Derrick Hodge: Finding Music In Unexpected Moments

Chris Baldwin/Courtesy of the artist

by NPR STAFF

August 07, 2013 4:20 AM

There are some weird sounds in jazz musician Derrick Hodge's song "Table Jawn." It was recorded at the breakfast table, during an argument Hodge was having with some bandmates.

"We were sitting there arguing about something, I think the Clippers versus the Lakers or something stupid," Hodge says. "And we all started yelling really loud, and one of us raised our voice and started beating on the table to get our point across. And then somehow, it turned into a beat — where one person grabbed a spoon, another person grabbed a coffee cup and we started doing beats to the point [where] my wife Christian grabbed her phone and recorded it."

Add a little jazz to that clanking and you've got "Table Jawn," a new song on Hodge's first solo album, Live Today. It's not his first foray into making music, though; Hodge is also bassist for the Robert Glasper Experiment.

Many musicians discover their love for music through church, but Hodge found church through music. It began one day when he was a kid, running errands with his mother in the family car.

"Someone pulled up in the car next to me and he had all these drums in the back — like, drums and keyboard and all this stuff — and he got in the car and he drove off," Hodge says. "So I said, 'Mom, can we follow that car? I saw instruments in the car.' ... For whatever reason that day, she said, 'Okay.' We pulled up to the church and she stayed in the parking lot. She said, 'All right, go in there for ten minutes.'"

Something unexpected happened after he wandered into the church that day.

Read more: http://www.npr.org/blogs/ablogsupreme/2013/08/07/209578339/derrick-hodge-finding-music-in-unexpected-moments?ft=1&f=3