>> and by contributions by your pbs stations from viewers like you. i am delighted to have leslie odom jr. on this program, he is best known of the role aaron burr, he's focus on film project and music. he just released his deluxe edition, you can see him in theaters on the "oregon express." oh, you are a busy brother. some of the videos for "christmas walts." ♪ santa is on his way and still staying with me and think for you and for me ♪ when the world falls in love as we say merry christmas, may your new year's dreams come true ♪ >> that voice of yours, how old were you when you knew this was your gift? >> i still don't know. [ laughter ] >> if you don't know by now you ain't never going to know. i was singing since i was a kid and when i was a teenager, i got serious about it and you know how it is, when i was singing in philly, i was singing with singers. >> yeah, there were no musical theaters to speak of in philly. i was always the worst in class, you know what i mean? >> it was a good thing, kept me reaching and climbing cht about 13 is when i started to take it seriously. >> are you doing now what you wanted to do. is this what you have planned? >> yeah. >> when you realized that you had the talents? >> yes, it is crazy how faithful god has been and how the dream has sort of manifested and happened before my eyes. i am humbled by it and it is exceeded at this point and further than i ever thought i could go. if it all stops today, i would have to, you know, sit down and smile and be grateful to god because it is further than i ever imagine really. >> let me pick that apart. help you and you help me pick it apart. >> um -- if it stops today, it is thankfully and so much for you to do. if it stops today, or for that matter and if it continues and you never got back to broadway, i cannot imagine and this is just me. i cannot imagine that you could ever find anything like what you did with aaron burr. i know what broadway is and what broadway is not. you know where i am going with this. i mean whether you stop or continue. i don't want to say stop that how would you ever -- >> i think if you and you are devinely blessed and lucky. if you get to touch your truest potential. if you get to touch your greatest potential once in your life. some people stevie wonder and prince and michael jackson and some people touch it again and again. that's what we all strive to do. but, there is other people who, you know, look back to and really their careers is defined by one spectacular work and one seminole and incredible moment that we got to see the fullness of who they were. i had directed with that after "hamilton" and i had to go if that was it. me, renee and chris and david and lynne, we are not kids. we are not 19 years old or 18 years old. we have been out there and we knew how lucky we were again to touch it once. and now we are going from here and trying to see what we can do from there. again, if "hamilton" never happened to me again, it happened once. >> how did you process that with the decision that you make after like "hamilton"? >> i remember you know, we are here to talk about the album and this disney concert hall concert that we have. i so clearly remember a few years ago right before i turn 30 when the phone was not ringing at all. and, meeting a mentor of mind, brown. [ laughter ] >> you got another shout out on the show. >> marin brown. >> yeah. meeting with steward kay robertson and saying to those brothers that i am ready to do something else and i want to get my check on thursday and i want to know what the check is going to say. i am sick of the ups and downs. steward gave me the advise that changed my life. you can quit, that's fine if you want to do that. i love to see you try first. i love to see you try first before you quit. >> i looked at him and i was like he's crazy. >> i am out here and i am working. >> i am hustling. >> so the phone did not ring for you today, radight? when you get calls and get an audition and you are present and do a great job. what did you do for yourself today? >> did you know that there is coffee shop and clubs all around los angeles that would have you singing every night of the week if you wanted to? >> it never occurred to me. he pointed out, you know, half of my business that i was ignoring so after hamilton for me, all i wanted to make sure that i was never again in that position again. i never wanted to be sitting on my couch waiting for a phone call to come to me to get to work. we record and we make music and i am all around the country and meeting people and singing in front of crowds, i get to make my living as an artist. i get to feed myself and stay inspired and inspire other people as an artist, it is as good as it gets. and singing nationwide jinglies and getting checks for that. >> one day it works. the thing about nationwide, you know? i mean as a singer growing up as a vocalist, i would tap into other vocalist -- the best part of waking up -- you know what i mean? i used to sing those jingles until i gate moment to make my own jinglies. >> i would sing about chickens. >> and that's not a bad start to sing about insurance. >> tell me what it is not like now because we talked about the phone is not ringing and