Keyboardist/composer Lisa Coleman of the Revolution.
Lisa Coleman—who is best known as the co-keyboardist for Prince and the Revolution, and as one-half of the duo Wendy and Lisa with Revolution guitarist Wendy Melvoin—admits that she didn't consciously set out to make her first-ever solo record. But some major events in her life, such as Prince's death in 2016 and the subsequent reformation of the Revolution, contributed to the recording of Collage, an album of instrumental piano improvisations from the last 10 years.
"I had to gather myself and reestablish where I'm at as a musician," the Los Angeles-based artist says. "To do that, I went in and listened to myself. I was feeling a lot of grief and sadness losing Prince. When I sit at the piano, I always think of what might be, what might have happened, who I might play with. I always think of Wendy in my mind when I'm playing, I always think of Prince when I'm playing. After trying to deal with the grief and being with the band, I collected these pieces together that I felt represented the mood I was in, and a good spectrum of what I love and who I am. I did it for myself."
Collage is literally a solo project, as Coleman wrote, performed and produced the material by herself (she also did the album's artwork). The material isn't the mainstream funk and rock music that she made with Prince during the 1980s. Rather, the music of Collage is avant garde, moody and ambient.
"They were really personal," Coleman, who is also a film and television composer with Melvoin, says of the album's tracks. "Those were things that I just did for me. They've been things that I've listened to in my car. Some days you go home from work [after film and TV scoring] and you don't want to hear what you just did. But every once in a while, there's a score that's beautiful or a cue that creates a mood that I love so much.
"The whole thing was kind of discovering influences, having gone back in time with the Revolution and playing those songs," she continues. "I also could see how I was personally influenced by certain things Prince did, certain ways that he played, the way he approached the keyboards. I never really realized that when I was younger—I was too in it. This is the wiser, older musician looking back."
The track "Piano Bytes," which Coleman co-wrote with Melvoin, is an exception to the the moody and subdued tracks on Collage due to its rhythmic groove and drum sound. "I loved the soundscape," she says of that song. "That's from when we were scoring Touch, the TV show. We used all the cool clock sounds and backwards piano. We were in a fun creative space, so that was one of those days where [it was like,] 'Let's order a pizza and fool around with these sounds.'"
The album's beautiful and moving opening track, "Piano Improv 77," is dedicated to Coleman's late mother. "She was such a huge influence on me," she says. "She was such a good mother in the way she nurtured me and kept me healthy and did all the mom stuff. But on top of that, she's the one, when I was eight years old, sat me down and played Mozart for me. And then she played me Billie Holiday. I was mesmerized. I remembered telling her I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time."
Coleman is open to performing these piano improvisations in a live setting, depending if there is an audience for it. "I would love to be able to fill a room with people and trying to improvise and play some of the pieces. I would have to test the waters, try a little club gig to see how it goes. I want to be good, I don't want to be boring."
ATLANTA, GA - FEBRUARY 24: Lisa Coleman of The Revolution performs at The Tabernacle on February ... [+]
Name recognition shouldn't be a problem for Coleman, given her status as a member of the classic Revolution lineup; her association with Prince goes all the way back to the Dirty Mind album in 1980. The timing of Collage's release is quite coincidental as this year marks the 35th anniversary of Prince and the Revolution's Purple Rain, the iconic hit album and movie. As Coleman recalls, it was a heady and crazy time for Prince and the band, who were reaching out to a mainstream audience following the successful 1999 album.
"Prince was a smart guy,” she says. "Part of the brilliance was what he did next by making a movie is pretty astounding. He thought that we could just make a movie and take our audience with us. And that would be the way to deal with that. But the more people that got involved they went, 'Why don't we make a hit movie?' So 'yeah, sure, let's make a hit movie. That's easy' (laughs).
"We had to take acting classes and dance classes," she continues. "We were all in there wearing trench coats on, jumping through the air—it was crazy! We were a bunch of rebels, but now we had to go to finishing school. We had a really good time. Prince was the best cult leader ever (laughs) because he can inspire us and make us feel motivated and into it, and we were working our asses off. And yet he can look at you sideways...he can just cut you with his eyes. At the same time, we were all so excited. It was 'busy, busy, busy,' 'work work work,' 'do this, do that.' And it went by really quick."
(Original Caption) 3/25/1985-Los Angeles, CA- Prince and members of his group accept their Oscar for ... [+]
Released on June 25, 1984, the Purple Rain album yielded four Top 10 hits, including two number one songs: "When Doves Cry," "Let's Go Crazy," "I Would Die 4 U," and the anthemic title track. Coleman has two specific memories associated with "Purple Rain" the song. The first occurred when the band was working on the track at a warehouse where they rehearsed. “There was this lady who was on a bicycle and she was sitting outside the warehouse. I think she was weeping maybe at the sound of the song. We ended up inviting her in, and she sat there and we played "Purple Rain." She was the first person to ever hear the song. I always wonder whatever happened to her.
“The other thing is the night of that gig when we played "Purple Rain" [at the First Avenue club in Minneapolis], and no one had ever heard it before. It was really intense, and it was super hot in the club. We were all drenched in sweat. The original version was 15 minutes long because there was another verse to it, and we ended up cutting that verse out. But when he did his guitar solo, and then the 'hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo' part came in, it was intense. You really felt that thing. And it's still like that pretty much every time that we play it."
Following Prince's death in 2016, the members of the classic Revolution lineup reunited for a tour, an experience that was as creatively fulfilling as it was cathartic. "It was really difficult," Coleman admits. “We all got together and we set up instruments. And even that was strange. We all got into our positions and it was like, 'Where am I supposed to look?' You're supposed to look at Prince all the time. So it took us a long time to even break that habit. It was a really strange odyssey thing to do, but it felt so good once we could play a few songs—'wow, we sound like us.' It made us feel happy. It made us think about Prince and that he chose us, and this was what he put together.”
There are plans for the Revolution to perform live again. "I don't think we could stay apart," Coleman says. "We just got to figure out what would be the cool thing to do. We don't want to be a Prince tribute band. He would hate that. But we can do cool things and we have a repertoire that is ours. We'll figure something out. It's such great music and we love playing it."
