© -
Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
“Weiss' four recordings have
received unanimous critical acclaim. Stereo Review devoted a feature review to
his debut album, Presenting Michael
Weiss (Criss Cross). Power Station
(DIW) was selected as one of the top five releases of 1997 by JazzTimes, in
which Sid Gribetz said, “Weiss' originals sound as if they were standards of
the genre.” In Fanfare, Royal S. Brown wrote, “Weiss' consummate command of the
piano shows throughout the album.” According to the British magazine Jazz
Journal, Milestones (SteepleChase)
contains “splendid music on every track...piano playing of the highest order.”
His 2003 release, “Soul Journey”
(Sintra) features a collection of all original compositions for septet
including the award winning, “El Camino.” As Terry Lawson of the Detroit
“He’s a very articulate,
honest and precise person who takes care of business. To my ears, Michael is a
real bebop piano player and you don’t find many like him around today.”
- Gerry Teekens, Jazz producer
“Make no mistake, Michael
Weiss is good news for bebop ears ….”
- Mark Gardner, Jazz author and critic
I first “met”
pianist, composer arranger, Michael Weiss through Gerry Teekens, the owner and
proprietor of Criss Cross, a labeled devoted to Jazz that is located in
Enschede, Holland
A Jazz fan based
in southern California New York
I wish I could
attribute this sequence of events to some cosmopolitan, jet set, bon vivant
life style on my part, but alas, the so-called meeting came about by my purchase
of Presenting
Michael Weiss, a CD that Gerry Teekens recorded on April
4, 1986 for his
Criss Cross Jazz label [#1022].
Frankly, I had no
idea who Michael was at that time.
What I did know
was that Gerry came to New York
After a lengthy
hiatus from Jazz due to personal and professional reasons, I was getting back
into the music in the late 1980s, but I really didn’t know much about who the
young players were on the Jazz scene, especially those on the East Coast.
I had come across
the playing of drummer Kenny Washington on tenor saxophonist Ralph Moore’s Images
CD [Landmark LCD-1520-2] which also featured the work of pianist Benny Green
and bassist Peter Washington. Kenny, Peter and Benny recorded extensively for
Gerry Teekens in the 1980s and 1990s.
I was particularly
smitten with Kenny’s drumming because it was cut-out-of-the-mold of Philly Joe
Jones, one of my early heroes and whose style I tried to emulate in my own
playing.
It was Kenny’s
efforts on Criss Cross that led me to Michael Weiss as he is the drummer on Presenting
Michael Weiss.
After listening to
Michael on Criss Cross, I couldn’t agree more with Mark Gardner’s assessment of
Michael and the recording when he writes in its insert notes:
“If you are a
believer in the continuing validity of bebop as the most challenging, complex
and above all beautiful Jazz styles, this album is for you. In the hands of
pianist/leader Michael Weiss and his four well-chosen companions [Tom
Kirkpatrick on trumpet, Ralph Lalama on tenor saxophone and Ray Drummond on
bass join Michael and Kenny] there is no ‘if’ about it: Bebop lives! With
authenticity and creativity!”
What really turned
my head around while listening to Michael’s Criss Cross CD was his
interpretation of Joe Zawinul’s rarely heard Riverbed. [So you can sample it for yourself, I've used this tune as the audio track on the video tribute to Michael, which you will find at the conclusion of this piece].
On this track,
which is played at a medium tempo while employing only a trio with Ray and
Kenny, Michael displays a clarity and crispness of phrasing and an easy swing; what
Mark Gardner refers to as the “… melodic contours of this lyrical tune” that is
reminiscent of the great Jazz piano stylists.
This is what
immediately appealed to me about Michael Weiss – his playing has a manner and a
grace to it that brings to mind the work of Hank Jones, Tommy Flanagan, Jimmy
Rowles and Barry Harris.
With Michael, it’s
not about flashy technique or note-popping solos, rather, he creates swinging
“lines” [improvisations] that fall so effortlessly and easily on the ears.
He seems to get
“inside” a tune and finds its hidden meanings and mysteries.
Michael’s playing
explores and examines, it probes and pushes, it discovers and reveals.
He strikes me as
the type of pianist that other pianists go to listen to and not to marvel at;
no pretenses, just a purity of expression that reminds you of why you fell in
love with Jazz in the first place.
Since that first
encountered with his music, I had loosely followed his career through his
performances with Jazz giants such as Johnny Griffin and Art Farmer and his
work on his own albums.
