. good evening from los angeles, i'm tavis smiley, tonight we have a tribute to al jarreau, right now coming up. and from contributions to

viewers like you, thank you. ♪ ♪ yesterday, al jarreau died here in los angeles at the age of 76. the seven-time grammy winner had recently announced his plans to retire, after being exhausted. he was here on the show many times and joined us on our very first night on this network back in 2004 and was kind enough to perform one of my favorite songs. i'll let al introduce it for you. >> as we say good-bye tonight i'm thrilled to have a dear friend who brought his unique voice along with him. to help us bring our first show to a close he has had so many

hits and i have so little time. he is going to sing a song for us, my dear friend, al jarreau, take it away. >> i'm sorry, we have to cut it short because of a tribute in the middle. to the new south africa. ♪ ♪ ♪ there is a dream of the tree and of the flowers ♪ ♪ will we a season of peace -- where we're redeemed and history will crown us ♪ ♪ ♪ and would you say that it's all right ♪ ♪ when the children play they always say that say we're alike ♪ ♪

to the first and last who are all divine ♪ ♪ one and all the big and small ♪ ♪ well each and every child for all his words ♪ ♪ take the one who is always last and make him first ♪ ♪ take these seeds ♪ ♪ seed the earth ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ yeah, ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ yeah, yeah, ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ what a long way we have come ♪ ♪

we're coming along ♪ ♪ making a home for everyone. >> al celebrated our successes and we celebrated his. this next conversation took place after he learned that his tribute album to george duke, called my friend, had reached the top of the charts. we talked about his creative process and after a decades-long career he still believe that ♪ had the power to change the world. >> number one, you did it again, number one album. tell me about the decision -- and maybe it even wasn't a decision, but how did you process back in the '60s swimming upstream, as you won't it? cutting against the grain. >> i couldn't help it, that is what i said a moment ago, neither of us had any choice. i came up listening to sarah

vaughn, billy epstein, nat cole, all of my brothers and sisters who were older than me back in milwaukee, number five of six kids and they were listening to jazzy kind of music, big band music. and the artists that i mentioned there. and so i listened to that in my living room and they were singing it. that's the main thing, they were singing it. they had quartets in my living room and i was looking up singing -- and didn't know i was not supposed to do that may -- that is what i mean by no choice. >> i'm laughing, because i am sure you really were doing that. >> i didn't know i was not supposed to say your lips were

like a red and ruby -- warm and in the summer night, i would be 6 years old, and kind of to myself, i didn't want them to hear me and when i went down to the basement shoveling coal, we had a coal fire stove in the basement. oh, my goodness. so that's kind of what i mean by it being in your bones and the church was there, too, with its message, tavis, and so all of that is inside the music. and -- i'm glad for having no choice. and you know, i think in some kind of ways we are all born into stuff. that gives us no choice, that thumb print. >> the thumb print. >> yeah. >> and that is kind of the beauty of the people born on the other side of the tracks. nobody can tell that story like you. a guy born with a silver spoon in his mouth can't tell that story like you can tell that

story. >> yeah. >> with this thumb print born into your life, celebrate it! do something with it and celebrate it. >> i want to come back to this project in a second, but that little scatting thing you did a moment ago, how did you -- not that i ever will. how did you become proficient, and say go, al and you just work it, is it a gift? >> yeah, i worked at it. there is some gift. >> give me something else. >> do, that, do, that o-- do that, beat box -- do that -- bip to, bip, to --

>> my man. >> you know you got to be driving in your car, you got to be washing dishes. and that's when good music and new music comes. busy your hands with a little something that doesn't mean anything, but just busy your hands, drive the car, it opens up that other side of your mind. we all talk about the creative process sometime, let's talk about it now. i was just saying that's is how songs begin. that is how you get in touch -- you get in touch, to create now -- like god created. you can get -- you can get in touch. and you kind of do it in the garden, working the garden, you plant some flowers, people feel at peace and such good feelings inside of them. lot of people will write the beginning of a song, happens all the time for me. and there is some research about

