me frame this too — this was in what they call South Central Los Angeles. It wasn’t in an affluent neighborhood. It definitely wasn’t in Culver City, like the school I went to, Hamilton, which was basically a copy of what was going on at Locke. This was in an underserved area. Once again, it proves that theory that some of the greatest talents come from areas that don’t have all this affluence. The creativity is just on another level. Then you get people like yourself. I imagine your classical foundation was introduced to you there. Is that where you discovered classical piano? Early Musical Development and Classical Foundation Patrice: Actually, when you talk about the area of Los Angeles, there’s six years difference between my younger sister and me. I was an only child for five years, and both my parents worked. They put me in a nursery school program, and a teacher there noticed that anytime we did any kind of activity like singing, dancing, or moving around to music, that’s when I would really come to life. She told my parents about a program going on at the University of Southern California — USC. It was their preparatory department, and they were studying early childhood development. The kids in the class were from about ages three to five. My parents enrolled me in this program, and I was in a special class called Eurythmics. All we did was move around to music. There were graduate students studying these young kids to see if we were hearing the same things and reacting to music the same way. In doing that, they gave names to the music. We had walking notes. If it moved faster, we had running notes and skipping notes. These were the ways we identified what we were hearing, so they could study whether we were all hearing the same things. We were only three and four years old. I think that class set up a foundation for how music is a feeling. They were observing us, but we were just reacting to what we heard. Later on, they suggested that I play an instrument. Piano was chosen for me. It was like, “Do you want to play piano?” and I said, “Oh, okay.” Then I studied classical piano. The teachers I had were very open-minded. One in particular, the one I had the longest, used to say all the time that whatever you play, when you do music, it needs to communicate something. Many times, I would go to my lesson totally unprepared. Rather than scold me about the Mozart or Haydn I was supposed to be playing, she would say, “Well, what did you practice this week?” I’d say, “I learned this Beatles tune,” or “I learned this Marvin Gaye song off the radio.” I would play that for her. Then she would so deftly take the idea of motifs, rhythmic emphasis, and things like that, and relate it back to the Haydn or Mozart. She would say, “See, this is the same idea over here. This is how they did it then, and this is what you picked up.” Suddenly, music started making sense — not just from the standpoint of playing it, but what it does to people. The sound, the frequencies, the ideas, all of that. That’s where I got a lot of the foundational stuff: studying piano, but studying piano as a vehicle to the music. I was really lucky to have teachers who were that insightful. Trevor: The fact that they had a program for children that young is unbelievable — that they were recognizing that. Patrice: Totally. Later, we found out we were behind because the Japanese had the Suzuki method for violin. They had been doing that for years. This was jumping onto the idea that what you expose kids to early, and allowing them to follow that innate ability or gift, does work. That program still goes on, and it’s now at the Colburn Center. Discovering Jazz Trevor: Somewhere between that age group and your teenage years, you got the jazz bug. How did that happen? Patrice: As I was growing up, my parents had the radio or a record player on all the time. Music was part of the environment. Their music — the pop and jazz of their day — was something I heard as part of the atmosphere. While I appreciated classical music, I didn’t see a lot of people who looked like me doing that at the time. So I leaned a little more into the music I was hearing on the radio and, as a teenager, the music I liked to dance to and that we played at parties. At Locke, the idea of the landscape of contemporary music made it clear that you cannot escape jazz, because that is foundational to all of it. It leads you to all these different things. We were exposed to so many different kinds of jobs and opportunities that the music arena involved. You just wanted to be really, really good. That’s where the jazz bug took root. Even though I had heard it all my life at home, when you study it and it becomes part of the way you learn your history, part of the way you learn social graces, part of the way you learn to be thankful and exposed to an art form where the people who were proponents of it looked like you — that made a big difference. Monterey, USC, and the First Record Deal Trevor: You went on to win a jazz competition at Monterey Jazz Festival, and you were still just a teenager. At some point, there was a switch to becoming an artist in what people called the R&B field at that time. That’s a big stretch for most jazz people — switching into the commercial world. Where was that bridge that made you say, “I’m going to start making records and be an artist”? You’ve given us some of the greatest records of that time period. I can hear the jazz influence, but I’m curious who convinced you, or how did that happen? Patrice: Back then, my generation didn’t necessarily draw the distinction between being a solo artist and being an artist playing music. The differentiation for us wasn’t, “Ooh, I want to have a record deal.” It was really, “I want to be so good that I can play with my heroes. I can play with Miles. I can play with Michael Jackson. I