But given the
geographic distance between us, it wasn’t easy for me to check him out in
person.
Imagine my
surprise, then, when I received an inquiry from him a few months ago from
Michael concerning the music of composer-arranger Dick Grove.
We got to chatting
via e-mail and when I asked him if he would consent to an interview on JazzProfiles
he said he would.
Here are Michael’s
gracious replies to my questions.
-
How and when did music first come into your life?
I have a Polaroid
of me sitting with a portable record player on my lap around the age of three.
I remember Beatles records, beginning around 1964. I began piano lessons at
six, and also started playing the guitar at the same time. We discovered I had
a good ear and perfect pitch. I could pick out melodies and chords, so I took
to music right away.
-
What are your earliest recollections of Jazz?
I grew up on rock
music. I was first exposed to jazz while attending the Interlochen Music Camp
in Michigan Dave Sporny taught courses in jazz
improvisation and arranging. He concisely laid out all the basics of jazz
harmony, voicings and other fundamentals so clearly that I soaked it up like a
sponge. Within six weeks I had written a big band chart. From then on I was on
my way. I had been drifting as a young teenager in the suburbs so Jazz music
really gave me a purpose in life.
-
Who were the Jazz musicians who first impressed you and why?
After Interlochen
I attended a "magnet" high school in Dallas
- How would you describe the influence of
any or all of the following on your playing?
- Teddy Wilson
How to play the piano
with elegance.
- Hank Jones
A modern Teddy Wilson with harmonic ingenuity,
sophisticated voice-leading and orchestration.
- Tommy Flanagan
One of the supreme orchestrators on the piano
of all time, attention to detail and a gorgeous touch. True pianism.
- Bud Powell
Certainly the strongest influence on my playing
- directly and filtered through his acolytes such as Barry Harris. Trying to describe the importance of Bud
Powell as an influence is as overwhelming as trying to answer the question,
"what is jazz?" Bud is my foundation for swinging - how I feel and
play the beat and how to swing the eighth note, for melodic construction - his
fountain of melodic ideas. He influences
me in his intensity - an emotional immediacy, and wide range of expression in
all tempos, his harmonic movement - voicings and passing chords.
- Horace Silver
Horace is my first influence. His rhythmic
precision, his thematic approach to improvisation, his personal mix of the
blues with bebop (Sonny Clark , too) and humorous quotes in
his solos, his compositions... all have left their mark.
- Barry Harris
Barry is my good friend and mentor. We discuss
musical problems and challenges all the time, usually over the telephone, with
him at his piano and me at mine. We discuss harmonic theory, piano technique
and just about everything else.
I've known Barry since I was 21 years old. I'm influenced by everything Barry plays, but
most of all his sense of swing and feeling.
- Wynton
Kelly
Wynton is one my models for accompaniment. He's one of the
greatest. He knows how to listen to the soloist and react instantly and
creatively with the most appropriate harmony and rhythm. Of course his creativity as a soloist is
masterful as well and his touch is immediately identifiable. But I would say
Wynton's sensibility as an accompanist has influenced me the most.
- Herbie Hancock
Herbie is a genius and I admire him greatly. But his influence on
my playing has been greater through his accompanying and his harmony than as a
soloist. I never was able to really acquire his metrically displaced linear
style of soloing - not like other contemporaries of mine can do. I guess I have
too much bebop phrasing in my DNA . Herbie is a great model for how to combine classical influences
in one's playing.
- McCoy Tyner
If I had to choose, I'd say I feel a closer affinity to McCoy than
Herbie. He was nicknamed Bud-Monk for good reason. But coming out of those two
,McCoy still managed to create his own personal language. McCoy is my model for
how to imply several different tonalities - a "pan-tonality" - while improvising over essentially one chord.
The
way he "fans out" the harmonic palette through related tonalities.
Coltrane and McCoy were very likeminded in this regard. You have to find a way
to make things interesting. When you play on one chord for 40 minutes, you look
for ways to broaden the color range through related chords and tonalities. You
look for contrasting tonalities to dip in and out of...consonance and
dissonance in ways that make sense. And McCoy's left hand is amazing. The rhythmic vitality going on
between his both hands in his solos is remarkable.
- Buddy Montgomery
I first met Buddy while in college, but soon after arriving in NY I
acquired some tapes of Buddy's gigs from the 1970s that I studied intensely. I
was very attracted to his style. He had all the modern harmony and linear lines
of a Herbie or McCoy but without sounding anything like them. I used to perform
many of his compositions and worked with him several times with Buddy playing
vibes. He's another player I was drawn to because of the rich soulful feeling
he brings to everything he plays.
