'Wuthering Heights' celebrates mad, passionate excess — but lacks real feeling

DAVID BIANCULLI, BYLINE: This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli. Raphael Saadiq is a Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I LIED TO YOU")

MILES CATON: (Singing) Something I've been wanting to tell you for a long time. It might hurt you. Hope you don't lose your mind. Well, I was just a boy, about 8 years old. You threw me a Bible on that Mississippi road. See, I love you, Papa. You did all you can do. And they say the truth hurts, so I lied to you.

BIANCULLI: The song "I Lied To You," which he cowrote with Ludwig Goransson for the film "Sinners," is nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Song. It's a gospel blues ballad inspired by his own church roots and gospel upbringing and recurs throughout the film. At the start of his career, Saadiq toured with Prince, playing bass in Sheila E.'s backup band. Then with his brother and cousin, he formed the R&B band Tony! Toni! Toné! and followed that with his R&B supergroup, Lucy Pearl.

He's had numerous solo albums and singles. Raphael Saadiq also has built a career writing and collaborating with some of the biggest names in music, including Whitney Houston, Beyoncé, Stevie Wonder, Solange, D'Angelo, Earth, Wind & Fire and Erykah Badu. Tonya Mosley spoke with Raphael Saadiq last summer.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)

TONYA MOSLEY: You all are so well-known in Oakland because that's where you then grew up. When did you find your voice? When did you know that you could sing?

RAPHAEL SAADIQ: I found my voice probably at Union Baptist, this church on 71st Avenue in Oakland, California. I was asked to sing a song with all the tiny tots. You had to sing a song on Easter Sunday. And this lady named - called her Sister Nation. She was the pastor's wife. She handed me a piece of paper and said, you're singing this song on Sunday. We got a chance to rehearse it one time, and then on Sunday, you're singing.

MOSLEY: How old were you?

SAADIQ: I don't know, 7.

MOSLEY: Yeah. Yeah.

SAADIQ: And I was singing the song, and people started responding when I was singing. The song was embarrassing. The words, it was this gospel song. It was like, you know, if I was naked without bread or meat.

MOSLEY: (Laughter).

SAADIQ: And my friends was, like, in the audience crying laughing. But when I sang it at church, people responded like, go, go, go. And I heard it, but it more or less made me more nervous, you know, because they kept responding like I was doing a good job. And then I didn't do it anymore.

I didn't do it anymore until I played in some local bands, and I was playing cover songs. I would sing this song by Mr. Mister called "Broken Wings." I'd sing that, like, in the 12th grade, playing bass and singing. I'd sing "Single Life," by Cameo. Those were the next songs I'd sing. And then, pretty much, I didn't like being a front guy. I didn't want to be a front guy.

MOSLEY: You didn't?

SAADIQ: No. I was playing in a band where there was two other lead singers, and those were the two songs that I sang in the band. And when the Tonys started, ended up singing Little Walter. And the producers, Danny and Tommy, thought that I should sing more songs. And that's how I became a front guy.

MOSLEY: So it wasn't always in the plan for you to be the front guy?

SAADIQ: Oh, never. I didn't want to be a front guy. I didn't want to be a front guy at all. I wanted to play bass for people who sing really good and maybe be on a big tour. I mean, my dream would've been, like, early in my career, to play for the Stones.

MOSLEY: (Laughter).

SAADIQ: You know, and just be gone. You know, play for some big group that does stadiums and just be gone.

MOSLEY: Which you actually had a chance to do that. Mick Jagger asked you to play with him on the Grammys in 2011.

SAADIQ: Yeah, see, Solomon Burke, he had passed away. And they had recorded one of his big songs. And I think his family, Solomon Burke's family called Mick - they were really good friends - and asked him would he perform for their dad on the Grammys. And Mick thought to call me to assist him. And that was so cool because we got a chance to rehearse and play blues. He loves Howlin' Wolf and Buddy Guy, Albert King. And he's a blues guy, so it was like the younger blues guy meeting another guy who was inspired by Black people's music.

MOSLEY: You've always gravitated to music of previous generations. You're like an old soul, like, in modern packaging. What is it about that older music that you feel like is just - always you tapped into?

SAADIQ: It has a feeling, it has a feeling. And the late great Isaac Hayes told me, there's no such thing as old-school. It's either you been to school or you didn't.

MOSLEY: (Laughter) Right.

