Talk Memory: A Conversation with BADBADNOTGOOD’s Leland Whitty

Over the past decade, Canadian ensemble BADBADNOTGOOD has established itself as a powerful force in creative music. The group initially emerged from the shared love of hip hop by three students – Matthew Tavares, Alexander Sowinski, and Chester Hansen – at Humber College’s jazz program. Jump forward a few years and the addition of saxophonist Leland Whitty, and the group has performed at such impressive venues as the Newport Jazz Festival, Coachella, and the Austin City Limits Music Festival. Much of the band’s success comes from its refusal to abide by strict definitions of genre or limitations on sound. Their influences range widely, encompassing Miles Davis, Albert Ayler, Sun Ra, J Dilla, Wu-Tang Clan, Kurt Cobain, and Arthur Verocai. These diverse sonic interests translate directly into their music with albums under the band’s name often blurring traditional conceptual lines. It’s also led to BADBADNOTGOOD producing albums with some of the best in hip hop including Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg, Kaytranda, Ghostface Killah, and MF Doom. With Talk Memory (XL Recordings, 2021), the band releases the first album under its own name in five years.

The recording is both a return to the past and the carving of a new way forward. While the broad interests in music remain apparent, the ensemble itself has changed with it being the first time out without founding member Tavares. It also boasts a significant list of collaborators. We sat down with BBNG’s saxophonist, Leland Whitty, to discuss the new album, the band’s upcoming tour, his duet recordings with Tavares, and the group’s production work.

PostGenre: The Talk Memory tour will be the first time you have toured since the pandemic, correct? 

Leland Whitty: Yup. 

PG: Do you think performing live will be different in light of everything over the past year or so? 

LW: I mean, for sure. I am kind of optimistic that any difference will be for the better. In Toronto, where we are based, there haven’t been that many shows since the pandemic hit. However, all the shows that have happened seem to have audiences that are extra excited and passionate about the experience. I am looking forward to that element as we tour  

This tour also allows us to elevate some visual elements of the show. We are finally at the point where we can tour with a front-of-house guy full time. I think those things are just super important and we’ve kind of neglected them in the past because of financial reasons. But I think having those things will help us feel more comfortable and be more confident in what we are trying to do. Of course, it is also exciting to have new music to play.  

PG: Speaking of the new music, Talk Memory has several tracks with Arthur Verocai. How did that collaboration come about? 

LW: One of the last tours that we did in 2019 started in South America. On that tour, we played a show in Sao Paolo where we opened for him. For his set, Verocai brought his orchestra and we played the last four songs with him. His music is extremely important to each of us in the band and playing with him is one of the most important performance experiences that we’ve had. It also established a relationship with him.  

We finished recording Talk Memory just before things getting kind of serious with COVID in North America. At the time we knew we wanted to add some string arrangements to the album. And conversations about those arrangements led to us wanting to see if he would be receptive to the music and get involved. It was interesting to work with him because he’s done so much. He’s such a prolific arranger but, except for his own music, the majority of his work has been vocal-based. He was excited to work with us because it allowed him to take on some creative liberties.   

PG: BADBADNOTGOOD is often looked at as filling some space between hip-hop and jazz. Anyone paying close attention to your prior albums though would notice the various other influences in your music as well. Talk Memory seems to be stepping away from hip-hop influences to some extent to explore these other ideas more. Do you feel like that is a fair assessment? 

LW: Obviously Sour Soul (Lex Records, 2014), our album with Ghostface [Killah], was a very cohesive hip-hop-based vision. But our other albums draw upon our various other influences with maybe a slightly heavier leaning towards jazz or hip-hop or whatever.  

Talk Memory comes after having toured for four years before the pandemic. In our touring, we presented primarily instrumental jazz-based music and focused on that area. With the album, we wanted to bring the energy of those live performances into a studio record. So, maybe it doesn’t emphasize the hip-hop side as much as some other albums but it also allowed us to explore things that are new to us. For example, on the record, there is a song called “Open Channels” that is sort of an ambiguous Paul Motian free jazz-inspired thing. BADBADNOTGOOD hasn’t really explored that area much before.   

