What Michael Tilson Thomas learned from James Brown (a lesson in groovology)

YouTube:

In this web exclusive, conductor and composer Michael Tilson Thomas sits down with CBS News' Lesley Stahl to discuss his family history of show business; mentoring and directing young musicians; and the competitive element of his relationship with Leonard Bernstein. He also gives Stahl a lesson in conducting, including how to "mix it up," and explains why D♯ and E♭ – which share the same key on a piano – can represent two different notes.o

I've cued the video to c. 15:45 where Tilson Thomas talks about how he was influenced by James Brown (aka "the hardest working man in show business"):

Leslie Stahl: We talked so much about Leonard Bernstein's influence on you
but there was somebody else in the music world
who you also say you learned a great deal from
people are going to be stunned to know that it was James Brown
the James Brown
explain that
really what What did you learn from him
I'm stunned by this

Michael Tilson Thomas: well he was a total stage person you know
when he was on stage he was just on fire
in a whole other kind of way
and he was a performer

Stahl: yes

Thomas: astounding performer
and from the first time I heard him
there was just a level of attack in his music making
which was just like right here right now this is how it goes
and I was so impressed by that 
and then as I got to know him a bit more 
and got to go to some of his rehearsals
I saw the way he handled all that
you know how very very specific he was
with all of his musicians about exactly exactly what he wanted
and also what he didn't want
and at the same time he was always very very encouraging and very um inspiring
frightening sometimes
but basically challenging inspiring
and he was amazed to meet someone like me who was so much younger
yet I knew his music really well
i mean really well
the songs that I most admired of his are not the top 40 songs
but some other songs which were not big hits
but are so amazing what they do
sometimes with very limited means
so he has a song called
Goodbye My Love
this is not a song that many people know
and it just consists of bass player
i don't know if it was Bootsie Collins
but someone in that era that all they do is goa
da [Music] da da that's all it is
and then he sort of sings and talks his way through the song
it's half singing half talking
goodbye my love d
you're throwing me away [Music]
now sometimes people come to the end of an experience ...
that's all it is
but every one of those
little goodbye my love
is has a different slightly different shape
it's a slightly different glyph
and it's so profound each one of those little nuances
and there are a number of his songs
that weren't top 40
but that played with that kind of idea
between speaking and singing and whatever
and they were really profound 
I think

Stahl: now I have to go listen
I love that

I only ever saw James Brown once, and that was quite late in his career, when he was singing "Living in America" (a song I played with The Out of Control Rhythm and Blues Band). He'd put on a little weight, but he could still do the splits. I first became acquainted with him when I saw a film of the 1964 T.A.M.I. show during my undergraduate years at Johns Hopkins. The show featured 12 acts, ending with James Brown followed by the Rolling Stones. From the Wikipedia entry:

T.A.M.I. Show is particularly well known for the performance of James Brown and the Famous Flames, which features his legendary dance moves and explosive energy. In interviews, Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones has claimed that choosing to follow Brown and the Famous Flames (Bobby Byrd, Bobby Bennett, and Lloyd Stallworth) was the worst mistake of their careers, because no matter how well they performed, they could not top him. In a web-published interview, Binder takes credit for persuading the Stones to follow Brown, and serve as the centerpiece for the grand finale in which all the performers dance together onstage.

Right on, Keith! Compared to James Brown's moves, Mick Jagger looked stiff as a robot.

But I digress. Back to the interview. Stahl asks him about what a conductor does and through that they they segue to a discussion of Mahler, a composer whom Tilson Thomas dearly loves, as did his mentor, Leonard Bernstein, as do I. I was in school in Buffalo while Thomas was the conductor of the Buffalo Philharmonic. My teacher, David Hays, had help organize an open rehearsal of Mahler's Second Symphony to be performed, I believe, in the gym on the campus of Buffalo State University, as opposed to SUNY Buffalo, where he taught and where I was a student.

It was stunning. The orchestra set up on the floor of the gym and at least some of the audience was there on the floor as well. I certainly was. What I remember is that Tilson Thomas's beat seemed to be ahead of the orchestra by a fraction of a second, so it was as though he was pulling the orchestra behind his baton. It seemed like he was dragging the baton through a vat of molasses rather than simply waving it in the air. The resistance of the virtual molasses, that's what connected the baton with the orchestra. That's where the music lived.