Of course my jazz conception has been influenced by a number of
non-pianists too. Bird, Hank Mobley, John Coltrane, Kenny Dorham influences
readily come to mind. But who can say - with all of our diverse listening
experience - what influence comes from where?
- What
were your first combo playing experiences?
As a kid - in
garage bands since I was 13. As a teenager I made a few trio gigs in Dallas Indianapolis Indiana
-
How would you describe your approach to small group writing?
I try to expand
the material compositionally as far as I can take it - either in a "theme
and variations" or some other type of compositional development. Wayne
Shorter influence me how to develop and reuse one's material. Sometimes a piece
originates as a song form and then expands to other sections and sometimes
there's no standard song form. But introductions, backgrounds, codas,
interludes - I learned that from Horace Silver and Thad. I like to write out my
bass lines and harmonies. I enjoy attention to detail. Wayne and Monk are very
specific about what they write.
- Melody, Harmony, Rhythm and
Texture [the way the music sounds]
have been described as the musical atoms upon which all composing is
based; is there anything unique or different in how you deal with these,
individually and collectively, in your writing?
Any one of these
elements can be the offspring for some type of development and can take center
stage. What keeps the music accessible, allowing the listener to follow easily
is to develop one or two of these elements at a time rather than all at once.
One only has to study classical music to see how it's really done.
- Talk about Junior Cook and Bill Hardman
Beginning in late 1982, I worked steadily with Junior Cook at the
Star Cafe for about two years. This is where I “cut my teeth.” Playing with Junior every week was a very
fortunate opportunity for me. Exactly
the kind of experience any budding jazz musician needs to develop one’s
musicianship and individuality – a rarity these days, for sure. We always played an interesting and balanced
repertoire.
I then joined the Junior Cook/Bill Hardman quintet. We played
mostly in small clubs around New York
After joining Johnny Griffin in 1987, I continued to work
intermittently with Bill and Junior. The feeling Bill put through his horn was
profound. His sound, phrasing and rhythm
were the essence of jazz. Form, content,
proportion, melodicism, soul, fire, storytelling – these were all exemplified
in Junior Cook. Junior and Bill will be
remembered not only as great musicians, but also for their generous
encouragement to the serious young musicians who sought them out.
- How
did your association with tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin and trumpeter Art
Farmer come about. How long did you work with their respective groups? What was
the experience like working with these Jazz “masters?”
In 1985 I had been using Kenny
Washington on some gigs. When Griffin Cambridge US USA Canada Japan Brazil France
Art Farmer was always one of my
favorites and I was hoping to have a chance to play with him. He first took me
to Israel
One can learn a lot by observing how these veterans approach a gig,
how they approach a tune, the way they play a melody, the way they phrase
something. They don't solo too long. They don't practice on the bandstand. They
construct their solo and tell a story. Having the opportunity to play several
nights in a row with these artists was indispensable to my development. In this
music, you have to be playing all the time to develop your own style.
- What
do you look for in a drummer? What drummers do you enjoy working with?
- Who
are your favorite bassists? What do you listen for in selecting a bassist to
work with?
Perhaps
stating the obvious, I like rhythm section players who have a well rounded
knowledge of the recorded history of jazz so they know what's appropriate. Good
time, good taste, a good sound on their instrument. I like bassists who like to
use the amp as little as possible. I like bassists and drummers who like to
syncopate and not just play straight time.
I like
players who are really creative and contribute but at the same time have good
sense and good taste. In the end, everything comes down to taste - and one's
own sense of taste is as personal as it gets.
- Could
you describe how you approached the following recordings in terms of the
general conception for each, the personnel you selected and why, and the mix of
music?
Presenting Michael Weiss
During this period I was interested
in finding good compositions that hadn't been overplayed. Junior Cook, who I
was working with, also enjoyed playing obscure Monk tunes and obscure standards
that Coltrane recorded on Prestige. I wanted to be sure I had at least one
original tune on the date. As on all of my gigs and recordings, I try to be
conscientious about programming - to have a balance and variety of tempos,
keys, rhythm, and in the construction of the arrangements. Kenny Washington
recommended me to the record company, and with his encyclopedic knowledge of
recordings he was a natural choice. Tom Kirkpatrick and Ralph Lalama were guys
I was playing with it that time. They have distinctive voices and fit well with
the program. The style of hard-bop was dominant and it was exciting to be
recording at Rudy Van Gelder's.
