{"id":5040,"date":"2012-02-29T01:06:29","date_gmt":"2012-02-29T08:06:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=5040"},"modified":"2012-02-29T01:06:53","modified_gmt":"2012-02-29T08:06:53","slug":"jimmy-jam-and-terry-lewis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2012\/02\/jimmy-jam-and-terry-lewis\/","title":{"rendered":"JIMMY JAM AND TERRY LEWIS"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"JIMMY JAM AND TERRY LEWIS\u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong><\/h1>\n

The time is always right for this iconic R&B production partnership\u00a0 \u00a0<\/em> \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Michael Gallant<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cProduction is about getting it done and getting it to be the best it can possibly be,\u201d says James \u201cJimmy Jam\u201d<\/p>\n

Harris III. Over the last several decades he and partner Terry Lewis have racked up a stunning roster of production credits for names including Michael Jackson, Usher, Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, New Edition, George Michael, Mary J. Blige, Boyz II Men, Patti LaBelle, Luther Vandross, Rod Stewart and many others. Their 20-year collaboration with Janet Jackson, in particular, has helped to define the sound of modern R&B. Revered for their production, songwriting and musical chops\u2014Jam on keyboards and Lewis on bass\u2014the team has demonstrated unprecedented endurance, deftly navigating new genres and musical technologies.<\/p>\n

The duo\u2019s success is rooted in their shared production philosophy. \u201cIt sometimes means playing the role of psychiatrist, listening when artists only want to talk about their problems,\u201d says Jam. \u201cYou have to recognize and manage things like that. But whether you\u2019re trying to recreate magic with an artist with a history, or you\u2019re working with someone new and trying to figure out what that unique sound is, the fun is in the collaboration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jam and Lewis got their start as members of funk-rock powerhouse the Time, formed 30 years ago in Minneapolis. The group has now reunited for its first new album since 1990 under the moniker the Original 7ven\u2014former mentor Prince owns the Time name, and declined to allow them to use it (Jam insists there is no bad blood). Condensate<\/em> is prime Time by any name, finding Jam, Lewis, charismatic frontman Morris Day, guitarist Jesse Johnson, keyboardist Monte Moir, drummer Garry \u201cJellybean\u201d Johnson and percussionist Jerome Benton staying true to the band\u2019s legendary bounce and swagger. \u201cWhat was great about getting the Original 7ven together was everyone\u2019s enthusiasm to work together again,\u201d says Lewis. Jam and Lewis discussed with us the keys to their singular partnership, production philosophy and the ingredients to a perfect track.<\/p>\n

\n

How would you describe your sound?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LEWIS: It\u2019s more based on personality than sonics. The deciding factor in the whole equation is, who is the artist we\u2019re\u00a0working with?<\/p>\n

JAM: We liken ourselves to tailors. You can get a suit off the rack, have the waist taken in and the pants hemmed. Now you have a suit that a bunch of people can wear\u2014maybe you can wear it better than everyone else, but it\u2019s not unique. If you go to a custom tailor and pick the fabric and buttons from scratch, you\u2019ll end up with a suit that fits you and nobody else. As tailors we have certain ways of stitching and sewing, but the materials should be individual to each buyer.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How have you seen R&B evolve?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LEWIS: R&B didn\u2019t evolve. It dissolved into other things. It\u2019s the soup base for a lot of music that\u2019s around now, like gospel was the soup base for R&B and soul. R&B is the broth that makes a good amount of music\u2014like a lot of rap\u2014taste a certain way. What has<\/em> evolved is radio, and changes in radio have forced artists to change their thinking if they want to get airplay. But that\u2019s always going to happen. It always comes back to great melody, great lyrics and great performance. That\u2019ll never change. You have to have a great melody and you have to be talking about something that catches you. Even if it\u2019s just something fun, the subject has to have a hook that makes you\u00a0want to sing about it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How has technology changed?<\/strong><\/p>\n

JAM: One of the biggest changes is that you can record anywhere. I wrote one of the songs from Condensate<\/em> while on vacation with my family. I don\u2019t ski, but my whole family does, so I brought my MacBook with Logic, sat in the chalet one day and came up with a couple of ideas I thought were pretty cool\u2014one of which grew into a song that ended up on the album. That definitely would not have happened 11 years ago.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Were you drawn to digital right away?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LEWIS: We grew up in a transitional age. When we first started playing there were no synthesizers and drum machines, but then there were. There was no digital recording, but then there was\u2014and everything changed. You have to embrace it. Quincy Jones said it best: \u201cYou\u2019re only as old as your ability to accept and process new things.\u201d That reigns true in our careers and our lives. We always look at what\u2019s going on, see what\u2019s best about it and apply it to our own work.<\/p>\n