SAADIQ: I was schooled. Music, the feeling of music, doesn't change. So you want to get the feeling from way, way back. And you want to take that feeling and inject it to something new. I didn't know that I was doing that. It's just something that I got turned out on when I was a kid. You know, whatever you get turned out by when you're young is what you end up being, you know?

MOSLEY: What do you love about the bass in particular?

SAADIQ: Bass made me feel big. I was so little. You know, I was probably 99 pounds when I was that age, you know?

MOSLEY: (Laughter).

SAADIQ: Bass has this big sound. I heard it on Motown records like "Pride And Joy," by Marvin Gaye. And I didn't know what I was hearing. And later on, I would find out I was listening to one of the greatest bass players of...

MOSLEY: All time?

SAADIQ: All times.

MOSLEY: Who was it?

SAADIQ: James Jamerson.

MOSLEY: I want to ask you about a project that you just got done completing that we've all experienced, "Sinners." What a movie. And you cowrote the film's signature song, "I Lied To You," with Ludwig Goransson. It's performed by Miles Canton. He's got, like, this deep, resonant voice that feels like it's come from another time. He's so young. But he's got, like, this really rich voice. And that song that you cowrote, it really serves as this emotional centerpiece for the film. It's a pivotal moment. First off, I want to know, how did that opportunity come your way?

SAADIQ: Well, Ryan Coogler is from Oakland. I'm a huge fan of, you know, the person that guy is. And then when this opportunity came, he called me and told me about it, and told me what he was thinking about, gave me a synopsis of the film. And it was about blues and right up my alley. You know, it's my background, too. And they were about to leave to New Orleans to shoot it. And they gave me the story, and I'm thinking, when do you want it done? And they was like, can we do it now? So I just started playing the guitar lick, and I just wrote the lyrics right there.

MOSLEY: Let's listen to a little bit of it.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I LIED TO YOU")

CATON: (Singing) Something I've been wanting to tell you for a long time. It might hurt you. Hope you don't lose your mind. Well, I was just a boy, about 8 years old. You threw me a Bible on that Mississippi road. See, I love you, Papa. You did all you can do. And they say the truth hurts, so I lied to you. Yes, I lied to you. I love the blues. (Vocalizing).

MOSLEY: That was the song "I Lied To You" from the movie "Sinners," which my guest today, Raphael Saadiq, cowrote. Tell me about that line, they say the truth hurts, so I lied to you. You wrote that, right?

SAADIQ: Yeah, I did. Yeah.

MOSLEY: Yeah, tell me about that line.

SAADIQ: Well, that's a little mischievous boy line.

MOSLEY: (Laughter).

SAADIQ: You know, I was just thinking about if you lied to your girlfriend. And it's like, you're like, well, they say the truth hurts, so I lied to you. I didn't want to hurt you, so I just lied. I've always had that in my head, that concept of a song.

MOSLEY: Why? Why do you think, yeah?

SAADIQ: Because I thought it would always be a great blues song to take that big voice of Miles...

MOSLEY: Yeah.

SAADIQ: Miles sounds like he's 60.

MOSLEY: Right?

SAADIQ: Right?

MOSLEY: I know. (Laughter) He sure does.

SAADIQ: Young dude. He's, like, 19 or something.

MOSLEY: Right.

SAADIQ: So once Ryan told me about the movie, sort of changed the words around from what I thought I could say because now I'm thinking about a pastor, a father.

MOSLEY: Right, because in the storyline, it is Miles talking to his father...

SAADIQ: To his dad

MOSLEY: ...Who was a pastor. Right.

SAADIQ: To not telling the truth.

MOSLEY: About his music, yeah.

SAADIQ: But he loves his dad, but he loves music.

MOSLEY: Yep.

SAADIQ: Doesn't want to hurt his dad to say, I want to go play in this club, because I still love the Lord. I still love church. But, Dad, I got to go. Maybe I'll make it back.

MOSLEY: Is it true - I heard this. I don't know if it's true, but that you love soundtracks and scoring, like, you'll be at home watching a movie or a show, and then just start for yourself to think about a soundtrack or a song that could be, like, the score.

SAADIQ: Yeah. If I'm watching a movie, I'll just turn the volume completely down.

MOSLEY: (Laughter).

SAADIQ: And I'll start scoring, like start seeing what I would do versus what they're doing. That's how I kind of learned.

MOSLEY: Wait, can you give me some examples of when you done that?

