And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Tavis please welcome alicia keys to this program. The 14 time grammy award winner is out with her first album in three years. Its the first since the birth sonher twoyearold egypt. It is called girl on fire. Here is the video for the title track. We got our feet on the ground, and we are burning it down clouds andead in the were not coming down fire girl is on this girl is on fire shes walking on fire this girl is on fire everybody says when she goes by they can see the flame in her eyes tavis you have a legitimate reason for being gone for three years. A baby. You have earned that. Take a few years off. Three years in this business is so long. What fear, what trepidation, what angst does one have when they are trying to put together a project that is three years in the making . This whole project, this time in my life, this album really represents an important time for inwere i have actually been the process of removing fear from my vocabulary, from my essence. Can do so much greatness when we are not afraid. It is when we are not afraid that you are going to reach your highest potential. That has been a driving force. This is about my journey. This is about my story. This is a girl becoming a woman. All those tests and trials and tribulations for someone to go we all go through it. In actuality, thats why this has been so important to me. Its not about anything. Its about a real artistic statement and being able to have something to say and bring the audience with me and say, how are you feeling . Fear is not a part of my category my vocabulary. A friend of mine sent me a note. He said, we have to give our fears and expiration date. Let me handle that for you. I love the line. Give my fears and expiration date. What were you afraid of . What were you trying to move on . I discovered the amount of fear you hold on from others. I fear i feel the majority of the fear we have we hauled from other people. We think they are our fears. The things wef are holding onto are not even ours in the first phase. They are things we have adopted. I think there has been a cleansing process about removing people, thoughts, that have just hung around and to really think about things in a brandnew outofthebox way. Asked thise you have by others but not by me, so here is my turn. Producingence between a record post baby for you is what . The difference of making this album has been everything. There has not been one thing. He is onr starters, the record. Thats one thing thats the same. Even with starting with the process of recording a record when i first started, it was so different. I was in a different time zone, where before i would be in the studio until four or five in the morning, i would roll out when i felt like it. At 12 literally i gave myself a time. At 12 of their was not magic happening in the studio i was like, today is not the day. I will come back tomorrow. Lets pick it up tomorrow. That was really cool. That gave me a whole new perspective. I started earlier. I started to understand i can trust that i understand where things are unfolding. You dont have to just eat your head against the wall, which i used to do, and just beat your head against the wall, which i used to do. I discovered love to a new capacity and new depths. I really stepped into my womanhood, so i think the creation process was more open, and that is where i combine with so many people. I wanted to do things i had never done before. It was like i needed to do things i had never done before, and that was the feeling from the beginning. Aisha, stevie wonders daughter, and every time i see her we find ourselves in the constitution about how a conversation about how many people walk up to her and find. Ut she is his baby they go in when they hear that. Tavis i wonder what you have done with egypt, what is going to happen 20 years from now. Leave me alone. Is going to be getting it like aisha is all these years later. There is a reason behind this. Share. I guess it was about 2007 or so. It was right before i did my as i am album. I went through a tough time. I think i grew up really fast. I grew up in this really fastpaced business, and i never understood what it meant to take a break or take time off to it, so iand i paid for got really out of it and down. I guess even depressed in some sense. I remember i found myself in a place where i was crying, and it was like hum a not me, because i am a bubbly type person who sees the world as half full. A good friend of mine told me, you should take a break. You should go see the world. You should go somewhere. Thats when i chose to go to egypt. I took this beautiful trip to egypt. For the first time in my life i took three weeks off. Sailed down the nile. I saw the tombs in the temples. Soaw this place that was incredibly powerful and inspiring. Allink i found by seeing back i hadhen i came a sense of who i was and what i wanted to change. It was the beginning of where i am now. Egypt really did that to me. When i was pregnant my husband was like, egypt is such an important part of your life. Why dont we name the baby egypt . If its a boy or a girl, that would be beautiful. When he said egypt, i was like, thats it he was egypt in the embryo stage