Consider This from NPR - Constance Hauman 'Plays It Forward': A Musical Gratitude Project

Episode Date: November 26, 2021

This Thanksgiving week, we're sharing a segment from our special series Play It Forward, in which artists tell us about their own music and the musicians who inspire them. This episode, opera singer and funk keyboardist Constance Hauman speaks to Ari Shapiro about her new album, Tropical Thunderstorm, her experiences as a multi-genre musician and an artist she's grateful for: Daf player Asal Malekzadeh. In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

It's Consider This from NPR. Yesterday on Thanksgiving, we took a short break from the news to introduce you to a musical gratitude project called Play It Forward. It works like this. I talk to a musician about their work, and they tell me about another musician whose work inspires them, and then, as you're about to hear, we track down that musician and continue the chain. So in our last episode, funk legend George Clinton told us about Constance Howman. This is her song Swag from the album see the red flag. Hauman is a pianist who plays in funk and rock bands and who also happens to be a world-renowned opera singer. Here's how Clinton came to know her.

She opened up for us at B.B. King's in New York. We ended up working together for almost two years, all through Australia, Europe, everywhere. But I had no idea about the opera part of it until somebody said Constance sang opera herself. And I said, yeah, and they showed me her video. And I'm like, oh my God, what? I had to call up and say, you didn't tell me about this.

Well, we're going to go to Constance next. So what would you like to say to her? I'm ready to hit the road again. Are you ready to hit the road again? Oh, God. Coming up, Constance Howman, the next link in our chain of Play It Forward. From NPR, I'm Ari Shapiro. It's Friday, November 26th.

This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today, or visit wise.com. T's and C's apply. It's Consider This from NPR. Before we get started with Constance Howman, just a heads up that you can check out every segment from Play It Forward at NPR.org. There's a link in our episode notes if you're looking for an interesting way to discover some new music. So back to George Clinton, who had one more message for us to bring to Constance Howman.

Tell her I'll see her in outer space. Oh, God. Constance Howman. Tell her I'll see her in outer space. Oh, gosh. Constance Howman, welcome to Play It Forward. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. I just, I love George so much when I hear his voice. It just, I am so full of joy. Just, I can't

even tell you. Yeah, what's your reaction to hearing George Clinton say he is grateful for your work? I mean, it moves me to tears. I mean, I, you know, he was an idol and Parliament Funkadelic was such a huge inspiration and something I always listened to on the road when I was doing opera to keep it going. And so to me, it just seems like it's a total miracle, amazing story that I took the band to United Sound in Detroit where Parliament had recorded all their records with this crazy idea

that maybe George would listen to it if I could get it to him and he would see that we recorded at United Sound. And it worked, I think. That's amazing. And it ended up that we, you know, I just thought, okay, the record's coming out. We'll be so lucky if we even get five minutes to open, you know, play one song. And it turned into one show led to five shows, which led to a tour, which led to another tour and another tour and another tour.

Just a dream scenario, like a movie. What's so wild to me is that this is not the first time you've had one of these kind of incredible stars aligning scenarios in your life. I mean, if we could go all the way back to 1989, you were 28. You were trying to make it as an opera singer and the legendary composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein called you with basically 24 hours notice to sing one of his most difficult roles, Cunegonda, in the musical Candide, with the London Symphony Orchestra, live on television. You killed it, and it changed your life. I would say it changed my life in that, as George said, I went to outer space. It was like being transported to another galaxy to have that experience and then have to come back to Earth and go back to having a normal opera career.

But it seemed that the whole everything that, I don't know, my whole life for the future was contained in that one moment. And I think that's what years later gave me the courage to just say, okay, you know what? That happened. Why couldn't it happen again? I'm going to get this band to George Clinton. I love the image of you as a young opera singer traveling from gig to gig listening to funk music. Because over the course of your career, you have explored music in so many ways, in so many genres, in so many directions. I mean, just to give listeners a small sense of it, here's a track from your funk band solo album, Tropical Thunderstorm,

which is a completely different sound. Yeah. I cannot weather Though I know it's not very royal To express my emotion Tell us about this evolution that has just defined your career, I know it's not very royal to express my emotion. Tell us about this evolution that has just defined your career, branching out in so many different ways.

Well, again, I have to take it back to Lenny and the Young People's Concerts. For people who don't know, the Young People's Concerts was this televised CBS series that was really instrumental in bringing classical music to a wider audience. Yes, as well as bringing the idea that, as he would always say, there shouldn't be genre prejudice because good music, no matter what genre, is the same music. And he had a show, you know, showed Beethoven compared to the Beatles and the chord changes and how there's not really, there shouldn't be a psychological block of people to listen to different types of music. And he was the first and only conductor to do that.

Are there things that you take from your classical training that you think make you a better funk musician, that you think apply to these other genres that you're exploring in your music now, that people might think of as it being at the opposite end of the spectrum from opera? Yes. I mean, I think you become a better musician by being open to everything. Because rhythm is rhythm. And if you really take apart Berg and Strömberg and Debussy and Ravel and all those harmonies

they were experimenting with at different times, you can hear it translated then into funk harmonies and R&B harmonies. It's harmony and rhythm. It's sound and light. And you just pull it in. Constance Hellman, it is now your turn to play it forward. Tell us about a musician who you're thankful for, whose work you appreciate, who maybe looks and sounds different from you. Well, Azal Malazikde. She is an Iranian daft player. Which is a percussion instrument. Yes, an ancient instrument from Persia. And she has a 90-piece female percussion band, and she's a driving force in the music

there. Is there a track of hers we can play to introduce listeners to her music? Yes. I mean, she's got many, so many. Restless Hands is a perfect one. So that's her on percussion then? Yeah, on top and playing her other percussion. Tell us what this is doing for you. It's an ethereal, powerful sound. She's channeling it. I mean, it's not calculated. It's so inspired

all her beats are that it's something that's coming from inside and you don't know what's going to happen and

I can feel that in her playing well I know you've never met her but we're going to go to her next so that's so exciting what would you like to say to Asal

Asal you don't know me and I don't know you, but I know your music and your music makes me feel like I know you. And I'm so inspired by everything that you're doing as a teacher and a mentor to other musicians. And I think your rhythms are so beautiful and inspire me.

And I hope I meet you sometime. Constance Hellman, her new album is Tropical Thunderstorm. Thank you so much for talking with us. Thank you. Thank you so much. And thanks also to Noah Caldwell for his help and production in the episodes that you heard yesterday and today. We are back with regular episodes of the show next week. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Ari Shapiro.