Power Station
At this time I began getting serious
about composing. I formed a sextet to focus on composing and arranging. The
quartet personnel here were taken from that group. The title track I composed
instantly - I conceived it and played it on the piano in real time
spontaneously. If only it were always that easy! Everyone played very well and the studio and
piano were excellent. The two standards I arranged are unusual in that the
typical tempos for those tunes are reversed. I play Some Other Spring fast and
Alone Together slow.
Milestones
This opportunity came about somewhat quickly
after having been a sideman on a few SteepleChase dates. I chose not to focus
on my compositions. Jackie McLean gave me his blessing to premier on CD his
composition Walter Davis Ascending. I was friends with Walter and just after he
died, Jackie called me up with this new tune that he heard in his head the
night Walter passed. Jackie played it over the phone for me on his horn while I
notated it. I also included Jackie's Little Melonae. One of my cherished
possessions is a phone message from Jackie in which he is very complimentary
about this recording. After hearing Buddy Montgomery play I'll Remember April
as a ballad I tried my hand at that with other standards, such as Like Someone
in Love. To help me break out into different ideas, I chose B major for Like
Someone in Love and Stella By Starlight.
Soul Journey
I had a collection of sextet
arrangements ready to record and was looking for a company. In the end, to do
it right required me to produce it myself. I rerecorded a few of the
compositions from Power Station because they had expanded considerably since
then. I had come under the spell of Wayne Shorter's CD High Life, which led to
a breakthrough for me in my composing - to go the extra mile with compositional
development and detailing, to seize the moment, so to speak, with my
brainstorms. For example, if you devise several ways to go from point A to
point B, you don't have to pick just one. Why repeat the same thing verbatim? Wayne Wayne
- Switching
to the subject of “favorites:”
What are some of your favorites
books about Jazz?
I like the
books about jazz that are either written by musicians themselves or feature
extensive interviews with the musicians such as Ira Gitler 's "Swing to Bop"
and Art
Taylor's "Notes and Tones." Nica's book "Three Wishes" was
quite entertaining. Miles', Dizzy's, Jimmy Heath's and Horace's autobiographies
were very informative. I wish Jackie McLean, Johnny Griffin had written
memoirs. Lou Donaldson, with all the stories he's told, really should write
one.
- What
are some of your favorite Jazz recordings?
Of course when it comes to Bird,
Bud, Monk, Newk, Miles, the Messengers, Horace it's hard to single out one over
another, because there are so many classics. Having said that, I especially
like Bud's live recordings from Birdland 1953. I enjoy Monk with Griff at the
Five Spot. These are particular favorites:
Horace Silver - everything up through
The Jody Grind
Kenny Dorham - Quiet Kenny
Tommy Flanagan - Trio overseas
Sonny Clark - My Conception
Barry Harris - At the Jazz Workshop
Sonny Redd - Breezin'
Jackie McLean - Jackie's Bag, A
Fickle Sonance
Hank Mobley - with Kenny Dorham and
Sonny Clark , A Caddy For Daddy
Dexter Gordon - Go, A Swingin'
Affair
Johnny Griffin and Jaws - everything
Herbie Hancock - Inventions and
Dimensions, Speak Like a Child
Lucky Thompson - Plays Jerome Kern
and No More
Art Blakey - Free For All, Golden
Boy
John Coltrane - Live at the Half
Note 1965
Grant Green - Street of Dreams,
Matador
Bobby Timmons - The Soul Man
McCoy Tyner - Inception, Reaching
Fourth, Time For Tyner, Tender Moments, Sama Layuca
Larry Young - Unity
Bobby Hutcherson - Oblique
Lee Morgan - The Procrastinator
Tyrone Washington - Natural Essence
Pete La Roca - Turkish Women at the Bath
Sun Ra - Jazz in Silhouette, Fate in
a Pleasant Mood, Heliocentric Worlds, Pathways to Unknown Worlds
Lou Donaldson - Fried Buzzard
Freddie Hubbard - High Blues Pressure
Chick Corea - Inner Space, Hymn to
the Seventh Galaxy
Buddy Montgomery
Tony Williams Lifetime - Emergency!
Joe Farrell - Moongerms
Wayne Shorter - All VeeJays, all
Blue Notes, Atlantis, Phantom Navigator, High Life
Weather Report - Mysterious Traveler
Jim Beard - Song of the Sun
- Who
are your favorite Jazz vocalists?
