The Rich Musical World of Louis Cato
Wong Notes
Premier Guitar
4.9 • 587 Ratings
🗓️ 11 January 2024
⏱️ 53 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Multi-instrumentalist Louis Cato has had a lot on his plate since taking over as bandleader for Jon Batiste on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in late 2022, but has been enjoying every minute of it. "I feel like I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be, with exactly the people I'm supposed to be there with," he tells Cory on this episode of Wong Notes. Of course, given his role there is a fulltime gig, the release of his second solo album, Reflections, last August was kind of a big deal. Its music was largely inspired by things Cato was forced to confront when the pandemic hit, including "self-analysis, putting on the mask, the egotistical parts of attraction and love songs, and things of that nature," he shares.
Early on in the conversation, Louis answers Cory's question about how his approach to chord voicings is so different from the norm. A lot of it comes from his childhood influence of Ron Kenoly's praise and worship music, featuring Abe Laboriel Sr. on bass. His first guitar was from a yard sale and had just four strings, and his experience learning Laboriel's bass lines on it still informs how he approaches voice leading on the guitar today. There was also his mother, the pianist, from whom he absorbed into his guitar methods the piano style of playing octaves in the left hand and triads in the right.
After Louis shares about what makes his creativity tick as a multi-instrumentalist, he and Cory get into the meat of the biggest mistakes a guitar player can make. A lot of it, for Cato, has to do a lack of dynamics and inflection, or playing 10 notes where you should just play two, he says. Towards the end of the ep, Louis hops on a drumset in the room to illustrate how drummers can also create a "jerky" beat if they don't stick with just straight or just swingin'. Listen to the full ep to get a deep dive into the mind of the Late Show bandleader.
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Produced by Jason Shadrick and Cory Wong
Additional Editing by Shawn Persinger
Presented by DistroKid
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | What's happening? Welcome to Wong Notes podcast. I'm your host, Corey Wong. I hope you're |
| 0:07.2 | having a great Wednesday. My Wednesday has been filled with getting ready for tour. I'm going back out on the |
| 0:13.6 | road with my band. We're hitting the West Coast, full 11-piece band with special guest Monica |
| 0:19.6 | Martin, who's an incredible singer, and the band La Lome |
| 0:22.9 | is opening up. So I've been studying. I've been shedding. I've been shedding my arpeggios, |
| 0:29.6 | shedding my scales, different shapes, patterns, and whatnots to get myself ready so I'm in tip-top |
| 0:36.2 | shape for tour, because I'm trying to come correct. |
| 0:55.8 | Doesn't matter if I've been out on the road, had a little break. I always like to prepare for tours. A lot of people are like, oh, I know the songs. I know the songs. I'm like, yeah, but you know what? I'm going to brush up. I'm going to see where was I making mistakes than the last tour? Where was I struggling? and I'm going to work harder to make sure that I'm better this tour. |
| 0:56.0 | I'm going to get off my pedal stool because I could go on for a while saying you should all be doing the same for your gigs, |
| 1:02.0 | treat them with the highest level of respect because we all like to have respect for the craft. |
| 1:07.0 | Anyway, speaking of respect for the craft, today's guest is one of the most insane craftsmen in music. |
| 1:16.1 | Lewis Cato. |
| 1:17.6 | Lewis is one of those cats where if he's on the gig, you know it's going to be good. |
| 1:22.4 | You know it is going to be elevated. |
| 1:24.3 | Some people, I mean, we all know that. |
| 1:26.3 | We all have people that we know. |
| 1:27.8 | It's like, oh, this person, have people that we know. It's like, |
| 1:43.5 | oh, this person, there's somebody you know. It's like, I don't know. Yeah, they're on the gig. It's going to be great. And then we have those people where it's like, wow, this person's on the gig, it's definitely going to be elevated. Lewis is one of those people. And the thing is, doesn't matter what instrument. |
| 1:45.9 | I've played gigs with Lewis on bass, |
| 1:46.7 | drums, |
| 1:47.9 | guitar, |
| 1:45.1 | where we're playing guitars together, even playing trombone, |
... |
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