SAADIQ: So there's a movie. It's about this kid who played football at Syracuse. And Jim Brown was his mentor. And they had a Elvis Presley song in it at first. And they wanted this montage to happen when this kid is traveling from the East Coast to the South. And when he reaches the South, there's all these Black kids on the side with signs with his name because in the South, back in the day, you could run the football all the way to the five-yard line, but you couldn't punch it in for a touchdown if you're Black.

MOSLEY: I didn't know that.

SAADIQ: Right, so not in the South.

MOSLEY: Yeah.

SAADIQ: So the Black kids were, like, chanting him on. They wanted him to run through and make a touchdown. So I had to turn that down and write a song over the top of that, and that was a song called "Keep Marchin'." That was on the record - it's called "The Way I See It," my '60s album. And instead of me giving the song to the film, I kept it. It's the biggest licensed song I ever had.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "KEEP MARCHIN'")

SAADIQ: (Singing) When there's nothing you can do, when there's nothing you can say, 'cause everything just ain't going to go your way. If you're feeling kind of strange and you want to lay it down, and it's hard for you to keep your feet on solid ground, you better keep on. Keep, keep marching. Oh. Keep marching on. You just got to keep on. Oh, yeah. Keep, keep marching. Keep marching on. Keep marching on.

BIANCULLI: That was "Keep Marchin'," a 2008 song by Raphael Saadiq. We'll hear more of his 2025 interview with Tonya Mosley after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to Tonya Mosley's interview from last summer with singer, songwriter, performer and producer Raphael Saadiq. His song "I Lied To You," co-written with Ludwig Goransson and featured in the movie "Sinners," is nominated for an Academy Award as best original song.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)

MOSLEY: I want to talk to you just a little bit about your process and writing songs for other people too. Beyonce's album "Cowboy Carter" won best country album and album of the year at the Grammys, and you produced and wrote two of the songs, "16 Carriages" and "Bodyguard." Congratulations.

SAADIQ: Thank you. You know, working with Miss Beyonce is - I know what hard work is, and I respect people that work hard. You know, you don't even have to be around them to know. You could just look at the production, amount of work they put into a show or when they come out with music or whatever. But being in the room and working with people, you really get to see, like, how hard they work.

MOSLEY: I've heard you say you don't remember the experience, but one thing you do remember is that you guys had a lot of fun.

SAADIQ: The good time is you're around a lot of great people, a lot of great thinkers. Everybody's a thinker in the room. It's sort of like - I was at my studio for a lot of it, on my own. But sometime I went to the studio where it was, like, five or six rooms and different people working in different studios. And you can go grab, you know, The-Dream out of a room, which is an amazing songwriter, producer. Any musician is on call. I would just dream up, like, call this guy, call this guy. And that's how Quincy Jones would do it.

You got to be able to - have that book - that black book to call the right musicians. And that's why music suffers, to me, now. You're not making a phone call, so everything sound the same. You're not giving different energy, different spirits, different personalities on music. You need different personalities. It's not about you. It's about everybody else and then you. That's what make great records. And that's what the fun thing about Beyonce's record was.

MOSLEY: This particular song, "Bodyguard," though, you presented that to Beyonce, but that wasn't necessarily the song. She can choose, and she chose that of yours.

SAADIQ: Yeah. That song, I was going through my Dropbox, and I was playing songs in a room with her. She was in the room. Jay-Z was in the room - Jay and a few - some of the staff, and I was looking for a song. I don't think the phone was even hooked up to the speakers, and I played it, and I stopped it real quick 'cause that's not the song I wanted to play. And I didn't think it was something she even like. But she caught it in, like, two seconds. She goes, what? What's that? And I'm going, Oh, that's just this idea that I had, and I played it, and she's like, what are you doing with it? And that's how it got on the record.

MOSLEY: I want to play a little bit of "Bodyguard," and it actually is at the point where there's, like, the solo guitar. Let's listen.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BODYGUARD")

BEYONCE: (Singing) Oh. I could be your bodyguard. Please let me be your Kevlar. Baby, let me be your lifeguard. Would you let me ride shotgun? Shotgun. Oh, oh, oh.

MOSLEY: That was Beyonce singing her award-winning song "Bodyguard," written by my guest today, Raphael Saadiq. That guitar at the end, that was also not planned, right? That's - is that you?

SAADIQ: Yeah, that's me.

MOSLEY: Yeah.