JAM: I was talking to a young man recently who said he wasn\u2019t going to play synthesizers\u2014just piano, because Beethoven only played the piano. I told him, \u201cWell, Beethoven only had a piano available to him.\u201d If Beethoven were alive today, don\u2019t you think he would have loved when the Moog, ARP and Oberheim synths came out? Wouldn\u2019t someone with a creative mind like that try to touch every piece of gear available?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Are there downsides to digital?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LEWIS: I love the sound of analog but the ease of digital, so the combination of both is always wonderful. But when it comes to digital recording, people sometimes have too many options when they produce. You can record tons of tracks, never commit to anything and hide a record\u2019s deficiencies just by adding layers and layers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Who does what in the studio?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

JAM: You could ask any two artists we\u2019ve worked with and get two completely different answers. Janet and I turned out to have a real affinity, and Terry would step back for a lot of it\u2014but if Janet asked for help with lyrics he\u2019d step in. Another example is with Usher. He and Terry had a creative connection that just works. I stay away from it until one of them comes to me for advice.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How do you approach business?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LEWIS: Jimmy and I have worked together for 30 years based on a handshake deal, a verbal contract that says that we split everything 50-50. If he goes out and writes with someone else, I own 50 percent of that. If I want to go record some gospel project, for example, he\u2019ll own half of that.<\/p>\n

JAM: The arrangement allows each of us to do what we need to get the project done without worrying about who did what. It\u2019s easy to argue about, \u201cWell, I wrote five words here,\u201d \u201cHey, it\u2019s my title,\u201d \u201cBut I did the chorus!\u201d Then you\u2019re nickel-and-diming and it doesn\u2019t get you anywhere. We shook hands and said that we\u2019re in this for the long run. It\u2019ll all balance out.<\/p>\n

LEWIS: We\u2019re both capable of doing everything or nothing, so it frees us up to do exactly that. We always bring each other in creatively and add to or subtract from what each other is doing. It\u2019s a totally no-pressure, creative relationship.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How was Condensate<\/em> recorded?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LEWIS: We constructed it in a very free-form way, with seven guys collectively putting together 14 tracks. We never put pressure on the music. We let it come when it came and live as it wanted to live.<\/p>\n

JAM: Working with the Original 7ven was like going into the studio with people you really look up to: I\u2019m a big fan of Morris Day, a big fan of Jellybean Johnson and so on. So as producers we tried to approach it like, \u201cIf I hadn\u2019t heard an album from my favorite band in decades, what would I want their new project to sound like?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What challenges did you face?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LEWIS: The biggest challenge was logistics. Everyone\u2019s all over the place, working on their own. Monty and Jellybean live in Minneapolis, Morris is in Las Vegas, we\u2019re in California. Getting everybody\u00a0together was nightmarish.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How did you overcome that?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

JAM: We did whatever we needed to get the album done. Sometimes Terry would write lyrics on his own, and sometimes he\u2019d work with Morris or me. Sometimes we\u2019d go to Vegas to record with Morris, and sometimes Morris would come to our studio, Flyte Tyme. There are a few tracks where everybody played together. Other times Jesse would put together rhythm tracks at his house, send five or six different options to us and we would pick the ones we liked. Then we\u2019d send those to Morris, who would say which ones he thought were cool, then he\u2019d think of a subject to talk about through the song. It was an open way to work. Everyone was involved and everyone trusted each other, and that\u2019s the pleasure of collaborating with world-class musicians. We never argued. We enjoyed hearing what everybody\u00a0else added to the mix.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Did you try to keep things old-school?<\/strong><\/p>\n

JAM: We thought we were going to mix to half-inch tape, but at the end of the day it didn\u2019t work. While we certainly want to be historically reverent in terms of the quality of music we create, just because the Time recorded analog back in the day doesn\u2019t mean we need to do it that way now. We\u2019re not the Time, we\u2019re the Original 7ven. We can record on a laptop if we want to.<\/p>\n

Reflecting on your distinguished careers, what are you proudest of?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LEWIS: The thing that I appreciate the most is being here and still being relevant. My understanding of music, business and my ability to communicate with people have grown. Being able to stay around for more than 30 years is the greatest award you\u00a0could ever get.<\/p>\n

JAM: At the end of the day, you\u2019ve done your job if you\u2019ve put the artist in the best light. It\u2019s great seeing Janet Jackson touring the world, singing songs from nearly 25 years ago with the same excitement and passion that she had when we recorded them. That\u2019s because those songs are<\/em> her. She loves singing them every night. There\u2019s nothing worse than being an artist who has a song they hate. It\u2019s a hit and you have to sing it every night. That\u2019s got to be tough. You want career songs that you can play for the rest of your life. As a producer, it feels good to be part of that when it happens. We\u2019ve been lucky enough that it\u2019s happened for\u00a0us more often than not.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JIMMY JAM AND TERRY LEWIS\u00a0 \u00a0 The time is always right for this iconic R&B production partnership\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 By Michael Gallant \u201cProduction is about getting it done and getting it to be the best it can possibly be,\u201d says James \u201cJimmy Jam\u201d Harris III. Over the last several decades he and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[3148,2864,970],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5040"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5040"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5043,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5040\/revisions\/5043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}