Dinah
Washington, Carmen McRae, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra. I like Jimmy Rushing.
- Who
among current Jazz musicians do you enjoy listening to?
I'm surely
forgetting some people but off the top of my head -
Under 60:
Danny Grissett, Grant Stewart, Alex Hoffman, Dick Oatts, John Webber, Joe
Farnsworth
Over 60:
Andy Fusco, Tom Harrell, Barry Harris, Cecil Taylor, Roy Haynes
- What
are your thoughts about blogs and websites devoted to Jazz?
If the
blogger's insights can inspire readers to dig deeper to appreciate something or
to turn them on to something they didn't know about, why not?
What are you trying to convey in your music?
What kind of an experience do you hope that the listener will take away after
hearing it?
Each composition
has it's own mood or moods. I like to write music that has more compositional
substance than just the same old head-solo-head format. I hope listeners will
be affected on an emotional level in some way and can follow the narrative.
- What's
coming up for you in terms of future club performances, concerts, and future
recording projects?
I'll be appearing
in April with Frank Wess in NYC. I play most Mondays with the Vanguard Jazz
Orchestra at the Village Vanguard. I'm working on the final compositions for
a recording project I began a few years
ago with my current group.
- In
both personal and professional terms, what has the Jazz experience [i.e.: a
career as a Jazz musician] meant to you?
This maybe stating
the obvious but it's all that comes to my mind at the moment:
It is a chosen
lifestyle as that of any self-employed freelance artist in their respective
field.
You live to do
what you do. As long as you can remain so inspired, your artistic goals are
limitless. You, yourself are your harshest critic, the only one that really
matters and ultimately the only one you aim to please, which is very hard to
do.
- Where
can one get updated information on your activities and hear samples of your
recordings?
Visit www.michaelweiss.info
- Aside from jazz, what
other kind of music interests you? What other music do you like to play
and practice? Has any of this music rubbed off on your playing and composing?
I've played
"classical" piano literature since the age of six. but I didn't enjoy
practicing much until my last year of high school when my teacher assigned me a
Scriabin etude. In college my classical music took a back seat to my jazz
playing. But after I moved to NYC and got my own piano I began playing a lot of
classical repertoire at home: Scriabin, Bach, Chopin, and really enjoying it.
Scriabin's harmonic language really appealed to me, obviously. Reading through
all this repertoire was improving my technique and sound on the piano. I'd say
I'm most attracted to music that has complex harmony. Szymanowski can really
stretch it! Several years ago I became obsessed with the piano works of Samuil
Feinberg, a very obscure Russian composer, known primarily as a pianist and
pedagogue. All of his compositions are out of print, but I found them. He is
the one heir to Scriabin who speaks the most to me but I also like many works
of Alexandrov, Obouhov and Roslavets. I struggle through a couple of the Ligeti
Etudes and the Messiaen preludes. I love Messiaen's Turangalila Symphonie and
Trois Petite Liturgies - great pieces.
It's all
"jazz" to me, just without the improvisation. I used to define
"jazz" in much narrower terms, but now the point is really
meaningless. I like the way Wayne Shorter puts it: "Improvisation is
composition sped up and composition is improvisation slowed down." We are
informed by everything we come into contact with. I could tell you exactly
where the ideas for some parts of my compositions come from, but not
everything.
I usually don't like
to rearrange classical pieces because they always sound best to me just as the
composer intended. But there are a couple of occasions where I've been willing
to adapt a classical piece to my group. There's a Roslavets prelude, a funeral
march, that I played at the Vanguard. I hope to record it on the next project.
Another is the second movement from Schoenberg's opus 16. These are both really
dark pieces, but still very beautiful.
As an improviser
these influences come out when it's appropriate and feels natural. I never like
to deliberately go against the flavor of a tune - I think that's corny. But
sometimes the door can open by itself... Everything comes down to one's own
sense of good taste.
I like any kind of
music that sustains my interest - rhythmically, melodically, harmonically -
whatever. Who cares about genre.
Bulgarian choir music is incredible. I've gone back to Led Zeppelin. In
addition to the many great jazz composers and arrangers of the 40s and 50s, the
"fusion" era of jazz is so important from a compositional
perspective. That's when standard song forms started to really get thrown out
the window. Wayne Shorter's High Life is a monumental work, a symphony of nine
movements.