SAADIQ: Yeah. She wanted a solo. Bey wanted a solo. And I did a solo, and she was like, can we make it longer? And you never hear that from an artist in 2025, playing a guitar solo - they want it longer. But she knows her audience, and she knows that it's rare. And she got - I think we could do that. We can have a 16-bar solo on this record. So that was a little bit of pressure to go back in there and play, like, a 16-bar solo.

MOSLEY: Yeah.

SAADIQ: 'Cause I would have called my boy. I would have called Eric Gales.

MOSLEY: Who was Eric Gales?

SAADIQ: Eric Gales is one of the most amazing guitar players in the world today. He's from Memphis, Delta blues. He was the guy that was playing it. He played a lot of guitar in "Sinners." But I would have called him...

MOSLEY: Yeah.

SAADIQ: ...To play, but he was on tour, so I had to play it. And came out good.

MOSLEY: I love how - I had to play.

SAADIQ: Had to play.

MOSLEY: (Laughter) Yeah.

SAADIQ: I like spreading it around.

MOSLEY: Yep. I think that, like, something about that - about Beyonce choosing that song, where you mistakenly played it, but then you're like, oh, and she says, no, what is that? I've heard you say, both she and Solange - because you wrote "Cranes In The Sky" for "A Seat At The Table," her album - that they make choices like that. It's sort of like the mark of a great musician, is to go outside the box, the places that aren't safe. It just made me very interested to know more about how you write these songs. Many times, they're for yourself. And then many years later, you might present them to an artist like Beyonce or Solange. You can tell about just how brave they are and how far they're going to go with it based on the choices they make on your sections (ph).

SAADIQ: Yeah, yeah, definitely. I don't know. I guess it's in the water in Houston. That family - both of them are, like, really particular about what they like, as far as design, style, you know, staging, and you know what you can pull off. And it's not a lot of artists that take those chances. They take chances. And music is about taking chances, taking risks, lasting longer than your teacher or your executives or labels or anything like that.

You know, for me, it's like, what chance are you going to take if you're playing music? You have to be - you have to dare to suck. And a lot of people don't do that. I don't fault people that don't do that, but when you run into people that do, you have to know, like, I'm going to try. Myself, I'm going to try to not be different. I'm going to try to do something that I like first. And secondly, I hope it's the audience that likes it also. But first, I have to like it.

MOSLEY: Have you always been like that for yourself as an artist, dare to suck?

SAADIQ: I've always been like that. I didn't know what I was doing, so I had to find the words later on through different people. You know, dare to suck came from this acting coach that I was working with one time, and she was like, you got to dare to suck. And I'm like, wow, that's pretty good because I did suck at acting. So...

(LAUGHTER)

SAADIQ: I was like, so - that's a good point. I just took that and ran with it. Then I realized in music, I did that a lot. Because, you know, you're not always going to be good.

MOSLEY: Acting.

SAADIQ: Well, I took an acting class because - it wasn't for acting. It was for stage. I just wanted to get a little bit past myself. You know, I didn't want to be always thinking I was this artist, Raphael Saadiq, 'cause, like, no, I wanted to get out that shell and just, you know, walk in a room with people where I wasn't good and where we have these these different drills that we do that I was going to be pretty embarrassed to do them in front of people or read a monologue. And there was better people in the class, you know, way better than me that was killing it. And I had to stand up in front of this class. I was like, wow. They were like, we have, like, like five minutes to learn this piece, and you got to read it in front of people. They're going to film you, and then the class is going to watch it back and critique you. That was the worst thing I ever heard in my life.

MOSLEY: (Laughter).

SAADIQ: And I did it, you know? I did suck, but I did it, you know?

MOSLEY: Is there a particular lesson from that that stuck with you that you use on stage now as just a part of your act?

SAADIQ: What I learned from it is, you know, you have to walk out there and, you know, take it all in, especially - it really came to be a great part for my one-man show because it's just me, and I have to walk out to an audience where I'm not - you know, you don't hear a drumroll in the beginning. It's just me. I open it up. I say something to the audience, and they're used to me coming out, you know, (impersonating drumroll). You know, it's not that. This is something else. And so I think - you know, I really like good acting, you know. I'm a huge fan of, like, Mos Def, Jeffrey Wright, Mr. Cheadle.

MOSLEY: Don Cheadle.

SAADIQ: Don.

MOSLEY: Yeah.

SAADIQ: Who takes that crap really serious. So...

MOSLEY: Like you do with music

SAADIQ: Like I do with music.

