 Welcome to this episode of the Hawaii Smooth Jazz Connection. I am your host, Gwendolyn Harris. My guest today was born in Winsborough, South Carolina, where he started music at a young age, hitting his start in the church choir. This trombonist, producer, and vocalist has shared the stage with many great artists to include Gerald Albright, Shaqa Khan, the Clark sisters, and the late Aretha Franklin. The list definitely goes on. I am happy to have him here with me today. Let's find out more about this man in his trombone. Let's welcome Mr. Hank Bilal to the show. Aloha Hank Al, how are you? Doing good, how about yourself? I am well. First of all, I want to thank you so much for being here because you are in South Carolina, right? So it's still nice and sunny over here. And where you are, it's almost your bedtime, right? It's good and dark, yeah. It's good and dark. Well, thank you again so much for being here. So we're just going to get started. So how did you get started in music? Well, just like most musicians in the church or whatnot, the first thing I ended up doing was singing on a youth choir as a kid, and now from there, eventually, I got into playing different instruments. The trombone, the piano. And I was definitely, I was really involved in the church. I was in everything from the keyboard player to the minister of music and being a lead person in the church as far as music is concerned. And it ran in my family. And just me being surrounded by music my whole life, me and my dad, he was traveling with the groups, playing the drums and stuff. I used to travel with him as a kid. I got a chance to see what the music world, little tastes of the music world as a young man. Nice, nice. So I know you had some fun out there on the road with your dad, right? Yeah, definitely. Now you attended an HBCU. Yup, HBCU. And it was Benedict. You attended Benedict College. Now, you know, I'm a lover of HBCU because I'm an HBCU grad from Hampton University. So what was your major at Benedict? Music performance. Music performance. So, you know, I know you were in the marching band at Benedict. I definitely was. That's how I got there. Huh? I said, that's how I got there. That's how you got here. And I want to stress to my audience, if you get a chance, you need to go on to YouTube because he also has a brother. That's phenomenal. Like him. That attends Benedict College, right? He's following in your footsteps. Yeah. Now, are you doing music full-time now? Or are you, because you know how some people, you have some artists that have a full-time job, right? And then they do music on the side. And then you have some that do music full-time. What are you doing? Well, first of all, I hats off to anybody that can work a nine to five and then do a gig on the weekends. First off, you know, well, as far as what I'm doing, I'm a music teacher part-time at a Catholic school, a predominantly Black Catholic school. It's actually in the same neighborhood with two HBCUs. So I teach at a Catholic school right between Benedict College and Allen University. It was called the Waverly Place Community in Columbia. I've been doing that every Tuesday and Thursday for the last seven years, going on my eighth school year now. I do that. And I also, I'm also a minister of music in the church. And I'm the piano player for the St. Martin de Poros Catholic Church. So I'm employed with the school and the church. So I'm doing the school on every Tuesday and Thursdays, rehearsing with the choir on Wednesdays and doing a church for an hour on Sundays at 11.30 and occasionally a nine o'clock or eight o'clock service every once in a while. But, you know, I'm a piano player just as well as a trombone player. I've been playing piano for like maybe 15 years now. I taught myself. Yeah, and I taught myself how to play. I never got a chance to get lessons. I always wanted lessons, but just never had a chance or whatever. So I just decided to teach myself. And I got better and better and better at it. So I'm playing the piano just as much as I'm playing the trombone today. Nice. Now, I wanna touch back on Benedict College and the marching band or your band experience at Benedict and being a HBCU. How did being in the band at Benedict help you to where you are now? Cause you know, I wanna say this because bands at HBCUs are different from other bands. So. I agree. Exactly. So how did that, how was that for you? Maybe, you know, it helped me in different ways as far as endurance, I could say first and foremost. And also, you know, just that go, go get them spirit and the go get them mentality that, you know, we had on the marching band, you know, I applied it as a musician till this day, you know, and, you know, with a little bit of competitiveness, you know, just being, you know, learning that from the band as well. And, you know, just, you know, just overall those things and, you know, and also our song selection as well. Definitely song selection. A lot of songs that I'm playing till this day, I played on the marching band. You know, we did, you know, of course we did a song about, you know, Frankie Beverly Amade's Earth, Wind and Fire, you know, some of the more current artists as well. So, you know, just all those things, you know, you know, I guess contribute to me being the player that I am today. Nice. Now, did you join any organizations while you were at the HBCU at Benedict Cove? Oh, yeah, joined our Cap and Cap aside, the honorary marching band, well, honorary band fraternity, you know, specializing in whatever kind of bands, marching bands, jazz bands, you know, different, different, different ensembles. You know, I did that in 2012, the Miro chapter at Benedict College, which was the favorite chapter of KK Si. We was relatively new because it was just chartered in 