Sometimes life’s most meaningful pursuits, and perhaps artistic pursuits especially, have a way of leading us down long and winding, circuitous paths… only to ultimately lead right back to where we began - which might’ve been the obvious destination all along. For Flea, iconic bassist and founding member of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, this sentiment rings true. On a recent episode of Jazz Night In America, Flea talks all about his solo debut record Honora, an ambitious return to his surprising first musical love, jazz. And unexpectedly, the album finds him not primarily playing bass, but rather his very first instrument, the trumpet.
“When I was a kid I wanted to be a jazz trumpet player. I wanted to be Dizzy Gillespie when I grew up,” Flea confesses. “I got in high school, my friend had a rock band, and he was, you know... ‘our bass player is just not with it, he’s not serious - we really wanna do this… why don’t you learn to play bass?’ was the pitch from Hillel Slovak, a friend of Flea.
“And I didn’t really know anything about rock music. Being a kid who was, you know, coming from a broken home… always kinda looking for a feeling of community, I remember being really touched by that, like ‘come and be a part of us…’ A couple years after that, started the Chili Peppers. And you know, it took over my life for 45 years, and continues to be such a huge part of my life - but I always kept that alive, wanting to play jazz trumpet,” Flea recalled.
“When I was six or seven years old, my parents split up, and my mom remarried - this jazz musician, Walter Urban Jr. - he was a bass player. So we went from living with my dad who was like a government man, to a jazz musician… and he had all his buddies come over, this was the 60s in New York, the bebop scene. And the first thing that I saw them play was ‘Cherokee’ at a blistering tempo. I’m getting goosebumps right now thinking about it,” says Flea, now more animated.
“I fell on the floor, I was rolling around, like just seeing colors and abstract shapes… these guys are blowing, a million miles an hour, I’m looking up and the drummer is just, you know…” (at this point Flea is immersed in a full-body reenactment of the stylings of the bebop drummer from his memory) “And I just couldn’t believe it, like it was so magical. That opened up the world of jazz to me.”
The seed of a lifelong fascination and passion had been planted. Flea explains how jazz became his guiding light and a dependable avenue of positivity, even through the many challenges of a tumultuous upbringing.
“First record I got was Louis Armstrong… but one of the very next records I got was Kind Of Blue. I would just sit in the room and listen to it, and I really started understanding like the seriousness of the moment and the fragility of the moment… you have to really love your fellow musicians, and wanting to honor like the best part of yourself and to honor the best part of them, to play together in this real sacred space…” Flea waxes.
“I was never a good practicer or studier as a kid, like I was kinda feral. I was in the street from a pretty young age, kinda unwatched, and getting up to trouble… but even when I was at my worst, music in general was always something that was there for me as a guiding light.”
Decades later, and deep into a vibrant career that most artists would dream of, that childhood wonder resurfaced when Flea heard Kamasi Washington’s The Epic, inspiring him to pick up the trumpet once again, with renewed purpose.
“When that record came out, I was so excited… like, having that feeling like when I was a little kid… and I’d be like ‘I’m gonna get my trumpet playing together!’ And I’d play it a little bit… start to kinda get a tone and some chops… man I’d get frustrated… I guess like three years ago now, I was just like ‘I’m gonna practice every day for two years without fail, and at the end of the two years I’m gonna go make a record as good as I am.’ And so that’s what I did”
Flea’s Honora is available now on Nonesuch Records.
Special thanks to Sarah Geledi, Christian McBride, and Jazz Night In America for sharing this interview with us, which you can hear in full at WBGO.org