BIANCULLI: Raphael Saadiq spoke with Tonya Mosley last summer. "I Lied To You," the song he co-wrote for the movie "Sinners, " is nominated for an Oscar as best original song. After a break, we remember jazz clarinetist and tenor saxophonist Ken Peplowski, who died last week. I'm David Bianculli, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

DAVID BIANCULLI, BYLINE: This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli. Ken Peplowski, the clarinetist and tenor saxophonist whose career spanned from the Benny Goodman Orchestra to decades of his own recordings and appearances, died last week. He was 66 years old, and he died aboard a jazz cruise ship in the Gulf of Mexico in the hours between a morning lecture and a scheduled afternoon concert. Today, we remember Ken Peplowski. BBC jazz critic Russell Davies called Peplowski arguably the greatest living jazz clarinetist. Jazz pianist Emmet Cohen described him as a brilliant musician, a pioneer of the clarinet and a gentle soul.

Born in 1959, Peplowski started playing clarinet professionally in Ohio at age 10 as part of a family polka band started by his father, a policeman. He joined the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra in 1980, then switched from clarinet to tenor sax to play with the Benny Goodman Orchestra in 1984. After Goodman's death, two years later, Ken Peplowski embarked on a solo career, focusing more on clarinet, working with a wide range of artists and recording more than 400 albums. He worked with Charlie Byrd, Rosemary Clooney, Mel Torme and Leon Redbone.

When Terry Gross spoke with Ken Peplowski in 1999, he had just released a CD featuring songs and arrangements associated with his old band, the Benny Goodman Orchestra. The CD was titled "Last Swing Of The Century." The CD opens with the song Goodman often used to open his concerts, "Let's Dance."

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)

TERRY GROSS: Ken Peplowski, welcome to FRESH AIR.

KEN PEPLOWSKI: Thank you. Nice to be here.

GROSS: Well, you actually played with Benny Goodman in the last part of Goodman's life. How old were each of you at the time?

PEPLOWSKI: This was about 1986, and I would have been 26 at the time, and Benny was around 80 years old. And I was frightened to death, frankly, working with him because I'd heard all these stories about him, and most of them weren't very good stories. I mean, he was known as kind of a terror on the bandstand, a very tough bandleader. I saw a little bit of that, but I saw mostly a guy who was so obsessed with music that that took up about 98% of his life. And that was probably the sole cause of a lot of the complexities of his personality.

GROSS: Did you play clarinet or tenor?

PEPLOWSKI: No, I played tenor. And, you know, there's a little bit of clarinet doubling. But I gave him some tapes that I'd done playing clarinet, and I guess that was the basis of him telling these people that they should record me. But he never said anything to me about my clarinet playing except, you know, you sound good or, you know, those kind of things.

But the first audition, he auditioned Loren Schoenberg's band, his big band, 'cause he was - he wanted to take a big band back out on the road. So he came to a rehearsal session we had. And an hour went by, and he didn't show up. So we just started playing some charts, and I was playing the clarinet parts. And we're in the middle of an arrangement, and I've got my eyes closed and playing a solo, and I could actually feel the band change and kind of tense up. And without even knowing that he was in the room, I knew he was there. And then, of course, everybody completely fell apart. And - but, you know, he wound up hiring the whole band.

GROSS: What's your attitude toward playing repertory music? Do you try to keep it true to the original recording or use the original arrangement or recording as a jumping-off point?

PEPLOWSKI: Actually, I take kind of a different attitude. I don't want anybody to recreate solos, to try to play specifically in the style of the old records. I may be alone in this 'cause there's this big whole movement of, you know, everybody trying to sound like the old records. But to me, the way to keep the music alive is play it in your own fashion and show the audience that you love this music, but do it in your own way. Otherwise, you're treating the music like a dead music and treating it like a museum piece. And I don't want a concert to turn into a history lesson. I want the people to know that it's still alive. So all we did was use these arrangements as a jumping-off point for us. And this is our way of playing these charts.

BIANCULLI: Ken Peplowski speaking to Terry Gross in 1999. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to Terry's 1999 interview with Ken Peplowski. The jazz clarinetist and tenor saxophonist died last week at age 66.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)

GROSS: Were you exposed to Benny Goodman records from your father's collection when you were growing up?

