This is an excerpt of an interview by Christopher Loudon in the December 2004 issue of JazzTimes...

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Everybody knows you as a great comedian and, thanks to Collateral and now Ray, also as a terrific dramatic actor, but your earliest ambition was to be a musician and, I understand, your musical training turned out to be hugely beneficial.

Taylor didn't know that I play piano, so he said, "I gotta figure out a way to shoot your face and then shoot somebody else's hands playing." And I said, "No, no, I actually play. I've been playing since I was five." That opened up a whole different thing. Since I can play, we could stay in the same frame and shoot through the playing of the music and the singing at the same time, which was a huge plus.

Prior to filming you got to meet with Ray. What was that like?

Incredible! I mean you're waiting like you're in the doctor's offic, like "Oh my god, I'm gonna talk to him! What do I do, what do I say?!" He walks in, smiles, hugs me, shakes my hand and says, "Oh, you got strong hands. I love these strong hands. Let's get on the piano!" We were at his studio and there were pianos everywhere. He got on one piano and I got on another and we're playing the blues and he says, "If you can play the blues, you can do anything." So we start singing back and forth and, boom! He goes into Thelonious Monk. I didn't know what to do, so I quit playing. He says, "Go ahead and play that!" I tried and hit the wrong note and he says, "Why the hell would you do that?!" I said, "I don't know," and he says, "Well, the notes are right underneath your fingers. You just need to take time out to find the notes." I took that as a metaphor. Ray was telling me that life is notes underneath your fingers. You just need to take time to figure out what notes you need to play.

How did you match Ray's fingering so precisely?

You have to have patience! There would be times when everybody would be, like, "Foxx! You gotta go to sleep." And i'd say, 'I can't go to sleep, even though i've got to be on set at eight in the morning, because I have to have all of these 96 music cues learned." It was too important to the piece. If I didn't have them down, the piece was gonna fail. The music had to be legit. It was like I wasn't rehearsing to go play in a movie; I was rehearsing because we've got a gig tomorrow!
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tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...rmusic.htm

jamie TORE UP Ray. Got damn he shold win for that movie, he played that part very very well. The best acting I have ever seen him do. It was a wonderful movie also (although I watched it on bootleg DVD).

I can't wait 2 see this!!!
I probably have 2 wait before it shows up here
at the north pole tho'
/peace Manki

i heard this before-cracks me up everytime!

If I remember the movie correctly, I think Ray was feeling up Jamie Foxx!

manki said:

Maybe Santa will think about you.

Have you been good?

tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...rmusic.htm