© - Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all
rights reserved.
Bill Kirchner has
been a friend to Jazz in many ways and for many years.
For not only is he
a Jazz musician, composer, educator and writer, he is also the editor of the
esteemed – The Oxford Companion to Jazz [2000] – one of the best compilations
ever assembled of knowledgeable essayists writing on the subject of Jazz.
Bill has two, new
recordings out and both are available for purchase as Mp3 downloads though www.jazzheads.com via the following links:
OLD FRIENDS
To purchase
"Old Friends," click on this link:
To purchase
"One Starry Night," click on this link:
Bill has kindly
granted us copyright permission to reproduce on these pages Larry Kart’s fine
descriptions of the music on both of these recordings.
We have also
embedded two Sound Cloud audio tracks into the feature so that you can listen
to examples of the music on each of Bill’s new recordings.
© - Larry Kart/Bill Kirchner, used with
permission, copyright protected, all rights reserved.
“At one point Bill
Kirchner played a good many of the reed and woodwind instruments with much
skill -- sopranino, soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone saxophones, clarinet, bass
clarinet, flute, alto flute, and piccolo. But in recent years the soprano
saxophone has become his instrument of choice and eventually also of near
necessity, and it is on soprano that one will hear him solo on this duo concert
that Bill and one of his favorite musical partners, pianist Marc Copland, gave
on September 23, 2008, in New York City at The New School, where Bill also
teaches.
The setting was a
compact, wood-paneled, lecture hall-recital room (l was there), with fine
acoustics (or it seemed to me) and a lovely piano for Copland to play. Full of
friends, many of them musicians, the audience was attentive to say the least,
and there was a great deal for us to pay attention to.
I said above that
Bill’s focus on the soprano was a matter both of affinity and “near necessity”
because of circumstances that he describes in the liner notes to his 1997 album
“Some Enchanted Evening” (A-Records): “In 1993, it was discovered that I had a
life-threatening spinal tumor. I underwent two operations to remove it, but as
a result was left largely paralyzed on my right side. I learned to walk again,
and have gradually regained most of the use of my right hand.... Happily, I
have begun playing the soprano saxophone in public, thanks in part to the
ingenious Perry
Ritter, who
rebuilt my horn so that I can use alternative fingerings.”
That no allowances
need be made for Bill’s latter-day soprano playing is obvious from this
concert; these are among the most striking recorded improvisations on this
tricky instrument, which in the modern era is too often played so as to be thin
and piping in tone. There is, by contrast to this unfortunate norm, a top,
middle, and bottom to Bill’s sound, and he can vary its breadth and volume for
expressive purposes in virtually any register. Is his sheer facility, his
ability to place a great many notes in tight places, quite the same as it once
was? Probably not, though he always was a lyrical player, not a flashy one. In
any case, as I believe I said to him
a few years ago,
kidding on the square, “Now you get to play only the good notes.” Further,
there are the words of his former teacher Lee Konitz when they were playing
together not long ago: “You can always simplify." “One of the profoundest
things any improvising musician has ever said, to my knowledge,” Bill adds.
If only, but not
only, because of the duo format, Copland is quite prominent here. (The
Copland-Kirchner partnership goes back to 1976, when both men were living and
working in Washington , D.C. New York
Originally an alto
saxophonist, talented enough to be hired by Chico Hamilton, Copland underwent a
quite unusual conversion in his mid-20s, from altoist to pianist. As he told Gene Lees in an interview: “When I was coming up as
a saxophonist, the ideal was to burn out -- to play really intense. All of a
sudden here was this Impressionist-lyrical thing going on inside me that I had
known nothing about.... It was so strong that it took me all the way over, not
so much because I wanted to play piano -- although I grew to love it -- but
because I had to do something with that feeling.”
What Copland has
done with that feeling is to become a simply ravishing and quite individual
jazz pianist -- technically, harmonically, in terms of both long-range
“orchestral” thinking and quick-witted response. He’s in the line of Bill
Evans, but speaking as someone who found Evans (and finds many of those he
influenced) to be rather formulaic at times, the sheer freshness of Copland’s
ideas, the unapologetic emotional openness of his
“Impressionist-lyrical
thing” is a delight. Another thing, and far from a little
thing -- he really
swings; does so, as does Kirchner here, even when the time feel is more or less
rubato. I think, in addition to the usual sources, that this has a lot to do
with Copland’s harmonic thinking -- “coloristic” though they may be, his
choices there always have clean, lucid rhythmic implications (those bass
lines!), and serve to guide the speed and “plane” with which the performance
advances through time.
Because there are
only two musicians involved, and their thinking is so clear, I won’t try to
verbally mirror that much of what I think is happening during these
seventy-seven-or-so minutes of music-making. But I do want to focus on some
passages that seem to me to be at once representative and remarkable.