you may be talking about off the hook. now you are traveling around the world because he was talking to me one day and you were on the other side of the world. he told me what you would be doing and what the crowds were like on the other side and leslie have really blown up. now that you have experienced this and how are you being received around the world and what are you hearing about what you were able to do with aaron burr. >> i think "hamilton" is one of the pieces of work. there is few thing that is we share across generations. you know people my age share shows with their parents and children. it holds a special place in people's home and their families because it is like no, me and my kids listen to this on the way to school. you know you are apart of what unite me and my kids. you are part of reuniting me and my parents. there is nothing that we think is cool together. that's what i found mostly and that's something that unite me with other people. >> how do you think years from now you are going to look back with the "hamilton" experience to what that moment meant a stage full of people with colors, it is possible. it is possible though that appearance was a game changer for other productions that we know not of this moment that'll star a cast full of colorful because they now know it can work. >> how did you regard that? >> i remember i replace replacereplaced titu replaced titus burgess. titus left on the evening night to do another show no new york so i replaced him. i saw the birth of phenomenon and sold out crowd and people standing up. here is the situation and i have seen it over the years where four white dudes get to sort of coming out of college and use the best of themselves. they really get to like see what they are made of and get to used their training and just, you know, flex and that did not exist for me. that did not exist for people like me. miranda steps in and he created for himself and people like me. now little brown kids, asian kids and little black kids that are in these conserve toirs and learning how to do shakespeares and they get to come out and have a place to go flex and a plaes where they can use their skills on a hamilton stage, that's extraordinary. >> while you are on stage in "hamilton," there were all museums and obviously, you could not access because you were on stage every night. how did you get around and doing a christmas project? >> oh man, any free hour that i have is not easy. we had an opportunity right now and i did not want anything to go untapped or opportunity to go, i want to take advantage of it and we signed and put out two projects where they both are number one of the billboard jazz board, here we are. >> i have asked this question to so many others. it is impossible to put out a christmas album if you are not singing during the summer, what was your trick to get in the spirit? it seems weird to be singing christmas stuff in the dead of summer. >> it is true. i made them decorate the studio and we visited the holiday albums that i love growing up. . it is nate king cole and natalie and boys to men and really analyze of what is it that i love about these record and what is it that i want to make it go home with me and keep it around. i am fascinated because there is so many great christmas songs where every artist who does a christmas project decides what he or she wants to put on theirs. tell me more about that process. >> well, i made a list. >> i checked it twice. >> you know if ucyou wanted to make the christmas album today, your phone will blow up. request and suggestions started flowing in from the record company and my producer and stuff. >> honest and fresh and classic and it was trickier than we thought it would be. singing christmas songs around the house is different than we hear coming out of expensive speakers. when the microscope is on and you want to make sure they are sincere. christmas music can be corny or cheesy. i did not want to put out a project like that. >> tell me which of these tracks came easy for you. >> you got the studio and it just flows and it was oh my god, i cannot do any better than that. which one was the most challenging to get it the way you want it. >> great question. >> the first and the last one came outeasiest. >> have yourself a little merry christmas. >> i see that is easy for you. >> it is getting the honest take of it and dropping down and getting real honest so maybe three or four takes of those and probably the trickiest one. >> please come home for christmas. we had coop coral and coop is a magician and what he could do with the singer. he's vulnerable with the singer. when you trust somebody else to give you notes and push you, coop is a great coach. you know what i mean? he dials in and makes you better. "please come home for christmas," we spent a few hours. that's not my wheel house and it is not how i sing all the time. coop is like this thing is not light and pretty, you got to give me more. yeah, that's the hardest. >> i am glad you phrased that. >> every artist and in the artist starts copying somebody and the world is too many copies not enough nororiginals. you remember the scene where they are in the studio, i don't want in the charles brown or nat king