what happens when you busy your hands with what is going on in a certain kind of your brain, pre-frontal that opens up a whole other thing. and it's the create -- you see and hear -- i saw us talking today. there is a whole line of things that we could talk about that i saw this morning when i was washing dishes. >> i got to start using my hands then. >> i got to start using my hands then -- >> the rock garden, the priests in asia, rock garden, open up that other side of the mind getting in touch with god. sisters know the rosary, you think about saying that over and over again, it's what happens when your hands and mind are busy with some repetitive manual function, and what it does is

open up the way to be in touch. it's a joy to have this, waking up in the morning and going man, here i am. thank you, father. not running a thousand miles any more and my hundred meter times are not the same. [ laughter ] >> but here i am and i got this song to sing and i got the people who like to hear me sing it. what did maya angelou say? people may forget what you say, people may forget what you do, but they will never forget how you made them feel. >> how you made them feel. >> yeah, yeah. go to the stage with that in your heart. and i'll bring people a feeling that uplifts them, brings them courage and strength and hope. that's a deal. >> there are a -- i didn't just

hear you, i felt that expression, i felt it across this space here. there are a lot of people, though, sadly, who no longer believe that music is still pregnant with that kind of potency, that kind of power, you still believe it has that kind of power. >> incredible, great power, marcus was with us when we did a great celebration of jazz in turkey, sponsored by the u.n. and the thelonius monk institution. herby was there, too. and marcus sat on the stage, and a question like that got raised and marcus said so wonderfully and eloquently, we go to japan or italy and people don't speak the same language that we do, but as soon as we start to play we're talking the same along. music, the special magic that

creates feelings and sensitivities that are human and that is what is so wonderful about the art. let your kids get involved in the arts. and study. and this workshop of human sensitivities. sadness, joy, happiness, and aware of sadness and joy and happiness in their lives. our congress ain't never listened to any kind of music. >> that's a problem, isn't it? congress needs a music appreciation class and that may change their whole outlook. you may be on to something, al, instead of cutting programs in school they ought to be sitting in music class. >> that is right, a workshop on human sensitivity. >> in 2006, al collaborated with then label-made george benson, they stopped by the studio, and said paul mccartney wanted to

meet al, dropped by anden endedp on the record. >> he came into pay his respects, i had been knowing him for 20-something years. came in from a studio next door where he was recording something. he was on the grounds, a big complex, a lot of studios and out of the clear blue sky he cold comes in, now in the room we have superstars in there, george benson, herby hancock, he wanted to meet al, never met all all, and they said george -- they said that looks like paul mccartney, i said sir paul mccartney to you. and we had a very friendly you know meeting. and al, when we were playing back you know sam cooke's tune, bring it on home. >> we were listening to it again getting ready to do some work on

it ourselves. and george said paul, you know this song, don't you? would you do it? would you sing it for us? paul says, do you believe the bloody cheek of this guy? i'm trying to do me own album and he is getting me to sing on his album, what do you think it is -- >> but it worked. >> two days later he came back and he thought about it. and two days later he came back and he was ready to sing. >> that is a cool story. >> all right, it's a wonderful story. >> so he just drops in and two days later he is on the record. >> the only thing more important to al jarreau than music was his love for people, he was always traveling the globe, meeting people where they lived. he saw himself as a indecenciti artist, and we talked about it. >> if you don't know al has

thoughts about everything and i love hearing it. >> let me make you political deliberately on purpose, just give me your thoughts about the nation, the world we live right now. you're always talking about the world, and traveling the world, tell me how we're doing as citizens of the world. >> there is a group called the g-9. that is all the industrialized nations, some of them were our allies during wars but we mention them all the time because they are our friends. and i'm talking about france and germany and italy and spain. and new friend germany. >> and i love that story, how they are -- how they lead the world in some things the world needs leadership in. and among them, we're the only ones without national health care. >> uh-huh. >> can't go to a hospital and not worry about falling into

