Soon, he’d enlist her help in writing the strings for his song “Baby.” Prince was struck and befuddled by her mastery and inquired, “How’d you get that sound?” in what Rushen remembers as a dulcet tone. As documented in a Bandcamp Daily Interview, he reached out to her while recording his debut LP For You. That versatility, with bankability, led Prince seek Rushen out, and pick her brain. Similar to “Remind Me” and that track’s significance to jazz-fusion musicians, the songs provided a runway to fellow creatives, a potential lane in which to earn money, be contemporary, and still hold on to your authenticity. “Breakout!” is a punk-funk-rocker of sorts, one that would later provide Laura Branigan with a color-by-numbers pathway to synth-pop dominance. Once we work past the Grammy-nominated highlights of Straight From The Heart, we get into its deeper cuts, like “Where There Is Love,” a moonlight-beam-filled jaunt with atmospheric vibes that lays the foundation of how quiet storm radio was about to take over. While maintaining her jazz roots, she’d accumulate various forms of accolades-financial and critical-for decades to come. This masterful arrangement, coming from a young African American woman who wrote, performed, scored, produced, played, and ran her outfit, was the genesis of Rushen’s bankable pop music touch.
PATRICE RUSHEN REMIND ME FULL
Moving with precision, incorporating energized Earth Wind & Fire-type horn and string charts in the introduction of the song, it pushes up to full Stravinsky intensity, and then delivers a mid-song breezy-yet-lyrical Fender Rhodes solo to cool things out. “Haven’t You Heard,” her vigorous 1979 disco hit from Pizzazz, first broadcasted Rushen’s ability to be synchronous, yet singular all at once. She had been laying the stage for this success for years. To this day, she still receives some 30 requests a week to use her music for samples, especially by hip-hop artist-and that’s not counting requests for Will Smith’s monster 1997 hit “Men In Black,” which heavily sampled “Forget Me Nots.” In acknowledgment of her accomplishment, the forward-thinking album scored Rushen her first two nominations at the 1983 Grammy Awards for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for “Forget Me Nots” and Best R&B Instrumental Performance for “Number One.” That success proved that she did know exactly what was going on in ’80s contemporary radio, while at the same time understanding what the future would require. You know, tracks you could electric slide to at your cousin’s next wedding-sounds that the label’s A&R couldn’t begin to comprehend. Straight From The Heart features funk, Afro-Cuban, boogie, augmented chord progression ballads, quiet storm selections, smooth jazz, and fusion joints to which to move. Straight from the Heart (Remastered) by Patrice Rushen It spoke to Rushen’s heart, not the label’s projected construct.
It includes Rushen’s indelible, multi-generation Black radio staple “Forget Me Nots,” the heavily-sampled “Remind Me,” and family-gathering-friendly instrumental “Number One.” It was a little bit of this, a touch of that. It is to the benefit of musicians to come that she didn’t bow to pressure to change-all these years later, the LP is being remastered by Strut Records for its 40th anniversary.īroadening pop sensibilities, the album showcases the way Black music was evolving in the early ’80s. But when she delivered her seventh studio album Straight From The Heart in 1982, A&R didn’t like it.
∙ She has collaborated and recorded with such notable jazz musicians as Kenny Burrell, Donald Byrd, Jean-Luc Ponty, Lee Ritenour, and Sonny Rollins.In 1977, Elektra Records signed LA-based polymath and jazz prodigy Patrice Rushen in the hopes of overtaking Donald Byrd and Grover Washington Jr. ∙ In 2004, she became the first woman to serve as musical director of the annual Grammy Awards ceremony, a role she also fulfilled in 20. ∙ No Strings, Sheena Easton’s acclaimed 1993 collection of jazz standards, was produced and arranged by Rushen. ∙ Her funky 1982 smash “Forget Me Nots” has been sampled by dozens of artists, including Will Smith, who used it as the basis for his hit theme from the 1997 film Men In Black. ∙ The R&B-oriented Pizzazz broke her into the mainstream in 1979, reaching No. ∙ Rushen began taking piano lessons at age three, and she was giving classical recitals by the time she was six. Patrice Rushen is an American jazz pianist and R&B singer best known for her Grammy-nominated and often-sampled hit “Forget Me Nots.”
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