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Musical reflections
When I play with a singer, I generally don’t think of myself as a pianist. Being a lover of Frank Sinatra’s records, (particularly the ones he made with Nelson Riddle and Don Costa – Sinatra with strings is an album to die for!) I tend to think of the orchestra a lot when I play. I don’t mean that I literally hear violins at a particular moment or an oboe at another, but I adopt more of an orchestral approach or that mindset, splashing colour and providing counter lines. I love working with good singers – maybe it’s because I’m a romantic at heart, but nothing touches me more than great singing. I absolutely adore Joni Mitchell's latest CD Both Sides Now – and those arrangements by Vince Mendoza…Oh my God! Perhaps as a result of this orchestral approach, I don’t consider myself a sideman or accompanist when I play with singers. Its much more collaboration than when I comp behind an instrumentalist. Actually, I don’t like being a sideman behind instrumentalists who treat the rhythm section as though it’s a ‘play along’ record – those angry saxophone players who play 700 choruses at the same dynamic level without taking a breath. I’d rather go to the movies than play music. Then you play with someone like Lee Konitz, whose approach is entirely lyrical, and it’s heaven! I did two gigs with him about five years ago and I really enjoyed that experience very much. He’s probably the greatest living altoist in the sense that he was part of that coterie of the most important pioneers of that instrument. (Parker, Cannonball, Desmond, Stitt et al). Playing with Billy Cobham was a special case. He can create more energy on stage than anyone I have ever heard and you need to not be intimidated by in order to play at your best. He writes extremely difficult music, much of it in odd meters. I can honestly say that after spending 10 years with him, I can play almost anything at any speed and in any key. In retrospect I know that until I began to work with Billy Cobham I was really more of a studio musician who was a frustrated jazz musician. It was with him that my jazz playing came of age because he encouraged me to be myself and not copy anyone. He loves to joke with me that when I first joined his band I sounded like ten different piano players (my retort is that he should have paid me ten fees!). In the studio they want you to be everyone else except yourself so it’s not possible to develop a great sense of identity as an artist. These days it’s very hard for me to return to the studio and not be me. Luckily when I do so, more and more people are calling me to play the way I play. I think the main reason I decided to make my own records (at least the initial reason) is that I never felt as though the records I did as a side man ever represented the real me. I wanted to control the mix, the type of piano we used, who the other musicians were going to be, the repertoire, which ‘take’ was going to be used…etc. It’s not about being a control freak – I give my sidemen a lot of freedom – it’s about putting out the best possible representation of what I do and to tell my own story for a change. And the best way for me to do so is by way of the trio. I love this format because it gives me total freedom. Sometimes it feels as though the three of us are sitting behind the wheel of a Ferrari racing at top speed. Then it feels as though we are caressing a beautiful woman (at least for me it is). I think it’s important to have a theme to a recording. It gives it a sense of theatre because it tells a story. I’ve made a Bacharach record and recently a recording of Paul Simon songs America. To me the melody is sacrosanct but every thing else is at my mercy (can be changed) – the harmonies, rhythms, time signatures, tempi and aesthetics. I don’t necessarily put jazz there at the end of the equation as a constant but it comes out sounding jazzy because of the way I conceptualise the music, harmonically and rhythmically. Anyway whether an album like America is jazz or not depends on whether one considers jazz to be stylistically restricted or a process by which a musician can emancipate from such strictures. Bill Evans spoke a lot about this – for him, people like Chopin and Listz were jazz musicians. i.e., they were improvisers who played the changes! I think America is definitely a jazz album notwithstanding the fact that the tunes were born and grew up in the pop milieu. I present an impressionistic interpretation of them, which is no different to what jazz musicians did to Berlin and Porter in the 1930s. Essentially this music is a catalyst for my own musical expression.
Joe
Chindamo |