cole. so i am glad you gave me the phrase light and pretty because it has a little to it when you sing. how did you develop that? you are talking about the process of developing your own sound. >> billy porter, you know billy porter? >> absolutely. >> he's been a mentor of mine. he analyzed it for me and he sang it differently than i do. he pointed out. it is the singers that you grow up listening to. when i grew up and you know in the '90s and stuff. microphone technology had advanced todd a certain point where is singers, the singers that i listened to whispering into the microphone and janet jackson and brandi and r&b singers my day sings different and essentially almost micropho microphone-less, you know back in the day t that's whe. that's where it comes from. music is an experience where we had the advances and head phones technology and stuff. music for me was like -- you know, i sort of crafting it as small as it could be and putting a microphone right here. billy was all about expanding my work with him over the years and have been about expanding my voice or a lot of our fights would be about billy, i am not you. you are amazing. i don't want you to do it like me. i am trying to help you find the six gear inside of you. i am trying to help you fine yo find your squall and maximum potential in there. i thank god that he did. i call it my ten, one through scale. and "hamilton" is leike i come out of stage. i look to the opportunity to go to that place because it is so ska scary and dangerous and fun. that was not where i wanted to go. >> yeah. >> let me shift from the music to acting now. "hamilton," you are doing both. the "orient express," how did it happen? >> i got one of those calls from ken brandoff. all i had to do is make a tape and i had conversations with him and i put the tape off for weeks. i never had an experience with that. now, what is he expecting to see on that tape? you know how good does this thing have to be in i was nervous about it but i made the tape. as i am moving into sifilm, i h the desire to work with somebody who was traverse and staged and television and both sides of the camera who was so well, who's done it better than than cam? >> denzel. to learn from him was what i was after. >> yeah. >> how do you balance this? >> denzel is a great actor and i heard him sing. you are a triple threat frankly and you want to do more aking a acting and film work. how do you balance that or does it have to be balance? >> for me, the thing that i don't have to wait for, i don't have to wait for an in coming call to make music. if nothing else is happening and nothing else was popping, we'll be in the studio making music and out doing concert and every now and again i get a call of being apart of something really great. the film work is the most interesting because the thing that i am most interested in doing is all the stuff that no one had me do before him as you can imagine. i did a fair amount of work before "hamilton." nobody was checking for me in films or music. now, it is just about doing the thing that is we could not do three years ago. >> do you expect that you will go back to theaters at some point. is that so far off that you cannot see it or is it something that is more immediate than i think it maybe? >> theater is is a real sacrifice. you are chained to that theater. >> you make the thing and you go enand make it and make it for an intense, two or three months and you are free. theaters, we had to show up and make that thing every night which was that is a beauty of it but that's what's taxing. >> i had to be worth it and you would be hard press for fans of the genre and fans of musical theaters. you would be hard press to think of the five roles in the musical theaters that are as rich and as much of a performer as aaron burr did. i capt go backward. i it has to be something that's challenging or make my own mew seco music -- >> let me close by asking and i am going to be a pit presumptous here, if i am a performer, there is a number of stages here that i am dying to perform. there is a number of stages and here in la, playing disney hall is a big deal and you got a chance to do that. >> you said it. i think back to that guy three or four years ago who had nothing going on, you know what i mean? and now i get a sold out engagement at disney concert hall. it is a dream come true. the christmas progress squeject "the deluxe edition," and d "disney hall" is sold out and if you can get the hook ups. >> realwawe always refer to you leslie odom jr. , tell me about odom senior? >> he's a fool, he's a riot. my first teacher. >> that's the show tonight, thank you for watching and as always, keep the faith. ♪ >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at [email protected]. >> hi, i am tavis smiley, join me next time of the two part conversation of effects of education that's having on higher education, that's next time, we'll see you then. and my contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ good evening from los angeles, i am tavis smiley, a conversation with miyrlie evers williams, joining us to discuss the documenting state history. i am glad you are joining us with myrlie evers-williams is coming up in just a moment. ♪