The life of
a jazz musician tends to be an itinerant one. While traveling the world over
the past three decades, trumpeter/composer Jim Rotondi has formed a tenuous
definition of the word "home" - sometimes it can mean a permanent
residence, sometimes just a welcoming room for a few nights' performances once
or twice a year. On his latest album, Dark Blue, (due out March 4 via Smoke
Sessions Records), Rotondi offers a musical travelogue of some of the places
he's been privileged to call home.
"I find
new homes all the time," Rotondi says. "New places that I end up
revisiting a lot, where I get very close to the people there. It's a very
rewarding thing that musicians get to enjoy that people in other walks of life
usually don't, unfortunately."
While the
title track doesn't refer to any place in particular, it's a vivid description
of one of the ever-changing locations where Rotondi feels most at home: his
band. "Dark Blue" evokes the mood of this particular quintet, a
first-time conglomeration that brings together collaborators both old and new.
The all-star line-up of hard-bop stalwarts includes old friends David Hazeltine
(piano) and Joe Locke (vibes) as well as new additions to Rotondi's discography
in David Wong (bass) and Carl Allen (drums).
Rotondi
refers to Hazeltine as "my brother," a close collaborator throughout
many of the trumpeter's bands, including the collective sextet One For All. The
versatile Locke has also been a frequent sideman, who Rotondi praises as being
able to "do so many different things that when you ask him to be a part of
a project, you get three people for the price of one."
Allen's
involvement realizes a long-time dream for Rotondi, who first heard the veteran
drummer playing with two of his heroes, Freddie Hubbard and Woody Shaw. Wong,
while younger than his bandmates, has been recognized as a torchbearer for the
tradition by his involvement with Jimmy Heath and the Heath Brothers, Benny
Green, and the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra.
The grand
tour begins with the bright, darting melody of "In Graz," written in
honor of the city where Rotondi has lived for the past five years, since being
named a Professor of Jazz Trumpet at the University of Music and Dramatic Arts
in Graz, Austria. Upon his arrival, the faculty asked him to perform a concert
of his own music, inspiring this piece. "I wanted it to have a lot of
energy to commemorate my change in locale and life direction," Rotondi
explains. "Needless to say I was sad about leaving my musical brothers and
sisters and the vibe of New York City, but my arrival here in Graz was a very
positive change in my life."
Rotondi's
newfound European roots have grown deeper recently, since he and his wife
purchased a home in the small French town which gives its name to the tune
"Le Crest." The song is a stealthy blues that only gradually reveals
itself, prompted by their yearlong search for the perfect house. "We got
to this place and looked out on the valley from the balcony and knew that was
it right," Rotondi recalls.
How much
time Rotondi will be able to spend in either of these homes is always up in the
air given his busy touring schedule. Two of his homes away from home are
memorialized in "B.C." and "Biru Kurasai." The former
refers to the Canadian province of British Columbia, for which Rotondi holds
especially warm memories. His first visit to the city of Vancouver was
scheduled for the days just after the tragic events of September 11, 2001.
Despite the uncertainty of the time and the sudden changes in air travel,
Rotondi decided to take the trip anyway. "It turned out to be such a great
experience on so many levels: the people were so happy that I went and gave me
such a great welcome that I ended up going back once or twice a year for many
years."
"Biru
Kurasai" pays homage to another friendly audience: Japanese jazz fans. As
memorable as it is, the tune had a hurried birth: Rotondi and saxophonist Eric
Alexander huddled in a recording studio break room, trying to come up with one
more composition for a session led by drummer Joe Farnsworth. The result became
a bandstand favorite, and translates as "I would like a beer please"
- perhaps an apt sentiment for its against-the-clock inception.
"Going
to the Sun" looks farther back, to Rotondi's childhood in Montana, where
he was raised by a piano teacher mother who insisted that each of her five
children learn an instrument. When not practicing, the family spent their
summers on a lake near Glacial National Park. Going-to-the-Sun Road winds through
the park's scenic interior for more than 50 miles, crossing the Continental
Divide.
After
studying at the University of North Texas, Rotondi made his way to New York
City in 1987, embarking on a fruitful 23-year career on the city's hectic jazz
scene. That home receives a nod via Hazeltine's "Highline," named for
the vibrant park built on the remains of an abandoned elevated rail line.
Hazeltine also provided the arrangement for "Our Day Will Come," a
version of the '60s pop hit that Rotondi remembers the pianist calling during
one of their earliest engagements together.
The album is
filled out by two other covers: Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley's "Pure
Imagination," from "Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory,"
and "Monk's Mood." The latter can be seen as a stop on the album's
tour only in the sense that Monk is a creative island unto himself, and Rotondi
offers a gorgeous read of one of the legendary pianist's most beloved
compositions; while the former offers an abstract stop in the realm of the imaginary,
a place that all of the music on Rotondi's scintillating and engaging new album
Dark Blue can safely call home.
Jim Rotondi
· Dark Blue / Smoke Sessions Records · Release Date: March 4, 2016
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