I want you to close your eyes and listen to this. It might sound familiar.
If you’re a fan of hip-hop, you’ve probably heard it before.
Maybe in Ghostface Killah’s “Daytona 500.”
Or A Tribe Called Quest’s “Clap Your Hands.”
It’s at the heart of Run-DMC’s “Beats To The Rhyme.”
The instrumental “Nautilus” by keyboardist Bob James appeared as the last track on his 1974 album “One.”
“My theory is that it is kind of the sonic architecture of hip-hop. It is a driving beat with a funky bass line and a sort of semi-avant-garde melodic element, and with this sort of spooky, mysterious energy to it," said Mikael Jorgensen.
He’s played the keys in Wilco for over twenty years, first appearing with the Chicago rock vets on their acclaimed 2004 album “A Ghost Is Born.”
Here’s “Theologians,” one of the first songs he helped write with Wilco.
Jorgensen’s connection with James is long and personal.
“My father, Joe Jorgensen, was Bob's recording engineer starting in about 1976," he told WAMC. "And he took me – Joe, my dad – took me to recording sessions as a kid in New York City of Bob, and it was easily the inception point for my life and a career in music. Bob would give me his outdated-ish computer hardware and a synthesizer and a sampler when I was a teenager.”
After his father and James stopped working together in the late 80s, decades passed before Jorgensen would see the keyboardist again. In that time, his father passed away and his career with Wilco flourished. At a 2022 concert James played in Los Angeles, Jorgensen had a revelation after reuniting with his mentor after many years.
“This was like reconnecting with Bob, and also reconnecting with my father. And on the way home from that show, I was like, oh, there's so much unfinished business in a good way to get into with him," he explained. "And then on the drive back home, which is about an hour and a half, so I was like, there's no doc on Bob! And so, I started daring the universe and telling people, like, yeah, there's no doc on this guy! And someone's like, you should do it. I was like, OK.”
Hence, Jorgensen stepped out from behind the keys and into the director’s chair to helm “Avant Smooth,” his debut documentary feature.
“Errol Morris is a hero slash North Star," said Jorgensen. There's a great documentary with Sidney Pollack and Frank Gehry called ‘Sketches of Frank Gehry,’ which is the two of those guys talking about creativity, focusing on Geary's life, and it's a little less the illustrated Wikipedia entry, and more this sort of ongoing conversation and dialog about creativity, and the challenges and the rewards of that process.”
Jorgensen and James will be at Solid Sound together on Friday and Sunday to talk about and share clips from the forthcoming doc – which is eyeing a 2027 release – as well as play together and discuss the creative life. The appearances will bookend Wilco’s set on Joe’s Field come Saturday night, where the band will commune with its dedicated fanbase at the festival they’ve cultivated for the past 16 years.
“It is a big lift for all of us, everybody -- band and crew, and support people, and the MASS MoCA folks -- but it really feels like this continuing conversation between us and our fans," Jorgensen told WAMC. "We have been cultivating this partnership with them for decades, and it seems this seems like the loudest conversation that occurs, and I am so impressed and respectful of our audience and how kind of curious and patient and engaged they are.”