can play with Frank Sinatra.” We wanted to be so bad that we could play anything. We loved the music that much. We grew up with Stevie Wonder, James Brown, Sly Stone, Miles Davis, John Coltrane — music that represented a certain level of excellence. I wanted to be a composer. I wanted to be a film composer. When we played a lot of these contests, people like Quincy Jones, Oliver Nelson, and Benny Golson were adjudicators at some of the Battle of the Bands contests the band used to do. When they saw me — you mentioned Monterey — that was the result of winning one of those competitions. The band didn’t win, but there was a combo division we entered, and I won. Having played at Monterey, that’s when the attention toward the possibility of a record deal came up. I resisted it at first. I was like, “No, no, no. I’m not ready for that. People know what they’re doing. I’m still trying to figure it out.” But I did need money to go to school. I wanted to stay in Los Angeles, so I wanted to go to USC. I knew they barely had a jazz program and didn’t have popular music or anything like that, but that was okay because I was going to be getting all this together to be a film composer. I could do the other thing outside of school if I wanted to. That’s where the record deal came from. The first one was with Fantasy Records. Initially, it was a response to needing money for school. It was a very modest deal. They allowed Reggie Andrews to produce the records, and Orrin Keepnews told me, “You just do you. Do whatever you want to do.” The first record was very straight ahead — what they expected from me — and I enjoyed doing it. The next record, Before the Dawn, I experimented a little more with electronics and Rhodes piano, which had come into my existence. The third album leaned more into the idea that you could have a high artistic aesthetic and also have a commercial sensibility — and that the two could match. I had already seen that. I had seen George Duke, Herbie Hancock, and Earth, Wind & Fire. Earth, Wind & Fire played my high school prom. So I had seen how this aesthetic could be involved with any kind of music. I wanted part of that. It was a natural progression. When I got to Elektra Records, after my deal with Fantasy/Prestige was over, they wanted more of the singing and the things they felt were part of that awareness — the ability to have a jazz sensibility but offer it to a more commercial realm. For me, that was right up my alley. It didn’t feel foreign to me at all. I was also allowed to write strings, write for horns, and do all the things I wanted to do on my own projects. The Story Behind “Forget Me Nots” Trevor: That’s full circle — the USC program as a kid, then going to USC, and later chairing the department there for a decade. We have so many similarities. I’m from LA, I went to SC, I went to Monterey. It’s crazy. When you frame the time period, it’s hard to imagine that Coltrane, Miles, Stevie, and all those artists were alive and current. You turn on the radio, and those are the songs of the day. I see the correlation between people like you being on another level, but at the same time, for you, it was like, “I’ve got to keep up. This is what’s happening.” Now we’re fighting against computers, and aptitude has gone low for a number of reasons — corporate reasons, labels signing things, the whole dumbing down. Now we’re seeing two or three generations of that. I love hearing the backstories. I have to ask you about this as a fan: one of the greatest bass lines of all time — “Forget Me Nots.” Sampled through the roof. What was that moment like? How did that happen? What was that session like? Patrice: The session was basically recreating what had started because Freddie Washington used to live with my family when he first came from Oakland. He stayed with us because he wanted to get into the studio thing. The bass line is totally him. If I had the initial impetus to know that it was special, that is what I brought to the table, and then it developed from there. But in terms of that bass line, the idea of how it would flow — that was all Freddie. The idea of collaboration is just that. It spoke to me, and it spoke to Terry McFadden, who came up with the lyric concept. It evolved from there, but it evolved with something that was so special, and that was that bass line. Trevor: Sometimes — and I’ve been fortunate to work with my brother Focus, who is Bernard Edwards Jr., and his dad is responsible for some of the other greatest bass lines of that time — but that bass line absolutely has to be put with the “Money, Money, Money” bass lines and many bass lines from Kool & the Gang. It’s one of the iconic parts of that era of music. What’s amazing is that you’ve done that multiple times. Your catalog has become foundational DNA for hip-hop and modern R&B. You’ve been sampled by so many people — from Will Smith to George Michael to Mary J. Blige to Kirk Franklin. In your mind as a composer, when you hear someone else copying or utilizing your work — aside from the financial part — what goes through your mind when you hear these generations later still making your music new and relevant? Patrice: It is the highest compliment when anything you do musically resonates beyond just the thing you did with it. There’s something about the way that particular song, or those particular songs, continue to resonate with a certain part of the human spirit. I don’t know exactly how to put it into words, but there’s a timeless element when it comes from the joy of music making. Sometimes people find that, and it sticks. I’m fortunate to have had several of those songs, “Forget Me Nots” being one of them, that 40-plus years after it was initially recorded still resonates. People are still playing it as it was. The interesting thing about “Forget Me Nots” is that it almost didn’t have