A Conversation with Richard Julian (continued)

PM: Let's cover the Norah Jones connection.

RJ: Okay.

PM: When did that and where did that begin?

RJ: Wow. Well, me and Jesse Harris were traveling across the country, kind of on a joyride. This was after Smash Palace got postponed. The release was postponed because of "The Hooch."

[laughter]

RJ: And so I had a little bit of advance money left, and I kind of wanted to go to L.A. for a few months and check it out, because I was trying to get out of New York at the time. I was thinking that New York wasn't really serving my career very well.

PM: [laughs]

RJ: And me and Jesse got in a rental and just drove across the country. In Texas, Kenny Wolleson and Steve Cardenas and Kurt Rosenwinkel were going to be playing a jazz clinic with Mark Johnson, the great upright bass player, who is known mostly through his work with Bill Evans--

PM: Right.

RJ: --at North Texas State University, where Norah was going to college. And she had this huge blue Cadillac from the '70s, this beat-up thing that they sent her to pick up the band in--

PM: Unbelievable.

RJ: --because she had the biggest car of anyone, basically. And that's why she came and picked us all up to go to this clinic.

PM: Holy crap.

RJ: She was going to school there. And of course, she's a very beautiful young girl.

PM: Right.

RJ: That didn't go unnoticed by anybody.

PM: Duh.

RJ: People kind of started talking to her. And she seemed really cool. She was a singer. And we all went to this record store together after the clinic. And she sang this song a little bit, because I was talking to her about a Tony Bennett record I loved that she knew really well. And I thought, wow, this girl really knows her music and seems really talented. And we all ended up--she had a date with someone that night, and she broke the date and came out with us and took us out for Mexican food. And we went on this golf course and jammed.

PM: [laughs] Unbelievable.

RJ: I don't think she would have ever asked to sing or ever said a peep. She was just out there listening to all of us. She was probably intimidated, because all of us were so much older and established. She was something like 18 or 19 at the time, I remember.

PM: This is good stuff.

RJ: And finally I said, "Hey"--or one of us said it--I don't want to take credit for it--but it was me--but anyway--

PM: [laughs]

RJ: --I said--but please, don't even print that. I'm just teasing.

PM: [laughs]

RJ: But anyways, I said, "Hey, why don't you sing a song?" Because there's all these guitar players there who could play standards, and she seemed to know her standards. And so Steve Cardenas and Kurt Rosenwinkel accompanied her. She did "Come Rain Or Come Shine" out on this golf course.

PM: Yikes.

RJ: And she sounded amazing. She told us she had this steady gig in Dallas where she played piano and played standards. And I was blown away. I was blown away, and I got to tell you, I was actually really frightened because I can be such a negative thinker sometimes.

PM: Uh-huh.

RJ: The thing that was going through my mind was, I thought, man, with the internet and these kids coming up these days having access to any music, I could have never had access to Tony Bennett and Bill Evans records when I was growing up.

PM: [laughs]

RJ: And I thought, man, they've got access--these kids, when they come out of college, none of us are going to be working in three years. This is like--I didn't think that she was special. I thought she was representing the special-ness of her graduating class. And I was a little intimidated by it. I thought, Jesus, they're churning out these musicians like frickin' out of control.

PM: First it's "The Hooch," now this.

RJ: Exactly. Screw "The Hooch." I had bigger problems on my hands once Norah's class graduated--the class of kids born in 1980. Little did I know that she was special even within her own class.

PM: Truly.

RJ: Yeah. I mean, the rest of her class didn't know Tony Bennett and Bill Evans. They didn't know half the shit she knows. She's one of the best musicians I know.

PM: Yeah.

RJ: And yeah, sure, we all stayed in touch with her because she was just so talented. And we said, "Hey, if you ever move to New York, call us up." The other guys there were even more who she would call, because she was doing standards at that point, so why wouldn't she call Kenny Wolleson or somebody to sit in on some gig.

PM: Right.

RJ: And she eventually moved to New York and called us all up, and just became part of the scene, and then eventually ended up being the scene.

PM: [laughs]

RJ: So that's just the way it all went down.

PM: Yeah, the caboose becomes the engine.

RJ: Yeah, definitely, that's a for sure. She took over. Man, she's an amazing person. A beautiful person.

PM: I mean, that's just what everybody who knew her then and who meets her now, they all say the same thing. That she's just the sweetest person you ever met.

RJ: Yeah. Well she's not just sweet. I mean, she's got an edge, too. She's not a pushover. She's a stone-cold musician, businesswoman. And not an ass-kissing friend. I mean, she'll let you know when she's got something to talk to you about. In fact, what she is is just a really conscientious, really smart, really cool person. That's pretty much what it boils down to--and very unselfish and generous, but also very searching, and creatively searching, and probably competitive in that sense as well, as she should be.

PM: Wow.

RJ: So all of that.

PM: And so when she took off like a rocket, she tagged you to go out on tour with her.

RJ: That was completely unexpected.

PM: Wow.

RJ: Up until that point, that whole year, I was working to get Good Life off the ground, and I had just quit my day job because I'd established enough house concerts and shit over the summer to basically keep myself afloat. And that was what I was up against.

PM: Right.

RJ: And her star was on the massive rise, and it was kind of blowing me away. I mean, I never, never thought that would happen to any of us, much less her, in a million years. She was signed to a jazz label.

PM: Right.

RJ: I mean, I just never ever considered anything like that. And then at the same time, she and I were close and felt dear to each other, but I didn't feel like I was her best friend or anything. And I would have never expected her to ask me, anymore than she would have asked Jesse or asked whoever else she might be hanging out with that I didn't even know about, or let her booking agent choose it, or whatever.

PM: Sure.

RJ: When I got asked to do the shows, I was pretty blown away. I had no idea that was coming down the pike. And it didn't come down the pike through her. I just got an email from her management one day, and that was the end of that.

PM: And how many shows, off the bat, did they offer you? What was the first offer?

RJ: Well, the first offer was to do two shows--no, actually, one show of a two-night engagement in New York. And I showed up at that show. And she said, "Hey, I'm really sorry, we did all these shows in Philly and D.C., and I forgot to ask you to open because it's been so busy." And I was like, "Oh, well, thanks a lot." [laughs] I'm sure I lost about x-amount of money and all of that.

[laughter]

RJ: But it was funny. It was just the way she always is, "Oh, gee, I'm really sorry that you missed those ten shows, but gosh, I forgot to talk to you about that."

PM: "It really would have made your year, but sorry."

[laughter]

RJ: Exactly. She's great like that. She keeps it laid back, and she keeps it real. So that's the offshoot of that.

PM: And as it turned out, how many would you say you ended up opening?

RJ: Well, in that year--after I did the New York show, they asked me to go out on tour. I met up with them about two weeks later in Toronto, probably did another, oh, 30, 40 dates. Did another 50 or 60 the next year. Did a few dates overseas in England.

PM: And then it ultimately, and circuitously, no doubt, led to landing a couple of co-writes on the last record.

RJ: Oh, yeah.

PM: Tell me that story.   continue

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