Bruce Hornsby: The Master of Levitation

Mark F. Turner

Senior Contributor since 2001

Considering himself a modern day 'Jazz Explorer' Mark continues to discover new and exciting music territories.

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Published: October 27, 2009

And then there's the infectious "Prairie Dog Town." In what first appears to be an ethological study of cuddly grassland animals, turns into what may be a humorous bite on community boundaries and conflicts.

Jack DeJohnette, Bruce Hornsby and Christian McBride

"It's basically your 'can't judge a book by its cover' song," Hornsby explained. "These prairie dogs look so nice and so cute and sort of huggable, but if you get next to them they'll bite your ass. They're nasty little creatures actually, so I used that as a metaphor for some other situations."

This food for thought is disclosed in this section of the song's verse:

Disregard the great ethical truths
It's the collective life of the herd for you.
Closed society, no open door policy
Collectivist secret ideology

To whom are the lyrics referring to? It's clearly left to interpretation, Hornsby laughs. "That's right—I'll leave it to the listener," he said. "Whoever they think I'm talking about, that's who it is."

Hornsby's thought ballads continue to be memorable, whether dealing with the topic of introspection found in "Invisible" or the deeply personal, "Continental Drift," which contains a guitar solo by his nephew R.S. Hornsby, who tragically died in an automobile accident shortly after the recording. "He was a beautiful player," Hornsby said. "We miss him so much."

The making of the song "Levitate" is a tale within itself. It emerged from a film score that Hornsby was writing for filmmaker Spike Lee's Kobe Doin' Work, a documentary on NBA basketball star Kobe Bryant.

"My producer, Tony Berg, was badgering me for months," Hornsby said. "He knew I was doing the score for the Spike Lee movie, and he was saying, 'You gotta play this song for Spike, he'll love it.' Sure enough, I finally got around to playing it for Spike and he called me and said, 'Levitate, I gotta have it.' And so lyrically, it's a song inspired by the young ballers in the hood. While everyone else is fooling around, these guys are putting in the work, looking for the ecstatic state, the feeling of excelling in something, you know. The state of levitation figuratively speaking, and so that's what the song is about. It seemed to work really well, lyrically and musically, for Spike. But it was a song originally for this record."

While most players began learning music on the piano, Hornsby's first instrument was surprisingly not on the keys.

"Well no, I played guitar, like lots of kids in The Beatles era," Hornsby said. "I had a band in the sixth grade playing junior high dances and Rolling Stones songs and I was more of a jock. But I got more into the piano at around age 17. I got really intense about it, and so I kind of knew about a year into this immersion that I wanted to do this for a living but I didn't think that I was good enough without being laughed at by my family. Sure enough when I first brought it up, there was definitely some resistance to the idea. But I think I knew that I was gonna do this my first year of college.

"I went to a real college, quote unquote, not a music school," he added. "I went to the University of Richmond for a year and that was when I said, 'You know what, I don't care what people say, this isn't for me, I have to cast my lot with the 'musos.' And I did that the next year. Actually, the very next summer I went to Berklee College of Music for two semesters and then transferred to the University of Miami, where I really got it together. I was playing five or six hours a day; playing at night, putting myself through school because my Dad wasn't so sure about the music thing, but that was good for me because I played all sorts of gigs from disco bands to piano bars, country club functions, Bar Mitzvahs and wedding receptions. It was a good experience."

This pianistic baptism into diverse settings most certainly paid off, rewarding Hornsby not only a wealth of experiences but also an encyclopedic base in the creation of his own voice. But who are some of his influences?

"Well, in the past it was a pretty simple progression of influences," he said. "I started playing the piano because of Elton John and Leon Russell. Then I got into Keith Jarrett and Bill Evans from reading about them and then hearing their records and being completely blown away. Then I got into Bud Powell, Chick Corea, McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock and Wynton Kelly and on and on. Later I got into people like Dr. John and Otis Span and Professor Longhair and New Orleans blues.