On the first
piece, Bruno Martino’s “Estate,” note how fluid yet “right there” the time feel
is; the virtual outburst of lyricism that comes from Copland at the 7:19 mark
and then leaps back to life at 7:52; the delicacy of Bill’s thread-like
oscillation between two adjacent notes at about 11:29, and his almost fierce
power in the passage that follows.
“Autumn Leaves” is
a piece, says Bill, “that Marc and I have played every few years for over
thirty years; it's ‘our song.’ Funny story -- in 1981, we did a duo concert at
one of the Smithsonian museums in Washington
Well, yes,
literally, but also no. An arrangement for saxophone and piano that lasts for
more than fourteen minutes and hangs together as this performance does would be
difficult to envision. For instance, check out what happens at the 10:24 mark, as Bill enters after Copland’s solo.
Holding a single note (a concert G-flat) for what seems an eternity while Copland
dances above and below him, highlighting the way that held note alternately
clashes and blends with the harmonic framework of the song, this to me is Bill
in excelsis, a sterling example of
Konitz’s dictum: “You can
always simplify.”
Speaking of
Williams, in his book “Where’s the Melody?” he famously answered that
common-at-one-time question with something like, good jazz improvisers tend to
make up melodies that are better than those of the songs they started out from.
And better, longer melodies, too. Unless I’m imagining things, on “I Fall In
Love Too Easily,” the improvised melodic line that Bill begins at about the 2:56 mark remains essentially unbroken until 4:31 rolls around -- and that, believe me, is a
long time to sustain a meaningful melodic arc at this ballad tempo. And don’t
miss the child-like
Ravelian quality
of the coda that Bill and Marc devise.
Miles Davis’
“Agitation” is the most overtly swinging performance here – a virtual surf ride
-- while the misterioso reading of Wayne Shorter’s “Footprints” is a particularly
fine example of Copland’s aforementioned way of turning harmonic choices into
rhythmic ones. And Johnny Mandel's "Keester Parade" is here approached
by both players with a delicious, droll slyness--quite unlike the mini-big band
fervor, topped off by a hellacious shout chorus, of bass trumpeter Cy Touff's
original 1955 octet recording. (I should mention that “Keester Parade” is not
Mandel’s only venture into verbal trickery; he also gave us “London Derriere.”)
My favorite
performance of this evening, though, if I had to chose one, would be the duo’s
version of Victor Young and Ned Washington’s “My Foolish Heart” -- a song that
I believe Bill Evans introduced to the jazz repertoire, and bless him for that.
From the tender hesitation that Bill introduces into the opening melodic line
to the final near unison pianosoprano restatement of the theme, this is,
indeed, music of the heart.
Larry Kart, author
of “Jazz In Search of Itself” (Yale University Press)
MARC COPLAND,
piano
1) Estate (Bruno Martino/Bruno Brighetti) 13:45
Universal Music
Publishing Ricordi SRL, ASCAP
2) Autumn Leaves (Joseph Kosma/Jacques
Prévert/Johnny Mercer) 14:33
Morley Music,
ASCAP
3) I Fall In Love Too Easily (Jule
Styne/Sammy Cahn) 11:09
EMI Feist Catalog
Inc./Music Publishing Co. of America
4) Footprints (Wayne 11:19
Miyako Music, BMI
5) My Foolish Heart (Victor Young/Ned
Washington) 11:40
Anne Rachel Music
Corp./Catharine Hinen/Patti Washington
6) Keester Parade (Johnny Mandel) 8:00
Marissa Music,
ASCAP
7) Agitation (Miles Davis) 6:16
East St. Louis
Music Inc./Jazz Horn Music Corp., BMI
Recorded at The
New School Jazz Performance Space,
Recording
Engineer: Christopher Hoffman
Mastering
Engineer: Malcolm Addey
Cover Photo: Ed
Berger
Graphic Design;
Javier Chacin and Judy Kahn
“Something that
should become quite apparent as one listens to these performances is the sheer,
securely grounded intelligence of Bill Kirchner’s musical thought, his learned
though utterly natural and relaxed craftsmanship. Taught directly by such
celebrated arrangers as Rayburn Wright and Mike Crotty (who arranged “I Concentrate
On You” for the Nonet) and by example and assimilation by such figures as Thad
Jones and Bob Brookmeyer (Bill was a frequent sub with Mel Lewis and the Jazz Orchestra
at one time), Ellington, Strayhorn, Gil Evans, Eddie Sauter, Gary McFarland,
and Mike Abene, Bill simply (or not so simply) knows a great deal about
voicing, instrumental colors and blends, linear logic, long-range form,
contrapuntal possibilities, you name it. And he knows these things not only in
take-it-apart-and put-it-back-together analytic terms but also in the collective,
on-the-stand, “let’s get it done” sense that brings jazz, one of the quintessential
performance arts, to life.
