Adrian Younge Brings An Orchestra and His Own Reality to the Turf Club in Saint Paul

 

This interview originally aired on The Afternoon Cruise on 3/11/25

READ THE FULL TRANSCRIPT OF THE INTERVIEW BELOW:

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

It’s the afternoon cruise, and I’m chatting with Adrian Younge. Younge is a prolific and gifted musician, producer, performer, curator, and much more. He’s been at the helm of the Jazz is Dead project, alongside his partner Ali Shaheed Muhammad since 2017 they’ve released collaborative albums with legends like Brian Jackson, Azymuth, Jean Carne, Tony Allen and more. Younge is on the road right now for his something about April tour with a stop at the Turf Club in St Paul on Friday, March 14. Adrian Younge, I know you’re a very, very busy individual. Thank you for connecting with jazz88.

 

Adrian Younge 

oh, thank you for having me, man.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

Now you got a 10 piece orchestra out with you on the road right now, making your way across North America. We’re speaking the night you play in Boston. How is the tour going for you and the crew?

 

Adrian Younge 

So far, it’s been amazing, man, like so many people have come up to us and said, This is the best show of the year for them, or the best show they’ve ever seen their life. And I don’t take that kind of stuff lightly. It really means something to me, because I always tell people, especially the audience, I always say, like, Thank you for coming to see me, because you could be anywhere else, and you decide to be here, you know, and we’ve been having multiple sold out nights, and it’s just been a dream come true, to be honest with you.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

Well that is a beautiful thing, and I’m not surprised, because you have amazing output, both as a performer and as a curator, and with jazz is dead, and I want to tip my hat to you. I’m the music director at jazz 88 and you and the team from jazz is dead has created something that’s really rare in modern music, but also, frankly, has always been somewhat rare. You are a sure bet built around a label. When I open that package from jazz is dead at this point, Adrian, I just gotta pick the right song. There hasn’t been one where I’ve gone, there’s nothing, but you got a lot of output. So how do you manage that, quality control, while also releasing a number of albums every darn year?

 

Adrian Younge 

Well, first of all, thank you for saying that. That really means a lot, and that’s obviously the goal. I always say to people for myself, like when I make personally, making music, I make it for myself. I don’t care about what other people think, you know, because when you start caring too much about what other people think, then you start losing yourself. And then when you can want to come back to yourself, you can’t find yourself anymore. So the fact that you feel this way about music. I’m making music my bro, Alicia, making for ourselves. Man, that that means a lot. First of all, so thank you. And you know, I I’m just very, very disciplined, very disciplined. You know, I wake up every morning and I’m my own boss, and I take that very serious, and when I said deadlines for myself, I never want to disappoint myself. So do been doing that for so long that when I know I say I’m going to do something, it’s like a heavy button that’s pressed where I have to do it, because I never want to disappoint myself. So I think it’s just, I think I think it’s just me saying yes to things I want to do and then being under the personal obligation to finish them. That’s how we get so much output out.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

Now I remember watching a documentary or some sort of visual about your work on Luke Cage and about you making sure you had access to a prominent and sizable orchestra, and that being a key point to making some of these projects work, you are in the business of making sure that music and musicians are honored and celebrated and properly respected, especially for musicians from other countries, from other eras, and shining a light on them with this work, the world is moving in the other direction. In a lot of regards, music is often really devalued. Does the fight that you’re waging to make sure that musicians are respected and that musicians are treated properly? Do you ever feel hopeless, or do you just go, it’s working, and I’m staying the course.

 

Adrian Younge 

Let me put it this way, I’m so hopeless that the real world, world doesn’t count to me. That’s kind of how I look at it, right? I I kind of see things through my false reality where, like in my false reality, everyone’s into crazy cool records, and everyone’s trying to find the rarest drum break and all that stuff, and I act like that’s just the truth. So I make music for those people and try to curate for those people. However, jazz is dead has seriously surprised us, because we have so many. The young people that go to our events and purchase our records and listen to us that I don’t understand how they are coming fully, but I so appreciate it, and it makes me happy. So it’s kind of like my false reality is turning into an actual reality in a weird way, and I guess that’s just maybe because we’re so focused on what we actually love, and also showing love to these iconic artists that we’ve worked with.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

so now the latest release we’ve been playing from the Jazz is Dead series, clearly involves an iconic artist. We’ve been playing the Ebo Taylor one. And I should mention Ebo Taylor will be back in the Twin Cities. He’s playing April 9. Over the fine line the tunes we’ve played so far, we start with Obi do well, and now we’re playing get up. Do you recall anything about those sessions with Ebo Taylor and that work?