2010, actually. And we had a final line, then we had an alpha line, and that was part of the beta line. And so, two years after it was established at Benedict College, I joined. And, you know, we had a lot of relatively new things, you know, I guess we kind of relatively new HBCU, you can kind of say, you know, things that other people had access to, we're now getting access to now. So, you know, with that being said, you know, from, it's from the fraternities to the different, you know, restaurants on campus now. So now, you know, Benedict is now, is definitely now a full, you know, full-time HBCU, you get a full-time HBCU experience at Benedict. And by the way, the marching band program isn't that old. The marching band program dates back to 98. Oh, wow. Benedict College band of distinction dates back to 1998. So we're relatively new when, you know, and within those years of them being established, they got a chance to go a hundred bell of the bands. You know, it was a couple of years after I left, unfortunately, but I'm glad to see the progress in my HBCU in general. All right, now, what would you define as the most life-changing event so far in your career? The most life-changing event is probably when I performed with Aretha Franklin on the 2008 Grammys. I was 17 at the time when I played on the Grammys with Aretha Franklin. I was 16 when I helped arrange the music for the, you know, portion of the Grammys. I played with a brass ensemble and I led, I had a lead trombone part. So, yeah, that was definitely a life-changing event. And me being a teenager in high school still, you know, what made it even more amazing in exciting. And that's something that you will always remember. Always remember. Not many people can say that they've met Aretha Franklin, but you stay with her on stage. Absolutely. Now, during COVID, and I ask this of all the artists, because I just want to know what everybody did. You know, when COVID shut down everything and the pandemic shut down everything, what did you do to keep yourself sane during that time? I kept myself sane by working on music. I was actually working, the album I'm coming out with right now, I was working on that over COVID. Well, at least I kind of started, you know, kind of started on my journey with the album, you know, during COVID. Also, I did my Christmas album as well. My Christmas album came out in December of 2020. But so I recorded, I recorded a lot of music. I practiced as well. You know, I made plans for the near future. And you know, I just went back to the drawing board basically. And it was a reset opportunity, an opportunity to reset and relearn, you know, and relearn things and learn more, and learn more things and, you know, you know, network with people, meet people and stuff. And I got a chance to work with some people over the pandemic, like Althea Renee and then Roundtree. Okay. I did a collaboration with both of those artists. They're on my Christmas album, a bonafide Christmas. Okay. Yeah, I got a chance to just learn. I learned and I watched, I ain't gonna lie to you, I watched a lot of TV. So, you know, it was an opportunity of chilling that I don't get to have now, you know. So, you know, me, I play gig just about every weekend. And, you know, some days, like Thursday, some days might be every day I'm doing something, you know, I might not get a chance to have it break, but COVID I had to break and, you know, I tried to make it, you know, turn it into a good experience, you know, for the time being. All right. Now, you mentioned that you've worked with Althea Renee, you worked with Lynn Roundtree, who both, you know, I know very well. Who would your dream collaboration be? If you could, and you also worked with Gerald Albright, which we're gonna talk about later, but who would your dream collaboration be if you could pick anyone? My dream collaboration is the Mississippi Mads Choir. Oh, okay. That's my dream collaboration, you know. Like, that's one of my favorite groups, you know, I set my Apple music to the Mississippi Mads Choir. And, you know, one of my favorite bass guitar players played the recordings with the Mississippi Mads Choir, Andrew Goushay, Andrew Goushay, who's our bass, who's been a bass player for Saka Khan and Anita Baker and stuff. He's playing on a lot of Mississippi Mads Choir records. So, you know, like it's, that's one of my favorite groups. That's a dream collaboration. Another possible dream collaboration is Dave Kars, that's another one. Dave Kars, you know, Dave Kars, Nigy, and maybe one more is maybe a hip hop artist, maybe a one of the old school hip hop artists, you know, like, you know, K.R.s or one of those guys, you know, you know, it's my dream just to have a hip hop collaboration period with somebody, you know, whether they'd be a big time artist, whether they'd be a local artist, and, you know, just to do something a little outside the box. But yeah, it's a few people I admire and that I love to collaborate with. And I hopefully I get a chance to do that. And it's some people I didn't get a chance to collaborate with on this album that are, that, you know, I said I was gonna do it the next time. So some people I reached out to, I may have talked to briefly and we didn't go through with things all the way. But a few of those people, you know, maybe I would love to work with as well. So, you know, it's a lot of artists just I got a chance to work with. Dream Collaboration, what am I Dream Collaboration with Jared Albright? And then, you know, I'm lucky they got a chance to have you. And then it happened. So, yeah. And we're gonna talk about that because I wanna move into your album. So you have, was it three albums, right? Yeah, three albums. The Black Aquarius, Press Essential Elements, A Bonified Christmas, which is your Christmas