that opportunity, because when we turned in the album Straight from the Heart — which also has “Number One” and “Remind Me” — the record company didn’t hear anything. They didn’t like it at all. They said, “We don’t have a single. We don’t have this. We don’t have that.” We were like, “What?” During that time, we became more conscious of the role we play in our own success. We needed to know more about the business side. How does stuff get to radio? Radio was how people found information then. We had to know those things, and we had to have independent promotion to get it through the door. Once it got through the door, people took care of it. They loved it, and everything was beautiful. But the idea of having to do something so it could get to the people was a new concept for us. We definitely put that into place. Breaking Barriers and Overcoming Bias Trevor: You’ve been in so many situations where you were the head of things and in control. In the ’70s and ’80s, you shattered a lot of glass ceilings because things were male-dominated, even on the producer and musical director sides. You’ve done things we don’t talk about enough — things that are not just musically related. You were the first woman to do certain things, and I don’t think that gets enough attention because it’s not easy. No matter how much talent you have, it’s not easy. What skill did you possess that allowed you to get into these situations unobstructed, or at least get over the obstruction? How does that work for all the ladies watching who are trying to navigate this business? Patrice: First and foremost, you have to bring your best self to the table in a consistent way. That consistency and ability to do it is typically noticed by individuals who are looking for that. Opportunity and need — when they meet, that’s the big chance. I had a few of those chances. I also had people, primarily male, who treated me with respect on the basis of what I could bring to the table. Behind my back, they may have been saying all kinds of stuff. But when it was time to play, or when there was an assignment where the music had to be a certain way, I wanted to — and had developed the skill set to — be as good as I could possibly be toward meeting the goals. Gradually, and it took time, my ability overshadowed whatever bias there may have been based on being female, Black, short, or whatever the bias was. The bias was dispelled by the level of skill and care I brought to what I was able to do. I also used a lot of the people and techniques we developed together — people I grew up with who were also striving for excellence. We pushed each other, and that helped too. To the young women out there who are interested: it’s about doing. It’s about not allowing your dream to be shattered by things that are irrelevant. Today, when you have skills, it shows up. People still admire that. What Makes a Great Musical Director Trevor: Staying on that subject — for anyone listening, male or female — you’ve been a musical director for huge productions, especially television, which a lot of people don’t understand because it’s so fast. There are so many moving parts, and things are changing all the time. When you’re managing a massive television broadcast or awards show with dozens of artists, what makes a great musical director in those situations? The playing gets you in the door, but there has to be something else. What skill do you need to be successful in those situations? Patrice: That’s a great question. It’s a combination of things. One of the things you need is the ability to understand the big picture and then break it down into actionable bites so it can come together. That means understanding the entirety of the show, your role in the show, and the music’s role in the show. Then you break that down into how you’re going to deliver that part. Being organized really helps. There is also the skill set of knowing how to cast the players you’re going to need for what you’re doing. That has served me really well. I pay attention when I’m playing with other people — what they sound like, how we work together, what ideas they bring to the table, even in situations that may not seem related. You remember who those players are. You remember who impressed you, who you heard or saw in a certain context, and then you try to cast correctly the people who will help you deliver the direction you need. The skills required of a music director are very similar to what music producers used to be: the overseer of a concept and the person who helps direct people toward their best delivery of what is needed for the overall concept to come together. Sometimes that means you have to do some writing, arrangements, or things like that. Other times it means assigning arrangers particular things for the idea of the show. It’s having the overview, putting it into actionable steps, and pulling it off in time. My philosophy is to empower the people around you to give their best. They don’t always need to know everything about what’s happening. You just need them to do their part and empower them to do their best, because you know it will add up to the overall thing happening. There’s a certain amount of kindness that goes into it as well. Trevor: There’s a similarity there with our brother Michael White. When he was on the show, he said that’s how George Duke was. He made people feel like they wanted to do their best. That’s how Herbie is too. You just feel like you want to give 100% all the time. Thank you for sharing that, because it’s no coincidence when you’ve done it so many times. There has to be a method and a reason why it keeps happening. Sometimes people get caught up thinking it’s just about being the player. That’s only one side of the equation. The best CEOs know who to hire. Getting the infrastructure of people together is what makes the whole