At only 12 years old, Bernard Wright impressed jazz fusion drummer Lenny White with his musical prowess. Even then, Wright had an unparalleled ear for funk and jazz, which led him to join White's band to tour around the country as a keyboardist and singer.
Musical prodigy was one of the common traits among the two players. Coming up in the 1960s in the Jamaica neighborhood in Queens, New York, Wright and White emerged just as Bobby and John Kennedy and Malcolm X and Martin Luther King were assassinated. Music, as White told The Last Miles, was changing and shaping politics, while politics were also shaping music.
In the late ’70s and early ’80s, Wright settled into the scene in Queens. Several famous musicians were living there, including James Brown, drummer Roy Haynes and saxophonist Lester Young. While unrest gripped the nation, young musicians like White and Wright were being influenced by music, which was being influenced by economical, social and political issues of the times. They were practicing in basements and jamming at places where artists came together to create.
At the time, young musicians began joining composer and poet Weldon Irvine’s band. Irvine, also known as “Master Wel," was a mentor to a lot of up-and-comers in Queens who wanted to play jazz and progressive music. Wright had been part of Irvine’s band, along with jazz luminaries Billy Cobham, Marcus Miller and Donald Blackman. When White met Wright, he knew he needed the youngster in the band he was creating with Miller.
“He was a genius,” White said of Wright in his The Last Miles interview. “I had to go speak to his grandmother for him to be able to go on the road! She trusted me enough to do that.”
Nearly 50 years later, Wright had carved out a legendary career. He smashed jazz charts with his debut album ’Nard in 1981 and gained national recognition a few years later with 1985’s single “Who Do You Love” from his third album, Mr. White, which climbed the Billboard R&B charts. Ten years later, popular artists such as Dr. Dre, LL Cool J and Snoop Dogg were sampling his music for their own chart-topping hits.
A godson of R&B singer Roberta Flack, Wright later moved to Dallas and became a mentor, as Irvine had been to him, to local jazz, funk and R&B musicians. He is survived by his wife Anita Chambers Wright, their children Bernard Marcus Wright, Christopher Charles Wright and Victoria Anita Wright, a brother and three grandchildren. He was 58.
New York Undercover’s band leader and guitarist Billy “Spaceman” Patterson, a family friend, shared the news on Facebook: “On behalf of the family of Bernard Wright (Nard), We are saddened to announce that yesterday Bernard has been called home to the Most High. Many thanks for everyone's support, encouragement, and prayers for Nard throughout the years."
Flack, a Grammy Award winner, shared on Twitter: “Last night, my godson and former musician director, Bernard Wright, passed away suddenly. I loved Bernard very much and believed deeply in his talent. His loss is heartbreaking.”
Fans began sharing tributes on social media.
“Too sad. Condolences to his family and friends,” wrote one one of them Facebook in a post flanked with heart emojis. “His masterpiece, and one of my favorite songs ever, will live on in my heart forever: ‘Who Do You Love.'”
“No! Oh My. His single has been one of my favorite songs for 30+ years,” another posted on Twitter. “Loud and on repeat whenever I needed a boost. A great loss. Travel on the wings of the love that you created in the world.
Back in his neighborhood of Jamaica, he ignited the keyboard and microphone first with White, when Wright was 12, then with by Tom Browne, an American jazz trumpeter and a multi-gold album artist, a few years later.
At 17, Wright released ’Nard with the jazz label GRP Records, which later became part of MCA Records. He flirted with instrumental jazz on the album but mostly focused on vocal-oriented soul and funk, as Allmusic.com wrote in its album review. He channeled jazz legend Miles Davis on the piano for the track “Solar” and tapped into some impressive fun on “Haboglabotribin,” which Snoop Dogg sampled on “Gz & Hustlas” from 1993’s Doggystyle. 2Pac sampled it for “Lie to Kick It.”
