Trumpeter,
composer, arranger, and long-established educator Bill Warfield's new
recording, Trumpet Story, leads to an inescapable conclusion: the ears of
America's youth may be in better shape than feared. True to its title, the
album offers a story - one part autobiography, one part history, and one part
character study, portraying one of the great trumpet players of our time -
Randy Brecker.
As an
educator, Warfield has done what hundreds of other professional jazz musicians
have chosen to do - embrace academia in tandem with their creative pursuits.
Having spent nearly two decades on the faculty of the music department at
Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA, Warfield has risen to the position of
Director of Jazz Studies. But even as he built an enviable career as an
educator, Warfield has maintained his zeal for devising noteworthy compositions
and well-crafted arrangements that show those compositions in the most
flattering light.
In fact,
it was Warfield's attention to his extra-curricular career that cemented his
longstanding friendship with Brecker, the outstanding and influential trumpeter
who appears as guest soloist on Trumpet Story. "For my first concert at
Lehigh, we re-created Sketches Of Spain [the legendary 1958 trumpet-and-orchestra
collaboration between Miles Davis and Gil Evans]. He and I split the trumpet
part on that concert, and thus started our relationship," reflects
Warfield.
"It
was a pleasure to be involved in this project from both a musical and personal
perspective," notes Brecker. "Bill Warfield has been a friend, and a
favorite of mine for many years, and on this CD, dedicated to trumpeters (and
composers) who have influenced him, he proudly presents some of his best
writing in a long while. Challenging, original, and very listenable at the same
time. Likewise, the band is just first rate, and filled with guys I 'came up'
with, along with a host of younger players."
Over the
years, Warfield's appreciation for Brecker's genius and professionalism has
grown into a mutual admiration, the culmination of which arrives in Trumpet
Story. The album began as a four-movement suite designed specifically to
showcase Brecker's brilliant solo style - which combines technical virtuosity
with enviable lyricism, and has garnered Brecker six Grammy® Awards. It's a
style that Warfield has enjoyed and studied since he first heard Brecker on
disc in the 1960s, with such proto-fusion bands as Blood, Sweat & Tears and
Dreams.
Three of
the original suite's four movements appear on Trumpet Story, along with six
more Warfield arrangements, which include the recasting of songs by several
other fabled jazz names - Herbie Hancock, Joe Zawinul, Donald Byrd, and Brecker
himself - who had a significant impact on his own development. Warfield has produced
an album that not only flows effortlessly throughout its eclectic program, it
also serves as a sonic photo album, filled with snapshots that trace his growth
as an artist. With this album, both Warfield and Brecker have added new
chapters to their already accomplished careers.
Born and
raised in Baltimore, MD, Bill Warfield graduated from the Manhattan School of
Music where he was garnered with the Maynard Ferguson Scholarship, the William
H. Borden Award for Outstanding Accomplishment in Jazz, and the Carmine Caruso
Award for Outstanding Trumpet Performance. During that time, he studied
composition with a number of jazz' most acclaimed composers - among them Hank
Levy and Bob Brookmeyer - before embarking on his career as a professional
trumpeter and arranger. Warfield has released nine previous albums leading his
own ensembles and has appeared in the horn sections of numerous other albums,
including two by the acclaimed Bill Kirchner Nonet. Over the years he has
performed with such artists as Ornette Coleman, Mel Torme, Mel Lewis, David
Liebman and Sonny Stitt. He received a commission from the Spanish government
to arrange and produce "Hollywood Jazz" for the 1992 Olympics in that
country, and has also been commissioned by the Berlin Radio Orchestra and the
US Air Force "Airmen Of Note." In addition, Warfield is the founder
and director of the New York Jazz Repertory Orchestra as well as its offshoot,
the New York Jazz Octet, and also the Lehigh Valley Jazz Repertory Orchestra.
"When
Janie Takes The Stand" - The Bill Warfield Big Band
The Bill
Warfield Big Band Trumpet
Story ·
Release Date: July 8, 2014
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