Legendary jazz pianist Bob James appeared on the latest episode of People's Party with Talib Kweli and discussed one of Hip-Hop's favorite songs, "Nautilus."
James, who is also responsible for "Take Me To The Mardis Gras," and other songs that are go-to Hip-Hop samples says that "Nautilus" almost didn't happen.
"Nautilus I can truthfully say was almost a throw away," he remembered. "I had a bunch of other songs that I had auditioned for Creed Taylor (record label CEO), and we had a concept of how we wanted the album to go but we didn't quite have enough material."
James then recalled driving across the Tapan Zee Bridge to the recording studio and not having a chart for his embryonic idea for the song. "I didn't have a chart or anything specific planned for that day, but I did have a bassline in my head that I wanted Gary King to play and I knew that he would hook me up by turning my little bassline into magic."
James then explained that he didn't think that the song would get any airplay and it was "tucked away on side b as the last song."
"We didn't have a title, we just called it track number ten," he said. "Because the Arp Odyssey keyboard sounds sounded like a submarine, Creed called it 'Nautilus'."