JAIME FOXX TALKS ABOUT EXECUTIVE PRODUCING 'THUNDER SOUL'

Jamie Foxx says he really had no choice about executive-producing "Thunder Soul," a documentary about one of the all-time great high school musical ensembles, the Kashmere High School Stage Band of Houston in the mid-1970s.

When he saw the films of this band, Foxx says he was blown away. On the more ominous side, because of how things have changed, he isn't sure the story could ever happen again.

The Kashmere band was willed into existence by Conrad (Prof) Johnson, a musician, teacher and bandleader who decided to channel some of the student adrenaline of that era into music.

He took students like Craig Baldwin, who today describes himself as a "young thug ... on my way to becoming a felon," and gave them a musical instrument instead of a street piece.

Thirty-five years later, a quite respectable Craig Baldwin returns to Kashmere to reassemble band members for a reunion concert to honor Prof, who around late 2008 was turning 92.

"Thunder Soul," arriving Friday, uses that reunion to tell the Kashmere story, interspersing vintage film clips to show how Prof took a fairly ordinary jazz band and gave it electricity and style.

The Kashmere band wouldn't just play music, said Prof, it would put on a show, in the tradition of Cab Calloway or James Brown.

The horns didn't sit and play the notes. They'd stand up and swing, with synchronized choreography.

Kashmere would go to national competitions "and no one knew what to make of them," says Foxx. "It was like back in the day, the '50s and '60s, when the 'mainstream' was first exposed to rhythm and blues. They hadn't heard anything like it, they just knew they wanted to dance to it."

Kashmere won national high school stage band competitions in parts of the South where, not many years earlier, they wouldn't have been able to stay in a hotel or order a meal.

Their success lifted the whole school, Johnson and others from that era say. Sports teams started winning championships. Academic performance rose. It wasn't all the result of the band, says Johnson, but the group had raised the bar for everyone.

Then it all ended. A new principal in the late 1970s decided the school was putting too many resources into non-core activities like the stage band.

It was a precursor of what would happen to arts education across the country during the next couple of decades. That's the part of the story Foxx finds frustrating and depressing.

"I hope people will look at this film and recognize the value of music and arts education," he says. "But I just don't know.
"We may be the most embarrassing country in the world when it comes to education. We're probably the richest country, and when it comes to education, it's like we don't care.

"Over the past 30 years, it feels like we just gave up. It's a joke."

Part of the reason he gets so passionate on that subject, he explains, is that "music education set up my whole career. I wouldn't be where I am today without it.

"It doesn't only teach you the skill, it gives you a sense of choices. It gives you a whole fuller way to look at life."
Foxx's comments are echoed in the film by Baldwin and others, who say Prof not only gave them the desire to excel, but instilled the belief that they could.

When the band members reassemble for the "Thunder Soul" performance, they turn out to be doctors, lawyers, professionals. Few made music their lives, but all say that what they learned from being in the band helped them succeed in the careers they did choose.

By the way, anyone who is tempted to compare the Kashmere band to the show choir in the TV series "Glee" — because both focus on students discovering themselves by joining a musical group — needs to talk to someone other than Foxx.

Asked if he sees any resemblance, peripheral or otherwise, he says a terse "no" and awaits the next question.

He does, however, say several male Kashmere performers are on to something when they admit they joined the band in part to get the attention of girls.

"Women love hearing music," Foxx says. "I used to do this joke on BET that I'm not Denzel Washington, but if I sing, you'll think I am.

"When you're up there playing the saxophone or a guitar solo, it does something to women."

Foxx himself came into the "Thunder Soul" project after the film was pretty much finished, in late 2009 or early 2010. He heard the music, he says, "and I had to be part of it."

There have been discussions about a scripted film, and while he volunteers no other details, it wouldn't be a stretch to see him playing a younger Conrad Johnson.

He also says, despite his concern about education, that "we've made tremendous strides" toward integrating the kind of music that Kashmere represents into popular culture.

"Black music has always been the foundation for popular music," he says. "Now black music is popular music."



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