PEPLOWSKI: Yeah. My father was an amateur musician. He was very surprisingly open musically 'cause he was a very conservative guy otherwise. But we all in the family listened to everything from Benny Goodman to the Beatles to classical music to polka music, which was my first professional job. And it all kind of goes in and goes into the computer there. And so it was nice. And I still like to listen to all kinds of music, and I wind up playing mostly jazz, but I welcome some changes once in a while. But yeah, Benny was a big early influence.

GROSS: How did you end up playing clarinet?

PEPLOWSKI: It's a funny thing. He - my father brought home a trumpet, tried to play it, gave it up in frustration, gave it to my brother. He became a trumpet player. He next brought home a clarinet, tried it, gave it up, gave it to me. I got stuck with a clarinet, and I actually loved it almost from the beginning. And I always make a joke out of this, and I tell people I'm very lucky, and this is true, because the next instrument he brought home was the accordion.

GROSS: (Laughter).

PEPLOWSKI: And you can get the letters...

GROSS: Did he play that himself?

PEPLOWSKI: Yes, he did. You can get the letters from the accordion players.

GROSS: (Laughter) So you started playing clarinet. Your brother was playing trumpet, and then you played in polka bands together when you were kids.

PEPLOWSKI: Yeah. We played - we had a Polish polka band called the Harmony Kings. And I was, I think, around 10, and he was around 12. And we were like this little kids novelty act around Cleveland, Ohio, and we used to go on the local TV and radio shows. There was a TV show called "Polka Varieties." And if you ever remember the SCTV show with the Shmenge brothers...

GROSS: (Laughter).

PEPLOWSKI: It was so close to this show it's frightening. But - and - but that - it's like learning how to swim by being thrown into the water. That's how I learned how to play. You know, there we were having to play these long weddings and learn a lot of old standards in addition to the polkas. And the clarinet's function in that music is to improvise. So I kind of learned just by doing it on the job.

GROSS: Now, I imagine playing clarinet excluded you from playing in a lot of rock 'n' roll bands.

PEPLOWSKI: Yeah, although we did do our version of "Proud Mary" with accordion and drums and clarinet. That was a killer with the audience.

GROSS: (Laughter).

PEPLOWSKI: But yeah, it did exclude me from that. But I took up saxophone a few years after the clarinet because of that, actually, because it fit in more with rock music and with more of the old standards. So I did my share of different kinds of jobs around Cleveland when I was coming up.

GROSS: Ken Peplowski, you've studied classical music, and before we talk about studying classical music, I want to feature you playing a classical piece. So let's listen to something from your CD, "The Other Portrait." And this features you with the Bulgarian National Symphony. We'll hear you playing the first movement of "Dance Preludes" by the composer Witold Lutoslawski.

(SOUNDBITE OF KEN PEPLOWSKI AND BULGARIAN NATIONAL RADIO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA PERFORMANCE OF WITOLD LUTOSLAWSKI'S "DANCE PRELUDES")

GROSS: Clarinet is Ken Peplowski from his CD, "The Other Portrait." Ken, did you study classical music because you planned on playing classical music, or did you do it just for help with your technique?

PEPLOWSKI: A little bit of both. I had a great teacher early on in Cleveland, a man named Al Blazer, who really impressed upon me the need to learn a lot of the classical approach to playing and how it would help everything I did. And it does. It helps with the breathing, with the phrasing, with the articulation of notes. And I always admired the - even the jazz players I admired had that classical side to them. Benny did. Jimmy Hamilton from the Duke Ellington Orchestra, Buster Bailey, people like that. So I started studying all of that, the supposed legit stuff.

And because I was studying that, I decided to go on into college and go for a degree on the clarinet with the classical thing. Even though I knew - I always knew I would just play jazz, but I mainly went to college just to keep studying with the same man 'cause he was teaching at Cleveland State. And I wound up going there for a year and a half, and then I got a job on the road with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, then that was it. Then it all went to pot.

GROSS: How do you think studying classical technique helped you playing jazz?

PEPLOWSKI: Because, again, to - it comes back to what I said before about Benny impressing upon us that sense of melodicism. You have to do the same thing - if you're playing a piece that is all written out that somebody wrote a long time ago, you have to put your personality into that piece of music. And you have to first learn the technique. And then the trick is to forget about the technique and just put some music into it. And if you can do that with classical music, that's a big stepping stone to doing it with jazz. And I love that kind of a classical, dark, round sound of the clarinet. It's such a beautiful sound that, for me, that's what I strive to get, even if I'm playing something that's not classical.

