Cork Jazz Festival: New Power Generation to light up Cork Opera House

The passage of time and the sometimes overbearing mythologising that comes with making music must be strange to see from within the fish bowl of touring and being a public figure - after the years of being on the road, the daily attrition of being in a band and dealing with all that attends, there’s then the matter of perception and retrospection - be it one’s own memories of the past, or the rose-tinted version that comes with gig-goers’ and album-listeners’ memories - the weight of being in the background for life’s events and the former selves left back in those moments.

New Power Generation keyboardist Mr. Morris Hayes bears a wide smile as he answers a Zoom call and the audio syncs up, an unassuming vibe that permeates the conversation that follows, ahead of an upcoming gig as part of the Jazz Weekend, that sees them reprise former bandleader Prince’s big hits in a city that once hosted one of the band’s many incarnations at Croke Park in 1990.

While Hayes himself didn’t join the NPG until 1992, he has fond memories of his own excursions to Ireland. “It's funny, I have a bit of history being there in Ireland. It was always a wonderful thing. I remember the first time I went, when I was opening for Prince, with Carmen Electra, the Diamonds and Pearls tour. That was one of the first shows that I went to that was like, outside, with 40,000 people.

I got to stand in the audience while Prince was playing; it was an incredible experience seeing him with that sort of energy

“I got to stand in the audience while Prince was playing and seeing people passing out, having water sprayed on them. It was an incredible experience seeing him with that sort of energy, and that sort of a crowd, and to be returning to that, man, it's going to be a lot of fun.

“I've been back a few different times over the years, and one of the things I remember the most is how friendly everybody was when I was in Ireland, and just walking the streets in Dublin in some of the other places, just having folks talk to us, you know, it was really nice. And I'm looking forward to that.”
The current iteration of the New Power Generation came together back in 2016, after the official tribute concert to Prince, following the man’s passing. As with any renowned body of work, fans had their say on songs that made the live cut, as well as their dismay at those that were left off the setlist - which gave rise to Hayes seeing the band’s legacy in a new light, and keeping the reunion going.

“It was fascinating - when we were putting together this tribute, it was a lot of work compressed in a short amount of time. There was some wrangling about who was going to do what, and everything, but I thought it would be good to encompass as many people that we possibly could into the experience. It turned out to be an incredible event: some 50-odd Prince songs were played in a five-hour show or thereabouts. I had played with some of these guys for more than 15 years, so everybody coming back together was an incredible experience for all of us, just having everybody, all of the different bands - unlike the Revolution and Third Eye Girl, there was a lot of members over 20 years with the NPG, and myself, I ended up being in a lot of those different incarnations of the band. To have everybody there was incredible.

“I thought it'd be a good thing for everybody to just be together, you know, come back together and see the response of the people. I ran into a lot of people on the street, I was staying in a hotel down in St. Paul, and I ran into a lot of fans the day after the show, and everybody was saying how great it was, but then the one complaint everybody had was like, 'yeah, it was great, but you didn't play my favorite song!'.

“That just let me know, man, there's an appetite for Prince's music, and people wanted to see that live, and we just said 'well, look, for those who wanted to experience that music live, then we should do it'. And that's what we did. I got as many of the original NPG members as I could together to do these shows, and sometimes we have conflicts with time, people got different things going on, so we just use as many people as we can from all of the variations of the NPG.”

Of course, the one question in assembling the NPG to reprise the hits is that of who takes the mic - no mean feat in most band reunions where a new vocalist is called for, but especially an indescribable challenge in following Prince’s vocal style and all-consuming stage presence.

In going back on the road, the band initially tried a number of vocalists before happening across current vocalist MacKenzie, who’s stepped up to that task. Hayes talks about working with MacKenzie, and how he’s had to make the gig his own.

“We saw MacKenzie online, playing with another former NPG member, Gouche, and he was doing his thing, we saw his video, we said, 'oh my god, we gotta check this kid out'. And so we brought him out to Minneapolis, and, it was funny, when he did his song, I remember me and Tony M looking at each other like [laughs, nodding], yeah, 'he's going to be alright'.

“What we've watched is how he's really grown into the position, he's our primary singer now. What's great about him, he just stepped up to the plate man, and has continued to grow and feel more comfortable in the role. It's a very difficult position, the most difficult position to fill in this band, because nobody can be Prince.

“We don't want a Prince imitator, fans are not going for that. It's not somebody that acts like Prince and looks like Prince, it would be an insult. He doesn't try to do that, he just tries to do the song, in the best possible way to deliver it, but he brings his own energy to it.”

Life in a band is oftentimes a matter of herding various cats - arranging practices, booking gigs, managing the logistics of same, not to mention adventures in recording, and so forth. Having been Prince’s former musical director - reassembling other Prince alumni into one spot over the years must be akin to some degree of sporting endeavour - to say nothing of witnessing the changes in dynamic between musicians as time passes.

“That's the one thing, it can be difficult, because these are all Class A musicians. man, and they work with other artists. That's the dance we always have to do when we get gigs. Of course, with Covid being what it was over the last few years, things are sparsely starting to come and happen again. Correlating everybody's schedules, that can be tricky, just finding out who's available at what time, depending on when we get asked about a gig, things pop up, and they come up at the last minute. People have been booked for weeks, months and things like this, so sometimes that can be difficult.

“But the good part is, most of the people that we're using from NPG because of the tracks that we always had to know with Prince, they already know all of this stuff. All they have to do is learn the arrangements, most of which have been generated from the stuff we did with Prince. We have so many different arrangements, we can play different arrangements, that even Prince did. We do that mainly because we want people to just feel that what they're getting is what we did with him. It's the same guys and girls, and so we want them to have that experience, like, 'oh man, and it sounds just like it did with him'”.

And it’s that personal connection to the man himself that informs the band at present, that history, at once a sense of ease with old work and a reflection on the time they spent together over the years.

I was in my twenties when I started working with Prince; it was an incredible journey, man, watching this man and learning from this man

“I was in my twenties when I started working with Prince. I worked at Paisley Park as a production assistant, driving the van, whatever it was I can do, just working in-studio, and kind of worked into my position. It was an incredible journey, man, watching this man and learning from this man. All the different experiences, things that you dream about when you say 'I want to be a keyboard player, I want to be in a band'.

“I went through all of those things that you go through, y'know, the television, the video, the award shows, the Superbowl, like all of these things, Madison Square Garden, Wembley Stadium - these benchmarks as you go through music, I don't think I could have went through it with a better cat, man.

“Prince was like the consummate musical hero, this dude was a perfectionist. He wanted us to always be as great as we possibly could. He is in that echelon of musicians that's legendary. It was an incredible experience for myself and all of my different bandmates, not only with Prince, but just so many other people that we were fans of, like Stevie Wonder, Chaka Khan, all of the people that worked with Prince over the years that we got the chance to play with, man... Elton John, I had Paul McCartney come over to me and Prince, he was like, 'hey, Prince, 'I heard you did my song Long and Winding Road, I'd love to get a copy'. You're like, "oh, it's a Beatle!"

“You can't imagine that kind of thing from a guy from the woods of Arkansas, man, and I'm very blessed and very honoured to have served in that role for so many years, man - it's a life-changing thing.”

The New Power Generation play the Opera House on Saturday, October 29, at 7pm. Tickets €39.50 from venue box office and corkoperahouse.ie

For more see  guinnesscorkjazz.com