thing successful. Ultimately, you get credit because you put it together, but the goal is to make the event successful. Gear, Technology, and Musical Storytelling Trevor: One of my favorite things is that you’ve been there from the analog days, so let’s talk about gear. You mentioned that on some of your earlier records, you started experimenting with electronics. At that time, it was Moogs, Clavs, and that era of gear coming in. Then drum machines started coming in around the early to mid-’80s. What was your philosophy on gear back then and how things were evolving? Patrice: Because I was trying to be a composer, having different colors, different tonalities, and different ways to create a mood or atmosphere was exciting to me. I really enjoyed the experimentation going on with synthesizers. I had already seen that the possibilities were endless. We’re dealing with frequencies of sound, no matter what we’re talking about. But I also saw people go to the other side of it, where technology was being used to replace certain things. The cat was already out of the bag for me. I had already felt what it was like to play with people. I had felt what it was like to sit in the middle of an orchestra and feel that sound. I had felt what it was like to be in a big band or in a motion picture studio where they were putting music to a movie. I did not feel that replacing people was the answer. Different instruments could replicate certain kinds of things, but they don’t really replicate them. For me, technology has always been an added tool I could bring into my storytelling — in songs, productions, or whatever I was doing. I experimented a lot. I even did one album where the majority of the material was done totally at home. But I always felt there needed to be a human element. I experimented with having some things done on synthesizers or sequencers, and then being able to play on top of that to give it another dimension. For me, it has always been about finding the right sound or tone that projects the right feeling — not, “There’s a new thing, so I’ve got to use it.” Trevor: Exactly. You hop on that train, and a year later all you’ve done is buy gear and make no music. Patrice Rushen on AI in Music Trevor: We’ve seen this story before, but now it’s more aggressive and broad. You were there for the change from full analog to digital, then digital to DAWs and plugins. But now we’re in a different place because none of that stuff could think for itself. Now, with AI, it’s a different conversation for you specifically because your catalog has been around for so long. If they’re scrubbing music, they’re going to be scrubbing some Patrice Rushen. What is your take on AI right now in music? Patrice: AI has different aspects and different ways it can be helpful. For example, AI can strip down tracks so people can hear exactly what was played and how it worked. You can hear just the bass and kick drum of your favorite recording and learn something about that relationship. You can hear the exact guitar part. In those ways, when you’re looking to learn something, AI can give you access to certain things because you have those tools. Where it gets precarious for me is when the ability to do that is replaced by the idea that you don’t have to do the work to become a musician or an artist. There are things that are part of that journey that make it interesting, fun, and allow you to find your creative self. Some of those things are being wiped away in a subtle way from the consciousness of young people who want to play music. You need to do the work. Art is one of the few things where you’re not going to escape what allows you to feel a certain way about it, understand it, participate in it, study with masters, and live the experience so that it influences the art you put out. There are aspects of that AI is not going to be able to do. I’m hoping we go to one extreme and then find it as a tool. I hope we find that middle ground before too long, where AI can be seen as a tool and not a replacement for songwriting or for what allows us, as human beings, to feel something and determine good, better, and best. The lines are blurred because there is so much stuff out there. There was a time when you had to have something to say at a certain level for people to be interested enough to sign you to a label. Those days are gone. Everybody has the same access. Someone who can do something for 30 seconds has the same access as someone who has done it for 30 years. There’s something about that that does not necessarily weigh the work, time, and effort that goes into becoming an artist. When I say artist, I mean people using their musical talents to affect art — that’s everybody. It’s not just someone signed to a label or someone who produced a big record. It’s all of us. We’re all responsible. Music Education, USC, and Protecting the Craft Trevor: You’ve been heavily involved in music education. You’ve been an ambassador. You were chair at USC for over a decade. In that education space, was there any influence of AI? I know it was kind of at the tail end, and you recently departed USC, but during your time there, did you see anything pointing toward a shift or problem? Patrice: You could see and feel a shift coming, but my focus during the time I was there was to do the best I could to maintain the idea that if you truly want to be an artist, there are inescapable things you have to be willing to do. If I could maintain that and get the kids to do that, they could see the result. They could see, “If I do this, I’ll be able to do that, and then I can do this.” I tried to build in them the idea of what music and music-making could be about, and to keep that focus without getting too disrupted by other possibilities or other ways people were making music. When they became invested in understanding history and