for so long. Tavis i dont need to name names here, but to your point about growing up so fast in this business, you have been around a lot of people who have burnt out, artists who were once great and are no longer here because along the way they had trouble navigating a certain aspect of their life. What have you taken from those persons you had access to . You talk about your own troubles and travails. How are you manning it . For those on the outside, you are managing this pretty well. You are still putting out good music. You are married now. You have got a baby now. You are transparent in your lyrical content. You seem to be welladjusted. How are you navigating . Its definitely navigation. I think most incredibly what i have discovered is it is all mental. I guess life is all mental. It is your state of mind as to how your life becomes. That is obvious, but what happens in this world, we get caught up in this place where things that dont really matter start to matter, and it starts to get confusing as to what you hold true to your self. For me a lot of that comes from being raised by a really incredible woman. I was raised by my mother, and she is phenomenal. She is incredible. She always kept me in line. Part of that has been really good for me. Groundedreally strong, sense from the beginning. Another big part of how i navigated is where i grew up. I grew up in a tough neighborhood. I grew up around drugs and prostitution. I grew up around everything. Art of seeing that early on has made me steer far away from it in all its forms. I think that has been a big help for me. I think being really connected to a higher power, having a spirituality has been really good for me, and i pray all the time. I also think that i have been fortunate to be able to just last night i was saying, the most important thing is to be proud of the work you put into something and put the ego aside. I think it is the ego in us that screws us up. That a lot, and i really want to Stay Grounded in real life. At the end of the day so many things we hold value with does not even mean anything, so why take yourself on that trip . I try to stay focused on being really positive. I read this thing the other day that said, be happy every day you have breath. Yeah, right . Herb albert made Music History with the release of the lonely bull, the debut that dominated the airwaves back in 1962 and introduced latin infused jazz to the pop charts. Some 72 albums later he has introduced his latest called stepping out. Lets look at his latest rendition of the Irving Berlin song, putting on the ritz. Putting on the ritz perfect fit, putting on the ritz every sunday evening in their midst putting on the ritz tavis your corpus is deep enough already, and you are still working. Why dont you go sit down somewhere . I am having a good time. It gives me energy to do this. I have been playing since i was eight and not stopping. Tavis still playing every day . If i dont way i kind of miss something. Something. Ad i was just teasing. I hope you dont sit down. I love your music. You have earned the right if you want to. I think you take my point. I read somewhere recently where know your spirit, so i know what you meant by it. That you dont think you will ever master the horn. You never do that. I was friends with dizzy. He said, the closer i get, the farther it looks. Tavis i like that. Have if not mastered it you tame this beast. I dont know if i have tamed it. I am looking for my own voice. When i was trying to find my own voice, and i feel satisfied with the way i play, but there is a lot more to accomplish. What you think is still out there to discover . How much better can you get . The more i get in touch with bookf there was this written by a famous flautist, and he said, there is a formula for playing. P minus i. Als small large p is performance. Small p is potential. The minus is how you get in the way of your self, and that is the ducted from the performance. If you can get to the place where youre totally relaxed and can experience your gift, you arereally create. Tavis there nights on stage where you feel that lists, where you feel it doesnt get much better than the moment i am in now . I think thats why i am seduced i the artists in general. The power of now. When you are performing, when you are playing, sculpting, painting, its that moment. I am in that moment in my life, and thats what i have to do. I loven did this that phrase. When did this seduction begin . I started playing when i was eight. I was lucky enough to have in Elementary School that had a Music Appreciation class. It had a room filled with instruments and a table filled with instruments. I picked up the trumpet, and i was super shy. As a kid i couldnt communicate my feelings. I made this sound out of the horn. It took me a while to make sense out of it. Once i did the horn was speaking for me. The years i had a tremendous run. I feel like i need to return it. As important for me to have meaningful life. You have to be of service to others as well. Tell me about stepping out. It started with putting on the ritz. What i like to do is take songs familiar to people and put a little spin on them so it is heard in a way that hasnt been heard before. Every now and then i find myself