PG: Talk Memory is also sort of a return to the band’s roots. What inspired the retrospection? 

LW: I mean, some of the early things that inspire you and give you your first steps into music are things that you always hold onto to some extent. Some of those elements are way stronger in this record than anything else we’ve done. That’s especially true for some of the heavier rock influences that come out in the album. Some of the music that really got me excited to play early on was classic rock by people like Black Sabbath and Jimi Hendrix. The idea behind the album was to make the whole thing organic and not overthought. That is, to make the compositions and improvisations come out a bit more naturally.  And that approach has allowed for some of these heavier influences to come out.  

PG: The album is also the first album since pianist Matthew Tavares left the group, right? 

LW: Yeah.  

PG: How do you think his absence makes the band approach music differently compared to when he was with the band? 

LW: I mean Matty had such a huge presence in the band even beyond his piano or synthesizer skills. He has such a great knowledge of music. The rest of us have all learned so much about production from him. Matty was the guy who really had production visions and experience engineering things. Our whole last record [IV (Innovative Leisure, 2016)] was recorded and engineered by him. And it was also mixed by him for the most part. He even did a lot of graphic design for the record. His leaving is part of why it took us a while to release a new album. After he quit the band in 2019, it took us time to establish a new vision of what the band would be like without him.  

Matty’s leaving seemed daunting at the start but it also kind of opened up doors to expand our community and work with people like Russell Elevado, who mixed Talk Memory and is an absolute legend in his own right.  

PG: Among other things, Elevado mixed D’Angelo’s Voodoo (Virgin, 2000), Roy Hargrove’s RH Factor albums, parts of Common’s Like Water for Chocolate (MCA, 2000), and various stuff by the Roots, J Dilla, Kamasi Washington, and Jay Z.  

LW: That’s right, and it’s been a pretty amazing experience to be able to work with him on the album. So has been working with Alaska Alaska, the graphic design team.  

PG: Virgil Abloh’s studio.  

LW: Yes. And, in general, it’s also been kind of cool to focus inward on where the creativity in our music comes drawn from and to try to relay that to other creative people and develop those ideas outside of just our own little world.   

PG: Circling back to Tavares for a minute, the two of you have made two duet albums together. What do you like about those paired-down projects compared to music for the whole band? 

LW: Before I began playing with BADBADNOTGOOD, Matty was the first one I had met in the group. We had developed a relationship by just kind of being kind of nerdy about the music of people like Eric Dolphy, Sam Rivers, and John Coltrane. I think the paired down thing with him of doing an acoustic improv-based record is really nice because there’s a lot of special stuff we do. One of the records we put out is from a live show that is completely improvised. It’s kind of scary thinking of trying to accomplish that. We are not crazy exceptional New York-level musicians, but doing the improv thing live creates such a nice energy to capture. And in the studio recording, we tried to combine some other very broad compositional influences that BADBAD never really touched on. Ideas from people ranging from Nick Drake to Ravel.  

PG: So far, you have mentioned a pretty wide range of artists from Jimi Hendrix to Eric Dolphy. What are your thoughts on genre in general? I know there’s been some debate among jazz fans on how to classify BADBADNOTGOOD’s music since you guys do take a broad view.  

LW: I guess jazz as a whole does have that elitist side of it. But the funny thing is that if you look at all the classic legends of jazz, people like Mingus or Duke Ellington or Miles or Trane, none of them were fond of the term “jazz” itself. They were playing in a different era, but I think they were trying to be as forward-thinking as possible.  

It’s important to respect where you come from. But, at the same time, I think with all of us in the band growing up in the 90’s and having rock or hip-hop influences – really a wide range of influences – it is natural for us to let them into our sound and not be purists focused wholly on the acoustic jazz approach. I think bringing in other ideas, allows us to provide a more honest representation of who we are as people and musicians.  

Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that acoustic jazz is still going on because I love that kind of music. And the purists are a part of its preservation. But there are so many little pockets in the world of jazz – and I use that term broadly to include several jazz-associated genres – is a collection of various influences. And you especially see that now where there are so many bands making new kinds of great and beautiful music that most people have never heard before. 

PG: Going back to Talk Memory, it is the first in a multipart project. What can you share about the other parts? 

LW: That is another aspect of the pandemic sort of guiding the project. First of all, the record was intended to come out a lot sooner before the pandemic pushed everything back. But we also had very high ambitions like wanting to do a video for every song. We were able to accomplish our goal in terms of the videos. But doing so was made more difficult because of the pandemic. We weren’t able to be hands-on involved with a lot of the videos before they were filmed internationally.   

In addition to the videos, we also have graphic scores. A lot of our fans have asked in the past for the sheet music to our songs. We thought it would be kind of cool to provide the music for the new album but with some cool paintings or drawings on them to make it look unique. We never actually write down our music before the fact so we had to transcribe it afterward and then had a friend hand draw it and get different artists to add to it. They ended up being these really unique-looking pieces of art.  

PG: Is that where the idea to put the sheet music from the album – without artwork added – on the band’s website came from? 

LW: Yeah, and eventually all the sheet music for the album will come out. Another really interesting thing has been how people have responded to the sheet music in light of the fact we put it out before we released the songs. A lot of improvisation-based musicians are comfortable putting their own ideas into the music in front of them. And everyone who has approached the music released so far has used interesting sonic palettes or production things to make their own version unique. It is really cool to see our little feed being expanded by all these incredible artists.  

PG: And the graphic stores are going to be released as a book? 

LW: Yeah, we’re working towards a book that will feature the graphic scores. The book is not going to be fully album centric but we did interview Arthur Verocai for the book. We also interviewed a lot of our collaborators on Talk Memory like Terrace Martin, Karriem Riggins, Laraaji, and Brandee Younger.  

PG: Speaking of Terrace, it is uncommon for someone to be both a saxophonist drawing upon the jazz lineage and a hip-hop producer. Do you feel a particularly special connection to Terrace’s music since you both have that sort of shared background? 

LW: Yeah, for sure. We met him through touring and happened to be on a lot of the same routes and different European tours where he was playing with Robert Glasper and Christian Scott [aTunde Adjuah]. We also saw him play with Herbie Hancock. Seeing Terrace perform with such high-caliber musicians has made his performances special. In some ways, I think that feeling you get when watching him perform is probably similar to what one felt when they saw Miles Davis’ Second Great Quintet perform back when. Just that freedom and confidence in the music. And, at the same time, Terrace is also working on some of the top hip hop records.  

PG: Karriem does too.  

LW: Yeah, exactly. But I guess, going back to the whole jazz thing, it is always kind of intimidating to play with people you’ve always looked up to. Obviously, Terrace and Karriem came through and their discographies are really exceptional. But they also were extremely positive in the studio. I think that sort of unspoken intimidation brought a new energy with us.  

On the track with Terrace, in particular, we actually recorded it with just three mics on drums, one on bass, and Terrace and I sharing a saxophone mic. So, we were literally like two feet apart from each other. The music is using individual solos but is also a collective process with us each physically reacting to one another. We’re not really hiding behind anything on that track, which is really cool. You’re hearing a really raw version of it.  

PG: Terrace also has a strong working relationship with Kendrick Lamar. BADBADNOTGOOD produced a track on DAMN. (TDE/Aftermath/Interscope, 2017). What was it like working with Kendrick? 

LW: Kendrick’s probably my favorite rapper of all time. We got to meet him a couple of times – he was playing Coachella the same time we did – but didn’t work in the studio with him. He was putting together DAMN. at a time that we were constantly writing samples. We sent some to DJ Dahi and Sounwave who flipped them and turned them into “Lust.” But because Kendrick is such a high-profile artist, we didn’t actually hear the final version of the song until the day the record came out.  