 

Adrian Younge 

Yeah. I mean, there are beautiful sessions. It was me, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, Henry Taylor, which is his son, and a few other people from his his band. And what was really cool about it, it was this first time meeting in the studio with these black American hip hop producers, being me and Ali, and then these Ghanaian funk producers. And it was like us coming together and sharing ideas to make something very special. Ali and I had wrote different charts and all that stuff, and, you know, brought them to the to the to the session, and Henry had a couple things, and we just knocked it out in a few days. And, like, it was cool because Ebo Taylor, I wanted to record him with distortion. I wanted to record him in a way where his performance was fierce as a as as an older man. I don’t want to do anything nice. I wanted to be aggressive and in your face and like the fact that this album’s been number one on the jazz charts, and people are just loving it, man. It’s just like, it’s crazy to think that a 90 year old can get this much love from a recording in 2025 man, it’s makes me happy.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

You mentioned the session and folks coming in and having a couple black hip hop producers from America of one generation, and then some elders from Ghana. When I look at your records, no matter how far the distances between the people collaborating like literally, the photos look fun, the records sound fun. The energy around jazz is dead. Just feels good. And I bet you, that’s part of the recipe about why a lot of young folks are buying the records. I’m wondering, have you ever had some serious bridges to gap to make the vibe right in the studio, where you got somebody where you just go, Oh, I really thought this was going to be easy, or maybe you thought it was going to be hard, but that difference in language and generation makes the energy off in the studio. And if that’s ever come up, how have you solved that?

 

Adrian Younge 

Well, we work with a lot of Brazilian artists, and when we started working with Brazilian artists, I didn’t speak any Portuguese, but now I’m, like, quasi fluent in Portuguese. So like, there were times where I won’t say it was difficult, but we had to learn each other’s language a bit more, but no difficulties. I’ve never had any difficulties in the studio with the people that we work with, because just because somebody’s available doesn’t mean I want to work with them. You know, it’s like I need to want to work with them. And wanting to work with them is me liking them as a person and also liking their music. So, like, we’re pretty much 100% all happiness, you know, when it comes to people that that we produced for Jazz is Dead.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

I’m chatting with Adrian Younge a spectacular producer, musician, man does it all, and he does it beautifully. He’s playing this Friday, Friday March 14, over the Turf Club in St Paul. Adrian, to say you’ve got a lot going on in LA is an understatement. You run a studio management record store and you I think they’re turning a bunch of charts that are for 10 players right now into charts for 40 players, which is not just a matter of xeroxing. I’m aware. What do you value about getting out on the road with your music, when I think probably life might be easier if you just stayed camped up in Los Angeles? Like, what do you value about being around the rest of the world?

 

Adrian Younge 

I always tell people that music, I make music to perform it. So like my music isn’t alive until I’m performing it on stage. So I create a lot of music, and there’s just a lot of pent up energy that needs to be released. So. Performing it live gives me the opportunity to to share my love with the people, and it’s something that if I had a choice just to record music or play music live for the rest of my life, I’m playing it live the rest of my life, straight up.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

Now we’re talking just a couple days after the passing of Roy Ayers, who passed away on Tuesday at the age of 84 he had a legendary career for many, many decades, and by so many folks, is really at the root of so much of the music that we love. He was one of the first collaborators with jazz is dead. So I know you worked with him personally, and I’m just curious any memories either as just a fan and listener of Roy Ayers, or from the time that you collaborated with the legend. Yeah.

 

Adrian Younge 

So our second album that we released on jazz is dead. Was produced by myself and Ali ShaheedMuhammad with Roy Ayers. It’s crazy, because I’m getting so many messages and so many tags on Instagram, Twitter about the album that we did with him. And, you know, we were happy to just do something to show the icon, the legend, some love in a world that tends to forget these kind of people, you know? I mean, I know that he wasn’t doing that well for a while. So still, it’s a loss of life, and it’s sad, you know, but in the studio, we had a good time, man. You know, my linear lab studio is all analog. So he’s walking to a place with no computers, all tape machines, a vibraphone out. And it was just cool, man. It was cool just to be able to meet with him, and, you know, talk to him about, uh, recording. Everybody loves the sunshine. Like they did that in like, the middle of the night in New York, like, back in the day, you know, like, but, you know, we lost a good one.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

Adrian Younge, I want to really tip my hat to you. I’ve sometimes when I talk to people, I go, Oh, I just want to share information and connect. And sometimes I just want to say, I know that what you’re waging is an uphill battle to to make sure that this music is respected, that black music is respected, that the lineage of these artists that could go sort of uncelebrated, particularly at the end of their career, sometimes goes undone, and you’re doing that work. You Ali Shaheed Mohammad and the rest of the team. Thank you. As a music director, you are making the job of connecting these dots easier because the releases you do and the respect you give the releases so well.

 

Adrian Younge 

Thank you, sir. Thank you. Appreciate that. Thank you so much.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

Adrian Younge is playing on Friday, March 14, at the Turf Club in St Paul. It’s for the something about April tour. Good luck on the show. I will be in attendance. And thank you, Mr. Young, for everything you’ve done for this Music.

 

Adrian Younge 

Appreciate you, Man, thank you.

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