Consider, for
example, the rather bright tempo chosen for the first piece of the Chicago
“The chart,” Bill
adds, “is in a quasi-rondo form, and alternates between a vamp and the song
form with chord changes. Douglas solos on the vamp, Marc on the changes.”
Also, don’t miss
the purity of tone and agility of Bill’s piccolo work in the ensemble toward
the beginning of “So Many Stars,” with the flutes of Ralph Lalama and Glenn
Wilson. It’s one of those details that distinguishes his arranging, exquisite
in concept and execution but always in service of the piece’s storytelling
flow.
Bill’s chart on
Andy LaVerne’s aptly titled “Maximum Density” is another gem. Dig Copland’s
coat-of-many-colors comping behind Lalama’s probing, serpentine solo, Ron
Vincent’s intensely propulsive yet transparent drumming, and the way the
ensemble at first steals in toward the end of Lalama’s stint and then briefly,
kaleidoscopically erupts -- as J.R. Taylor once said of another Kirchner
arrangement, “The band seems to swell to twice its actual size.”
Years ago, I
mentioned to Bill how much I liked Lalama’s solo on “Brother Brown,” one of the
tracks from the Nonet’s 1982 album “What It Is To Be Frank” (Sea Breeze).
Agreeing that it was exceptional even by Lalama’s high standards, Bill said
something like, “Yes, I set it [the chart] up so Ralph would play that way.”
The tone with which this was said is tricky to convey, but in addition to some
wry pardonable pride, it basically was an expression of the genuine pleasure
Bill took in having showcased so effectively a fellow musician he deeply
admired. The bandleader’s genetic makeup at work. And another little, or not so
little, point about band-leading: Bill gives his soloists just the right amount
of solo room -- when they do play, they get to play.
To Sheila Jordan’s
portion of the program. Still quite active today, almost 25 years further on,
Jordan was in particularly exuberant form on this night -- stimulated by the
size and enthusiasm of the audience (she works it like a show-biz master) and
of course by the sounds of the Nonet behind her. Judd Woldin and Robert
Brittan’s “Whose Little Angry Man Are You?” from the musical “Raisin” (based on
the late Lorraine Hansberry’s play “A Raisin in the Sun”) is a seldom-heard
song that Jordan has made her own – dig her flowing, saxophone-like phrasing
and her unique scat-singing style, which seems akin to the sound of Native
American vocal chants, as though there were tuned drums in her chest and
throat. Some of Jordan
Next is
“Quasimodo,” Jordan Jordan Jordan
We finish with
another Porter song, “You’d Be So Nice to Come To,” which begins with Jordan's
Native American-like scatting -- here almost shocking in its emotional
immediacy, with bassist Mike Richmond virtually singing alongside her. Then
comes a pleading, preaching solo from baritone saxophonist Glenn Wilson,
propelled by Vincent’s cooking drums; more of Jordan’s scat-singing (hers is
essentially vocal invention, I think, not an attempt to imitate an
instrumentalist); and finally a glimpse of the leader’s soprano saxophone,
entwined with Jordan’s voice, the only solo spot that Bill affords himself. A
magical night -- I was there.”
Larry Kart, author
of “Jazz In Search of Itself” (Yale University Press)
RALPH LALAMA,
tenor saxophone, flute, clarinet
GLENN WILSON,
baritone saxophone, flute
BRIAN LYNCH,
trumpet, flugelhorn
DOUGLAS PURVIANCE,
bass trombone
MARC COPLAND,
piano
RON VINCENT, drums
SHEILA JORDAN,
vocals
1) Opening Announcements 0:44
2) So Many Stars (Sergio Mendes/Alan & Marilyn Bergman) 7:41
Spirit Two Music
Inc./Threesome Music Co./W B Music Corp., ASCAP
3) Maximum Density (Andy LaVerne) 6:23
Kranmars Music,
ASCAP
4) Whose Little Angry Man (Judd
Woldin/Robert Brittan) 5:47
EMI Blackwood
Music, Inc., BMI
5) Quasimodo (Charlie Parker/Sheila
Jordan) 10:34
Songs Of Universal
Inc., BMI
6) I Concentrate On You (Cole Porter) 8:11
Chappell-Co. Inc.,
ASCAP
7) You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To (Cole
Porter) 12:23
Chappell-Co. Inc.,
ASCAP
8) Band Credits 0:19
So Many Stars and
Maximum Density arranged by Bill Kirchner.
Whose Little Angry
Man, Quasimodo, and You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To
arranged by Bill
Kirchner and Sheila Jordan.
I Concentrate On
You arranged by Mike Crotty.
Recorded at the Chicago
Grant Park, Chicago , Illinois September 4, 1987 .
Mastering
Engineer: Malcolm Addey
Graphic Design;
Javier Chacin and Judy Kahn