GROSS: There's a piece of yours I want to play from an earlier CD called "The Natural Touch," and this is a clarinet-bass duet. And the song is "How Deep Is The Ocean?" And I want to play this 'cause I suspect that it really shows off some of the things that you learned with the help of studying classical technique, like the beautiful tone that you have. And also, some of the embellishments in your improvisation here sound like they might be inspired in part by some of the classical technique that you learned. Do you want to say anything about this before we hear it?

PEPLOWSKI: Just that - well, you're absolutely right. Even now when I practice, it's mostly étude, classical études, and it all is information that goes into everything you do. So those little embellishments that you're speaking of do come right out of classical technique.

GROSS: Let's hear it. This is clarinetist Ken Peplowski.

(SOUNDBITE OF KEN PEPLOWSKI'S "HOW DEEP IS THE OCEAN? ")

GROSS: That's my guest, Ken Peplowski, on clarinet with Murray Wall on bass from Peplowski's 1992 CD, "The Natural Touch." And with your own band, a lot of the repertoire that you play is songs, you know, old standards, and it's almost wrong to call them standards 'cause they're - a lot of them are songs that not that many people know. But they're real songs. They're not just, like, riff-based things...

PEPLOWSKI: Yeah.

GROSS: ...Or heads that people play just to improvise on. And I'm wondering what attracts you to song.

PEPLOWSKI: Well, I have a very low boredom threshold.

GROSS: (Laughter).

PEPLOWSKI: Honestly. And...

GROSS: Yeah.

PEPLOWSKI: For me, if I'm bored standing up there playing, the audience has got to be asleep. So I want to - the kind of records I like - you know, it's - there's something about all those old writers. They constructed these beautiful pieces of music that told a whole story in 32 bars, and they're very interesting harmonically. They go to all these different places. And there's so much material out there to draw on. And I'm not a composer, you know, so what I do is interpret other people's material. So I love to dig up old songs. You're absolutely right.

GROSS: Do you like to learn the lyrics of a song when you're going to play it so you can think about that?

PEPLOWSKI: Yes, I really do. You know, it doesn't mean you have to memorize every word, but I think it's important to learn what was meant when they wrote the song, and then you can take what you want from it. But if you're playing a ballad, it's nice to know what kind of a ballad it is, if it's a really haunting ballad or if it's a - you know, just a song to try to woo some young lady, you know. And my goal - ultimate goal is to accomplish without words what the great singers accomplish using the words.

GROSS: Well, Ken Peplowski, I want to thank you very much for talking with us.

PEPLOWSKI: Oh, it's been a pleasure.

BIANCULLI: Ken Peplowski speaking to Terry Gross in 1999. The jazz clarinetist and tenor saxophonist died February 2. He was 66 years old. His final studio album was titled "Unheard Bird" and featured him on tenor sax with string arrangements written for but never recorded by Charlie Parker.

(SOUNDBITE OF KEN PEPLOWSKI'S "YOU GO TO MY HEAD)

BIANCULLI: Coming up, Justin Chang reviews the new film version of "Wuthering Heights." This is FRESH AIR.

DAVID BIANCULLI, BYLINE: This is FRESH AIR. Emily Brontë's 1847 novel "Wuthering Heights" has been adapted for the screen numerous times. The latest version stars Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi as Brontë's ill-fated lovers, Catherine and Heathcliff, and opens in theaters this week. It was written and directed by Emerald Fennell, the Oscar-winning filmmaker behind "Promising Young Woman" and "Saltburn." Our film critic, Justin Chang, has this review.

JUSTIN CHANG, BYLINE: More than a decade ago, The New Yorker published a piece titled "Can 'Wuthering Heights' Work Onscreen?" in which my now colleague, Joshua Rothman, argued that Emily Brontë's classic is beloved not just for its romance, but also for its strangeness, its intensity and its violence. These qualities, he noted, are often left out of the many films and many series the book has inspired, which tend to reduce the story to the doomed romance of Catherine and Heathcliff. The extravagant new movie, "Wuthering Heights," written and directed by the English filmmaker Emerald Fennell, is very much in this vein. It could be the most reductive version of this material ever made.

But I can't say I was ever bored. As she demonstrated in her wild satirical thriller, "Saltburn" from 2023, Fennell cares little for subtlety. And here she's made an ode to mad, passionate excess. You could say she tells the story in broad brush strokes, but I don't think she's even using a brush, more like bright red spray paint. And she's cast two stars, Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, as a Catherine and Heathcliff you won't soon forget, even if their love affair is ultimately more photogenic than it is deeply moving.

