From JB:
For over 30 years, I have been working with artists big and small in various capacities: producer, co-writer, advisor, support musician, fellow traveler. I once heard my production hero Daniel Lanois (peter Gabriel, U2, Bob Dylan etc) describe his role as ‘giving the artist permission to be the greatest version of themselves.’ That really resonated with me, because no matter what situation I found myself in, that seemed to be the ultimate goal: how can I help this artist actualize their creative potential? How can I help them position themselves and their music correctly in the world? What is that ‘sweet spot’ where their talents are most likely to be expressed, as well as received and valued?
The Cruzanderos story
Maybe the best illustration of this is my experience working with KC Porter on his album Cruzanderos.
No one needs a ‘producer’ less than KC Porter. He's a multi-Grammy-winning producer himself, having worked with everyone from Ricky Martin to Janet Jackson. In the Latin world he's basically Quincy Jones. He and I worked together on Santana's Supernatural and Shaman albums among many others over the years. So imagine my surprise when he asked me to co-produce his own solo album, which he'd always wanted to make, starting from the very beginning of the writing process.
But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense: KC's job is usually to be the objective voice in the room, the expert, not the artist. To do this project, he needed to let that go. He needed to get out of the bird's-eye view and be immersed in his own his own personal perspective, his own voice, the realm of the subjective. And so naturally, I did what any good producer would do with their artist: I took KC to the middle of LA to walk around Central American neighborhoods and eat food that reminded him of growing up as an expat child in Guatemala City. We did this for two days. It triggered so many memories, stories and trains of thought that we had the conceptual bones of the album before ever sitting down at the piano.
This wasn't a frivolous exercise. It was an essential reset that got us on track to make something authentic and meaningful: a sort of musical memoir, a thesis statement of KC the songwriter, KC the vocalist, KC the musician. Many other similar things happened during the making of Cruzanderos—visits from amazing collaborators, even a trumpet session with Cuban jazz legend Arturo Sandoval, whose home studio is basically a shrine to Dizzy Gillespie. But it was in those first few days that the tone of the project was set; we could tell that there was a great album in the room, waiting to be made.
This is what I want to offer you.
If I have a superpower, it's this: I can sense what an artist does and doesn't need, where their strengths are, what makes them compelling, what their sticking points might be. Our goal will be to zone in on the core identity that makes your music what it is, and give you a giant permission slip to fly your flag and find your audience.