Not So Mad Science 3.1.13

THE SCIENCE OF MUSIC, IMPACT AND EMOTION.

With Co-Host:

Michelle 4X and Harold Muhammad

Special Guest:

Philadelphia born percussionist James Mtume has done something unique in the music business: he has had a successful career while preserving his integrity. A successful session man, songwriter, bandleader, and producer, Mtume bowed out of the music business in the mid-'80s, when he felt the quality and history of R&B was slipping away, only to return triumphantly to lend his stellar ear and deep knowledge of black music to neo-R&B acts like Mary J. Blige. Mtume, the son of jazz saxophonist Jimmy Heath, first made in-roads into the music business in the early '70s when he moved from the city of brotherly love to New York. There he met and played with greats such as Freddie Hubbard and Sonnie Rollins, before being asked to join Miles Davis' touring group as a percussionist. Mtume spent five years with Miles and leveraged the prestigious position to become a session man, playing on Lonnie Liston Smith's Astral Traveling and Roberta Flack's Blue Lights In the Basement, among others.