album. And then you have another album that's gonna be coming out entitled Beneath the Covers, correct? And that's gonna be coming out. But your latest single and which we talked about Gerald Albright features Mr. Gerald Albright. And that's entitled Keep Holding On. Why don't you tell us a little bit about that? Well, Keep Holding On was produced, produced by, what's the name? Lonnie Clark. I was collaboration between myself and Lonnie Clark. And he came up with the lyrics and I came up with some of the lyrics as well. And he played some of the keyboard parts and I played the other keyboard parts. And, you know, it was a collaboration of great musicians, Sheldon Ferguson on a lead guitar, Michael Blanton on a bass guitar, Jeremy Wimbush on a drum. He played with people like Prince, I mean, not Prince. He played with people like Music Soul Child and Black Street and other artists. He's from a D.C. area originally. Also, I have, I'm auxiliary percussionist, Will, I got named Will a lot of Columbia. So it came about, you know, it was, I feel like I wanted to do something that was inspirational in touch people's, you know, touch people's lives and stuff. And, you know, me being out the church, you know, I want to, you know, go back to visit my, you know, I guess my gospel roots and they'll kind of do something, you know, that was different from what everybody else was doing or whatnot. So I want to have the inspirational song, you know, that was, that would be a potential song for both markets, you know, whether it be the smooth jazz market or whether it be the inspirational, you know, contemporary gospel kind of markets or whatever. So it's something that everybody can listen to, something that has lyrics just as well as instrumental, you know, instrumental melodic structure and stuff. So, you know, it just, it was inspirational song I want to let the world hear. Okay, all right. So can you just give us just a little snippet so the audience can hear what you do, just a little snippet. Can you just give us a little appetizer, like that I can say? Okay. I still want to get the audience, It's just a little snippet of what the artist does. Now, one question I have, well, a few more questions. The first one is, what advice would you give a new artist coming into the industry? And I'm gonna change this especially for you since you have your brother following in your footsteps, right? So what advice would you give your brother coming into this industry? So don't give up, work hard, you know, our hard work pays off. Be trustworthy, be dependable, don't take no stuff. I like that one. I like that one. Wow. So what projects do you have coming up? We know that you're working on your album. You just released your latest single and you're working on your new album. What other things do we need to put on your schedule or my schedule? What should I put on my schedule to look out for? Well, my next event I got going on will be next Friday. I'll be at Blues Boulevard in Greenville, which is in the upstate of South Carolina. After that, I'll be, I'll be back in Abbeyville next week at the Indigenous Underground. And then the week after that I'll be in Greenville. Both in the upstate region. Blues Boulevard in Abbeyville celebrating one-year anniversary for Indigenous Underground and it's a Black-owned business by Erica. Erica looks here, she's the owner and she's the chef, the head chef of the place too. So a big shout out to Erica. She always, she had me come down there about a couple of times out of the year to play for the people of Abbeyville. Also, I'll be the 29th, after the 29th I will be in Atlanta on the 4th for the Sweet Jazz Series, yeah, for the Sweet Jazz Series. That will feature different people like, you know, Joachim Jordan that features out there in the past. It features some of the best in smooth jazz on that as far as that shows are concerned and I shout out to Dr. Robinson for having me be an artist there. So I'm looking forward to that. And that next day I will be in Beach Island which is in Augusta area. I'll be doing a one-man show, a acoustic show. I'm doing two shows there and I'm doing two shows in Greenville. I'll be in the main course that Sunday. So I have about almost a three-day weekend with the, well, I have a private engagement that Saturday but I'll be pretty much doing it back and back and back from Thursday to Sunday. I'll be in Savannah at Good Times Jazz Lounge. That's gonna be on Augusta 26th. And I'm still, I have a few more shows that's pending. I'm in a process of scheduling my album release shows. I'll probably do an album release. I'll probably start those in September sometime. But I just haven't made that move yet because I'm kind of, I feel like I can't really make that move until the mastering, the album has been mastered at least. So once the album is in the mastering process I can then plan for the album release shows and those gonna be pretty fun. Now, where can people go to find your music really quickly? Wherever. We're running out of time. They can find it on Apple Music Spotify. You can find it on YouTube. Pretty much any, in every platform or choice you can find it on. All right. Yeah, all three albums and the singles I have as well. Well, you heard that to my audience. Hank, it has been a pleasure to have you here on the show. I'm definitely going to bring you back and I'm definitely gonna try and bring you here to Hawaii because they need to hear that sound. Let me know. They really need to hear you. They really need to hear you. But thank you again for taking time out of your busy schedule and it's late at night where you are. Thank you for being here and to my audience. Thank you for tuning in and until next time. Aloha, and God bless. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.