PG: That must have been fascinating to hear the final product for the first time.  

LW: Yeah. It’s kind of cool because the sample ended up being what the song turned out to be. DJ Dahi did the drums but, for the most part, the song ended up being basically what we wrote. 

PG: Another collaborator on Talk Memory is Floating Points. He also released a fascinating album with Pharoah Sanders earlier this year. So, it brings up the important question- what do we have to do to get you and Pharoah to work together? 

LW: [laughing] Oh man, I don’t know. I would love to. I think that project Floating Points did with him was really special. Obviously, Pharoah is such a legend. It would be really amazing to work with him.   

You know how there is a new live recording coming out of A Love Supreme? It’s been having me revisit that era of Coltrane in which Pharoah played a significant role. All of the musicians still living who were part of that era are so special. Especially after so many legends passed away during the pandemic. It is really nice that Pharoah was able to put out such a kind of timeless masterpiece of a record. If there is any way for it to be possible for us to work with him, we would be extremely grateful.   

PG: Speaking of influences, what was it like working with Ghostface Killah? 

LW: The bulk of our relationship with Ghostface really came after Sour Soul was released. That relationship came from Frank Dukes who produced the record and knew Ghostface from other projects. Before the album came out, our interactions with Ghostface were primarily through email. But after the record came out, we played like 20 or 30 shows on tour with him. Touring with Ghostface really allowed us to bond with him as we went through Europe, taking the train together and the rest. Ghostface even helped us load gear, which he really didn’t have to do. He’s simultaneously such a hard person but also kind of a sweetheart. He also seemed happy to have the energy of a live band and adding lots of improvising. He’s such a seasoned performer, he would never mess up a line.  

PG: And to name another influence, what was the process for recording “The Chocolate Conquistadors” which ended up being one of MF Doom’s final recordings.  

LW: For a long time, we were talking with the Rockstar team working on Grand Theft Auto about doing some sort of collaborations where they’re like a Gilles Peterson radio station. And that song was really a kind of a classic house song that the Rockstar team asked us to cover and come up with ideas for it. The day we actually went into the studio to record, they put it out there that they had been in contact with Doom and that there was a possibility he would be up for rapping on it. But when we were cutting it, we didn’t really know if he would be on it. For the song, we had an idea of making it like a live performance without editing, looping or chopping it up to make it more contemporary centered. We thought it would be a nice idea to make it a full performance. We added an intro to it to give Doom something to rap over if he was going to. But he ended up going above and beyond what we had expected and ended up rapping over the whole first three minutes of the song.  

The whole thing of the song coming out and finding out about him passing away a few months later was a pretty weird experience. But Doom’s music is up there. He was definitely one of the most important artists for me and the rest of the guys in the band. He’s also sort of our connection to Arthur Verocai. It was through Doom’s sampling of Verocai’s music that we found out about Verocai and so much amazing Brazilian music and jazz. Doom’s music helped us discover a lot of incredible music that I feel like otherwise would have slipped through the cracks.     

PG: One final question. Although probably best known for saxophone, you play several different instruments. On the new album, for instance, you also perform on guitar, violin, and viola. How do you feel playing other instruments influences your saxophone performance and vice versa? 

LW: Playing multiple instruments has definitely been to my benefit. There are intrinsic things with any instrument that you kind of develop. When I started playing saxophone, Wayne Shorter was one of my biggest influences. Wayne used a lot of technical exercises to practice which are typically meant for violin or cello and not saxophone-based things. I feel like approaching performance from different perspectives forces you to think about things differently.  

Sometimes I’m envious when I hear some musicians who only play one instrument because it seems like they are able to expand a lot further than I can. In a way, playing multiple instruments spreads myself thin but, at the same time, it’s helped me find my voice as a musician.     

BADBADNOTGOOD’s Talk Memory will be out October 8, 2021, on XL Recordings. A copy can be purchased on the band‘s Bandcamp page.   

More information on BADBADNOTGOOD, including their upcoming tour, can be found on the band’s website.