36 JAZZTIMES SEPTEMBER 2019
sound online and through streaming
services, Rodgers seems destined for a
life of perpetual pop/dance stardom,
where the beat never drops and mirror
balls never stop spinning. Jazz? In
2019? Whatever it once meant to the
guitarist, one might expect it to be
a long-forgotten passion, or at best
deeply buried.
One would be mistaken. Rodgers
still talks about jazz and thinks about
it a lot. It’s there when he speaks of his
earliest years, growing up in Man-
hattan’s West Village, hanging at jazz
clubs with no higher aspiration than to
be one of the cats. It’s still there every
time he picks up the Strat, with an
approach that betrays an undying ap-
preciation for his training—even when
playing music other than jazz. “There’s
this hysterical video online of me on
the BBC, with [DJ] Pete Tong,” he
says. “This was the first time they were
playing ‘Get Lucky’ and they asked,
‘Hey man, you want to play along
with it?’ So I pick up my guitar and
I’m listening—but I haven’t heard it in
months and it stops me in my tracks.
I mean harmonically I got it instantly,
but I was getting into the secondary
line and the rhythmic pattern of what
I played and was listening deeply. Then
somebody yelled out, ‘Hey, it’s only
four chords!’ They couldn’t hear it the
way I was hearing it.”
The depth and discipline is second
nature to Rodgers. The fact that he
posted this video online also betrays
an up-to-date comfort with managing
his social media imprint: shooting
and sharing onstage and backstage
moments as he continues to travel
around the world, headlining as
the sole surviving member of Chic,
participating in high-profile music
events, accepting awards and such ap-
pointments as the new Chief Creative
Advisor position at London’s Abbey
Road Studios.
His guitar—and jazz—are always
within reach. Rodgers mentions an-
other video: “I posted something back
in October when I was in Paris and we
were supposed to be on two TV shows
but because Charles Aznavour died
they were canceled. So there’s this video
of me on the sofa practicing bebop,
shredding and using inner voicings,
the George Van Eps technique—all thiscool diatonic voice-leading that makes
you sound like a piano player. You can
read the comments. People never hear
me play like that. But that’s who I am.”
The following conversation—more of
which can be found on JazzTimes.com—
was recorded at the Power Station, the
midtown Manhattan studio (now owned
by Berklee College of Music) that Chic
helped inaugurate when it first opened
in 1977, a full-circle moment that amus-
es Rodgers no end. “Man, they were still
building the recording rooms when we
were working on ‘Everybody Dance’ and
the five tracks that completed the first
album. Then we stayed here—Studio B
became our home, while the big rock &
roll acts went to Studio A. It’s incredible
it’s still here, but so am I!”JT: Chic was an anomaly of
sorts—a live, performing band
coming out of a musical style that
was more about pre-recorded
tracks.
NILE RODGERS: I remember when
we were doing music videos in the early
’80s, some of the dancers came up to
me and asked, “Can you really play that
thing?” I was shocked. In just those few
short years people had already forgot-
ten that R&B music was bands. When I
grew up it was all about bands and they
were self-contained, you had to be the
songwriter and the performer as well.
Typically you got a record deal because
you had songs and you could play them,
but all of a sudden things changed—it
was all about the singer or the singing
group, and later the rappers and MCs.By the ’80s, R&B and dance music re-
ally became producer-driven, and you
can see now where we are today. The
idea of bands basically has gone away.
Chic was a trio at first, with me and
[bassist] Bernard [Edwards] and Tony
[Thompson]. Then later our keyboard
player Rob Sabino became the unsung
hero of Chic and we were a quartet, and
every Chic album had an instrumental
because we liked to think of ourselves
as jazz/R&B guys who learned how to
write pop songs, sort of like Kool & the
Gang. That’s why the B-side of our first
single was a jazzy instrumental called
“São Paulo.” The jazz station in New
York City at the time treated it like it
was the A side, and for a minute we
were getting radio play on both sides
of the single right out of the box. It was
this crazy dream come true.There are some great guitar
moments in Chic’s catalog and
recently, like those B.B. King
licks at the start of “Lose Your-
self to Dance.”
On the second Chic album [1978’s C’est
Chic], we did a song called “Savoir
Faire” because I wanted to solo and
have the strings play the hooks. I played
the hook with the strings but then
I’d break off and solo the whole song.
That could be considered somewhat
self-indulgent, but those were the days
where people expected musicians to be
self-indulgent.Bernard and you were the heart
and soul of Chic, but he had a
different way of thinking about
songs, right?
[Laughs] I was this mixed-up kid not
knowing where I wanted to go yet, and
in 1970 I met this great guy named
Bernard Edwards who was a focused
kind of bandleader saying do this and
do that. He’d ask me, “Why are you
writing so many notes in there? Take
that out. Keep it simple.” I would put
in four sections and he would take out
three. I would put in all these chords
and he would stop at two.
Bernard told me, “You know, with
your in-depth knowledge of harmony
and jazz and classical music, we could
put together our own band and do
all our own orchestrations.” This was
when disco was starting to happen and“I never like to
be a showoff
guitar player
except when I’m
playing with other
showoff guys.
Then I love it. If
I get to play with
John McLaughlin,
forget about it.”