It begins in the late 18th century, around the time that the young Catherine Earnshaw, who likes to run wild on the Yorkshire moors, gets a new companion named Heathcliff, a scruffy urchin who comes to live with her and her father at their house, Wuthering Heights. Years later, and now played by Robbie and Elordi, Catherine and Heathcliff are extremely close, to the point of sharing a tense, quasi-incestuous attraction. It's clear they love each other, even when Catherine expresses her interest in Edgar Linton, a wealthy aristocrat who's moved into a magnificent estate nearby.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "WUTHERING HEIGHTS")

MARGOT ROBBIE: (As Cathy) Look at it. He must be very rich, indeed. I suppose he shall fall in love with me. I suppose he shall fall in love with...

JACOB ELORDI: (As Heathcliff) I heard you.

ROBBIE: (As Cathy) It would be nice to be rich. What should you do, Heathcliff?

ELORDI: (As Heathcliff) What?

ROBBIE: (As Cathy) If you were rich.

ELORDI: (As Heathcliff) Suppose I'd do what all rich men do. I'd live in a big house and be cruel to my servants. Take a wife.

ROBBIE: (As Cathy) A wife? What wife?

ELORDI: (As Heathcliff) Aye. I've always looked fondly on Rose from the crowd.

ROBBIE: (As Cathy) The landlord's daughter? She's quite the plainest girl I ever laid eyes on and dull, too. Shockingly dull. She's practically a simpleton. I cannot sit here all day talking nonsense with you. After all, the Lintons may call on me at any moment.

CHANG: Catherine does end up marrying Edgar, played here by Shazad Latif. Heathcliff storms off in a fury, only to return several years later with a fortune of his own and a fierce desire to either reclaim Catherine or have his revenge. He inflames her jealousy by setting his sights on Edgar's impressionable young ward, Isabella. That's Alison Oliver, giving the movie's sharpest performance. Up to a point, this is how past adaptations, including the classic versions directed by William Wyler and Luis Bunuel, have unfolded.

But Fennell wants to make the story her own by infusing it with a hot and heavy sexuality that you don't typically see in a Brontë adaptation. Catherine and Heathcliff do a lot more romping in the rain than usual, in scenes that Fennell stages for wicked laughs, as well as earnest emotion. But it's precisely in the realm of emotion that this "Wuthering Heights" falters. Elordi and Robbie are fine actors. And they do what they can to give this overheated movie a core of real feeling. But they are often overwhelmed by the sheer gargantuan excess of the filmmaking.

The movie may be set in the 18th century, but Fennell draws on a wealth of contemporary inspirations, starting with the soundtrack, which features several moody songs by the pop star Charli xcx. The production design and the costumes are full of outre touches, from the bright red acrylic floor in one room of Catherine and Edgar's home to the Met Gala-ready gowns that Catherine wears in scene after scene. She changes outfits so often that Robbie at times seems to be playing Barbie all over again. There's a reason for all this anachronism. It's Fennell's way of saying that Catherine and Heathcliff's love story is so powerful that it transcends its period setting.

But for all her bold choices, there are aspects of this "Wuthering Heights" that remain hidebound and conventional, including its treatment of race. Over the years, there's been much debate over the subject of Heathcliff's ethnicity. Brontë's book famously describes him as a dark-skinned gypsy. And he's often been held up as one of the few protagonists of color in Victorian literature, not that that's kept him from being played by one white actor after another, including Laurence Olivier, Ralph Fiennes, Tom Hardy and now Jacob Elordi.

One underappreciated exception is Andrea Arnold's 2012 version, which features two Black actors, Solomon Glave and James Howson, as the younger and older Heathcliff. Casting choices aside, Arnold's version is pretty much the antithesis of Fennell's - somber, downbeat and grimly realistic. It's a tougher but ultimately more affecting movie. And with "Wuthering Heights" fever having set in, now is as good a time as any to seek it out.

BIANCULLI: Justin Chang is a film critic at The New Yorker. He reviewed "Wuthering Heights," now in theaters. On Monday's show, as we celebrate President's Day, Donald Trump's aggressive moves to expand the power of his office may be redefining the presidency. We speak with presidential historian Jon Meacham. His new book, "American Struggle," is a collection of important speeches, letters and other texts from colonial times to today. Hope you can join us. For Terry Gross and Tonya Mosley, I'm David Bianculli.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

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