bankruptcy. they go to university. >> free. >> uh-huh. >> we're killing our students with debt. that scares me. i -- the 405 is the worst freeway to the airport that i have ever driven on, i'm in a lot of freeways to the airport because our infrastructure is falling apart. somebody has threatened washington with no, you can't raise any new tax dollars. and it's got to come from deep pockets that hide it. i'm real unhappy about that. >> uh-huh. >> that hide it and don't -- use our highways, use our airports, use our fire department, use you'our libraries, use our universities and then hoarde it away and sit

in an office and move decimal points around, nobody doing this. breaks my heart. and we got to find a way to fix that. because there are a lot of things that need some fixing and need some help and a lot of it needs revenues and new revenues. >> i got two minutes to go and i could do this for days literally. these last couple of minutes, how then given all that you have just laid out, all that our fellow citizens are up against when they take their hard earned money and choose to send it in this country or any place in the world to come see al jarreau -- i mean, you're going to give them the best show anyway that you can give them but given what people are up against and given what they have to come through to come see you, does that give you any extra oomph, knowing

that people make sacrifices? >> yes, that is always in the back of my thinking, it's always been there that my audience is not an audience that is flush with money. these are people who really worked hard to come and hear me. i love my cross section, cross cultural audience. and some of them are doing better than -- than the average guy. but my audience has always been people who are struggling to stay in the middle class. >> everyday people, struggling -- >> struggling to stay in the middle class and i love that. >> in the aftermath of the passing of his friend and collaborator, george duke, al shared his thoughts. it would be his very last partners appearance on this show. >> when you lose a friend like george duke and he was gone so fast it seems, you start to

think about your own dance with mortality. >> of course. >> and what do you think -- if i can ask. >> i'm, hey, man -- it gave me a chance to review the truth about the matter and it's that we are okay. we are -- i'm from the spirit of god. we're just crossing over and moving on. we cross over and move on. we talk about it all the time at funerals that he has moved on. and we mentioned and he has gone onto heaven. well, the idea, we got it from somewhere, wherever we got it from, it's right. this ain't the end. it would be unlike anything in existence that i know of that is like this and ends here. nothing ends. it comes from something, goes onto something else and that is the mission that we're on is to beautify this, study and learn

that and move on. >> and move on. >> yeah. sorry, sorry -- probably blew the whole hour, didn't i? >> no, you didn't, you said something profound, people are marina marinading on it. copy singing about it, we are in the bosom, god loses nothing. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ come from hope -- beurning it u,

burning it down, burn ling it s hot the snow on the ground ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ burning it up, you burning it down, burning it so hot the snow on the ground -- you better pass the cold water around ♪ ♪ ♪ got it down -- one time ♪ ♪ ♪ now this ♪ ♪ ♪

here comes -- your lips were like a red and ruby chalice ♪ ♪ ♪ warmer than a summer night ♪ ♪ the clouds when i get out rising to a starry high ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ each star it's on aurora borealis ♪ ♪ set to help me ♪ ♪ and i saw the midnight sun ♪ ♪ ♪ the midnight sun ♪ ♪ was there such a night ♪ ♪ it's a thrill that i still don't quite believe ♪ ♪

yes, it is hard to conceal ♪ ♪ but after you were gone there was still some star dust on my sleeve ♪ ♪ and stars forget to shine ♪ ♪ oh, i may see the meadow in december ♪ ♪ i say white and crystalline ♪ ♪ but oh my darling always i'll remember when your lips were pressing mine ♪ ♪ and i saw the midnight sun ♪

♪ ♪ i saw the midnight sun ♪ ♪ suddenly we were laughing crying cause the sun was shining bright ♪ ♪ at midnight ♪ ♪ >> ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

got something to say ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ke a preacher to pray ♪ ♪ ♪ we have been talking all day ♪ ♪ ♪ for more information on today's show visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. >> hi, i'm tavis smiley, and we talk about life animated. that is next time. we'll see you then.

and by contributions to our station, from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ ♪

good evening from los angeles. i'm tavis smiley. socialism is popular once again in america, thanks in part to the insurgent campaign of bernie sanders and the victory of donald trump. tonight then, a conversation with bhaskar sun car, a founder editor of a magazine. we'll talk about the democrats, the republicans and most importantly, where we go from here. we're glad you've joined us. bhaskar sunkara coming up in a moment.