knowing repertoire — and for your viewers, I was chair of the Popular Music program — in all music, when you learn to play, you learn repertoire. How come, all of a sudden, in popular music, you don’t? You just roll right out into a record deal? No. If you are really looking for a career, you need to know some things. They learned repertoire. They learned producers, writers, and history. Human beings learn first by imitation, then they assimilate, then they innovate. You learn everything that way. You learn to walk that way. You learn to eat that way. You watch other people do the thing, and you try to do it like them. Then, when you have that together, you move around with it. When you learned to walk, one day you saw people walking, you picked yourself up, held onto the edge of the table, and you fell sometimes. Then one day you walked. Then you moved your feet faster and realized, “Oh, I’m running.” Way later, after you’ve learned to walk and run, somebody might see you from behind and say, “Isn’t that Trevor down the street?” Someone else says, “His back is to you. How can you tell?” And they say, “I can tell by the way he walks.” You innovated your steps without even knowing it, because it came from something. Music is the same way. I needed a platform, and I was given the idea of a curriculum that allowed us to have that platform: imitate, assimilate, innovate. If I could keep those three steps happening, then every class would come out with people capable of doing music regardless of what happened with AI or anything else. They would have access to the same spirit of the music that had been given to us as part of our environment, which is not necessarily part of theirs. Trevor: That’s really interesting and so true. We’re losing the paying-dues phase. There aren’t as many places to play. The proving grounds are going away, and we’re losing that master-teacher-to-student energy. Everybody wants to skip that phase. Now so much of the back door of everything is run by computers. Within the AI revolution, it’s like, “How do you trick the computer with the computer? How many automations can I make so I don’t have to do anything?” It’s an interesting time. Patrice: One of the key things in this conversation is that the people who are supposed to protect or be part of protecting artists’ rights and development in creating music need to step up in terms of demanding fairness and legislation. The creation of what AI studies and learns from is not being paid for by the people who created the things AI learns from. They are not getting remuneration for their efforts. What does that do to publishing companies? What does that do to performing rights companies when they have to look at what’s real music and what’s generated by something else? The dilemma goes way past how we use AI. In terms of our music, it’s about how we have a career. How do we want to be musicians? Where is the payment for the skills that make us the artists we want to be? Musicianship, Numbers, and the Value of Craft Trevor: Some people think that being a specialist is going to end up being more appreciated because real musicianship will be so far removed. People may say, “Oh wow, you can actually play drums? You can actually play piano?” It may become more valuable because it’s being stripped away. I love the tech side and I’m involved, but it’s troubling to think the next generation may not have places to go see people play and learn the way we did. You’d see someone amazing and practice for weeks because you wanted to be like that. Now, it’s numbers driven. Patrice: Yes, numbers driven. People don’t want to pay when they have access to something in person. And when I say they don’t want to pay, that’s not really it. People will pay a tremendous amount for tickets to people they really want to see. The industry is not supporting it on the other end. The taking end, yes. The giving end, no. Performers, songwriters, musicians — everybody is in a place where I’ve heard kids say, “I love it, but why would I want to work that hard to learn?” The financial aspect is part of it, but the spiritual aspect is part of it too. I didn’t start playing music thinking about the money I would make. I started because I loved it and wanted to get better at it. I saw the possibilities when people were really good at it. They seemed really happy, and that’s what I wanted — to be happy doing what I wanted to do. The money was not in the equation at the start. Today, that’s the first question that comes up: How many followers? How many this? How many that? My worst nightmare would be having hundreds of thousands of followers but not being able to do the thing. That would be horrifying. A lot of that is driving decisions. Trevor: I still deal with some companies where, before music is even listened to, the conversation is about numbers. What are the numbers? What are the social media stats? It’s an unbelievable shift in something that is a creative art form. A successful person once told me, “If you want to find out what’s behind something, take money out of it.” If money is the first question, we’re not in the right arena. We’re talking about music, but then we’re talking about money. We can’t be in the right frame of mind dealing with art when the first question is money. For you and so many others I’ve interviewed or studied, money was never at the forefront. It was the byproduct of the work, the timing, and the fact that it influenced and touched people. We have to get back to that mindset. What I think we’ve been witnessing for the last several years is predictive analysis music — trying to excite, cheat, and fix an algorithm instead of trying to touch people. Becoming a 2026 NEA Jazz Master Trevor: Congratulations — NEA Jazz Master Class of 2026. Alongside Carmen Lundy, Airto, and Rhonda Hamilton. That’s awesome. It’s the