whistling as long, and i say, whistling a song, and i say, why am i whistling . It must be that melody. I try to find a way to arrange it or do something that makes it an unusual listen. You have done that. How did you figure out what was 16 tracks . Ke these i just kept going. I had more than 16. I had 20. We whittled it down. I am a right brain guy. When it feels good, i stop. When it doesnt feel good i there is a toss it. Version of the lonely bull. It was the 50th anniversary, and i did a retake with orchestra, so its completely different than the original record gaveded in 1962, and we that away as a thank you to the folks that supported a in him through the years. Us throughout the years. Tavis when you do Something Like the lonely wolf so many years ago and you can cover it and make it sound different, there is something there. What makes a good song . I think its all about the melody. It has to be a great melody. You can do a good lyric, but it is going to be a tough sell, but if you have a great melody, it is melody first. Tavis the one thing we seem to be lacking in music today. A man. I feel like i am onto something a little bit different from what other artists are doing. This, but i may be bridging. Its not bebop. Its not progressive jazz, but there is a looseness to what i am doing that is not fusion music. Its not that continual beat that flows over everything. A lot of these fusion musicians, there are so many tracks to deal with that they clean it so much. When i think of a recording, it has to have that spontaneity. Lonnie and i have this group we have been playing with for the last several years, and its very spontaneous. Everything that happens is impromptu. We have the chord structure. Whats in that we are all playing what feels right at the moment, and thats what makes it fun for me to do night after night. That innovation and free spirit allows for what . It allows for a good feeling inside. It helped. I used to play golf when we were traveling with the tijuana brass, and i remember one day i hit a three wood in the fairway. It was perfect. Yardse like two hundred straight. It went exactly where it was supposed to go. That was the last time i ever when you are blowing the horn, sometimes everything a tremendouss feeling, especially i think phenomenal creative because its a collective thing. You are listening to the musicians around you. I think we need to learn to appreciate each othersdifferences, and i think jazz takes us in that direction. Is still sounding good. Lonnie is a worldclass singer. We have had people come backstage sobbing. She is the most honest singer i know outside of maybe billie holiday. Thats high cotton as they say. How cool is it after all these years of you and lonnie being together you guys can still get a chance to play together and travel together . In december we are celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary. 40 years. I met lonnie in 1966 when she was the lead singer with brazil 66. She called me mr. Albert for a couple years. She still does. That such a great story. You guys are so cool together. Inas saying when you walked the vibe rondo, the jazz, i love auto vibrato the jazz, i love it. What i want to do is have a space in l. A. Were the great musicians can play, feel good, feel comfortable, and we created at a mdio with vincent studios. He was with me every step of the way as we were developing, so the sound is amazing. If you go upstairs, downstairs, left, right. It stays. I think its a great place for great musicians. Location. S a great i felt stupid it took as long as it did for me to discover it. When i did the bergmans invited me. I felt something spectacular happened. Dave brubeck was there. At the time he was about 80 years old. He walked out onstage. I thought i was going to have to catch him. Butas getting there slowly surely. He sat down and played like a kid. He was into it. It was his thing. He finished and creeped back to the green room. It was enlightening for me. It was the power of music, the power of art. That made him feel like a kid again. Tois the first time i went see alan bergman sing his own stuff, its a rare thing. It was beautiful. The food aint bad either. It was delicious. If you get the chance, check it out. In the meantime, whether you are in l. A. Or not, you can pick this up. It is herb alberts latest. It is called stepping out, featuring the delightful lonnie hall. After all these years you are still sounding good. Thank you. Tavis thats our show for tonight. Things for watching. As always, keep the faith. For more information on todays show, visit tavis smiley on pbs. Org. Tavis hi, im tavis smiley. Join me next time for two conversations, conductor salonen and wayne shorter. Thats next time. We will see you then. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Be more. Pbs. [ music ] hello and welcome. I am beck carcinoma king reid. On this weeks special edition of this is us. Were devoting the half hour to one womans remarkable career. Belvar davis retired in 2012 after 50 years on the air. A child is poverty she became the first African American reporter hired on the west coast. Lets take a look back now at belvar davis. Her career in front of the camera. You have to follow what you really want