The album was a hit, “A smash on the jazz charts and an introduction of Wright’s funky jazz sounds to the R&B world,” Soultracks.com reported on May 20. He released several more albums, some R&B ones and a few gospel ones for Frontline Records. He dropped Fresh Hymns and Fresh Hymns II in ’90 and ’92, respectively, and his final solo album, Brand New Gospel Format, in ’93.
Then he moved to Texas, where he became a session musician. Wright began creating music with friends such as Marcus Miller from the old Jamaica neighborhood, singer-songwriter Bobby Brown and Wright’s musical hero Miles Davis.
"I loved Bernard very much and believed deeply in his talent. His loss is heartbreaking.” –Roberta Flack
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In an interview with KNON, posted to YouTube, Wright said he’d married a Texan.
“We lived in New York some, lived down here some,” he said. At the time of the mid 2000s interview, he’d been living in Dallas for 16 years.
“There’s a very serious community of musicians here in town,” he said. “They respect me as a teacher, and I respect them as students, so they learn from me and I learn back from them. You know there is a point where the student becomes a teacher. ... The next generation feels me, and I’m really happy about that, man. Because I’m feeling them too, you know?”
Soultracks reported that a car accident in Dallas led to his death.
Dallas musician Wade Campbell says that he saw Wright about 48 hours before his death. They’d known each other since the early 2000s when Wright picked up Campbell’s bass and started jamming on it. He was playing it at full volume, and Campbell was afraid that he was going to blow the speaker. He turned it off. Wright turned it back on and continued jamming. Campbell turned it off again. Bernard turned it back on. Every time that Wright would show up to jam, he’d always pick up Campbell’s bass — a signature Marcus Miller bass — and Campbell didn’t understand why until he saw a video of Wright and Miller, one of Campbell’s bass heroes, jamming together.
They ended up becoming friends, and Campbell and Wright jammed several times with him over the years, even spending a few months on the road. Campbell says he learned more from those few months than he did studying music at the university.
The last time they spoke, Wright came walking up the street and began talking about death, heaven and God. He told Campbell that he was looking forward to the streets of gold because they were pure since they’d been purged in fire. He asked Campbell for a cigarette, but he didn’t have one, so Wright walked away into the night.
Campbell pointed out that Wright was a big part of the R&B and jazz scene locally and mentored many musicians in bands such as The Funky Knuckles and Snarky Puppy.
“He is the common denominator,” Campbell says. “Everyone took something from him. ... He was the zen master, always pushing you.”
Wright also had a hand in molding Dallas pianist and singer Caleb Sean McCampbell’s overall musicianship. When word of Wright’s death spread on social media, McCampbell was one of many musicians who shared a tribute to Wright on social media:
“I spent countless hours on synthesizers specifically mimicking his every move in hopes that I would one day be able to make a keyboard sing and bring the heavens into the room like how he always seemed to be able to do when he played," McCampbell wrote. "He was a legend, master of music, genius in the fullest extent of the word, and a musical mentor to many. He literally had his hand directly into shifting an entire culture of music in multiple ways. His sound has transcended generations, genres, styles, and culture. He shared his wealth of knowledge freely and selflessly with anyone who was interested in learning. He literally changed the world with his music.
“Regardless of whatever struggles he was facing you could always hear God in him through his playing. I literally wouldn't play music the way I do today without connecting to his musical DNA and I'm extremely grateful for him having invested his gift, time, and heart into me. The last time I spoke with him, about a year and a half ago, he said, ‘Nephew, I'm extremely proud of you. Your playing is beautiful and you sound the most like me out of all of my students. You're really keeping my legacy alive. I love you man.’”
White posted a throwback photo of him and Wright on his Facebook page. In the May 20 post, he wrote, “We all have genius in us … There are very few who actually meet the criteria… My son… if there are those who never knew who you were… Leave it to me… I WILL LET THEM ALL KNOW WHO YOU ARE …. LOVE YOU BERNARD."
On the same day, Questlove shared a video of a Soul Train performance by Wright with the caption: "The Great Bernard Wright. Rest In Melody Brother."