highest honor in jazz in America. After the Grammys, Emmys, firsts, and all the people who have sampled you, what does this NEA Jazz Master award mean to you? Jazz is such a big part of your history. Patrice: Because it’s the highest honor jazz musicians are paid in this country, I’m amazed and honored. I know the long list of recipients are heroes of mine and people who have worked really hard to keep moving the music forward in the joy of what they do. I’m really excited and happy to be considered among those people. That award is an accumulation of a lot of different things I have done over the years, so to be recognized is fantastic. But looking at how it’s going down this time, which is different from how it usually happens, lets you know we still have a lot more to do to understand what we’re celebrating and what it really represents. In jazz, not a lot of people are aware of this award — not me specifically, but the award in general — that the National Endowment for the Arts gives this award every year and has been doing so for some time. The average person knows nothing about that. Part of what needs to happen is awareness that allows the music to take center stage on some of these big awards. Hopefully, that has a ripple effect on the things we were talking about in terms of the values being adjusted around AI. It’s very cool, and I’m very happy. Hope for the Next Generation Trevor: It’s well deserved. One positive thing I’ve seen is that the generation around 17 years old seems to support live music. They’re excited about live music and jazz, and a lot of them are anti-AI music. My daughter is 17, and they’re not into it. They want the old-fashioned way. They want to learn it and write it. I don’t think AI is going anywhere, but I think there will be a comfortable medium, like what happened with drum machines and sampling. I keep reminding people: you can take it or leave it. You don’t have to use it. If you were dope before AI, you’ll be dope after it. Those of us who had careers before AI or social media — it won’t take that away. People should learn their craft and cultivate their craft first. David Chiverton said that on the show: cultivate the craft first, and all this other stuff comes after. Patrice: I think we had the advantage of not having the distractions. I don’t know that if I had been born now, with the same curiosity, it might have led me in a different direction. But we didn’t have that. If you wanted to do music, this was how you went about it. The attractive things were about trying to work as a musician. That was the big deal. Now, the big deal is all these other things, and I think that takes away from the focus of the craft. If we can keep that messaging happening with the same fervor as the other message — yes, you don’t have to use that, and here is why it is valuable to know something and act on that knowledge in a way that is progressive and hits the human spirit — then that matters. Lessons from Quincy Jones Trevor: Patrice, we could sit here forever. You have so much information. On the way out, I’d love for you to give a gem — maybe something you took away from your time with Quincy Jones. What’s a lesson from the master that can help the new generation deciding they want to do music? Patrice: The biggest things I got from Quincy had to do, first of all, with the love of the music. Music making is typically with other people. When he was writing, he was writing with certain things in mind, and he knew people were going to breathe life into it. If he gave them an instruction through the notes on the page, they would bring themselves to it — and they would want to bring themselves to it. The love of it, and being clear in what he wanted to say — clear in his language, clear in his writing, clear in his productions, clear in his goals for the different iterations of music — all of them were branches of the same tree. Those are the things I got from him the most. You don’t let category stop you. If you like it, do that, and do it really well. Go for it. Be about it. Don’t let little things stand in the way. One of the things he used to say was that if somebody tells him “no,” that’s all they have to say to get him started. Then he does it. That influence is there too. Rarely has there been a situation where people say, “You can’t do that,” and I don’t go try to do it. Closing Trevor: Patrice, thank you so much for spending this time with us today. This is going to touch a lot of people. I love when people tell their story and you hear it from the source, because sometimes things get lost in translation. I like direct information from the source — not opinion, not something you read about, but something you lived. You’ve affected so many of our lives through your music and the moves you’ve made. It’s an honor for me to have you here. I’ve been a fan for so long. We haven’t really played together, I don’t think — but we’ve got to do that. I remember running into you in Ukraine. For all my drummers out there, another thing with you is that you’ve always had such a strong drum chair associated with you through the years. Rest in peace to the incredible Ndugu Chancler, Sonny Emory, Rayford Griffin — so many geniuses in their own right have sat in that chair with you. That was also inspiration for me coming up in LA and seeing that. Thank you so much for coming to The TrevBeats Show. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Ms. Patrice Rushen. Patrice: Thank you so much. Thank you. Trevor: Everybody, I appreciate you for rocking with us today. Share this episode with somebody in your circle who is on their musical journey. You never know who needs to hear this conversation. Like, comment, and subscribe. Also follow us on Instagram at @trevorlawrencejr and stay locked in. I’m Trevor Lawrence Jr. This is The TrevBeats Show, and we out.