With Honor Thy Fathers, Laurence Hobgood
embarks on a striking new chapter in what has already been a storied career.
Hobgood's 18-year tenure as musical director for singer Kurt Elling drew to a
close in late 2013, leading to a long-overdue step into the spotlight for the
renowned virtuoso pianist, composer and arranger. He seizes that opportunity
with a bold and original trio outing that pays homage to a selection of
personal mentors, influences and father figures.
Hobgood's incredibly fruitful
collaboration with Elling garnered Grammy® nominations for each of the ten
albums on which they collaborated, two for Hobgood's arrangements, and a win
for Hobgood as producer of 2009's Dedicated To You: Kurt Elling Sings The Music
Of Coltrane and Hartman. The same qualities that earned such high praise are
brilliantly displayed here: finely crafted compositions, inventive
arrangements, and deeply soulful expression.
There may be no greater testament to the
esteem in which Hobgood is held among his peers than his collaborators on Honor
Thy Fathers: bassist John Patitucci and drummer Kendrick Scott. The pianist
isn't exaggerating when he refers to the pair as "two of the world's
greatest musicians," but only modesty would exclude him from the same
estimation. Hobgood originally worked with both under Elling's auspices -
Patitucci on The Gate (2011) and Scott on its follow-up, 1619 Broadway: The
Brill Building Project (2012) - but this recording session marked the first
time all three had played together. Their sensitivity and profoundly intuitive
interplay belies that fact, however, sounding more cohesive and empathetic than
many a long-established trio.
While Hobgood has released several
albums in the past, both solo and with jazz greats like Charlie Haden, Honor
Thy Fathers marks a new beginning for the pianist, one in which he finally
plays the lead role. "I'm in a unique position because I'm well known in
the jazz world but I'm not known as a leader," he admits. "I've
toured all over the world, played in the best situations alongside top acts,
and worked with some of the greatest people in the record business. In the
course of having those kinds of experiences you learn a lot about what goes
into making a great record."
Honor Thy Fathers begins with its most
obvious honoree: Burnet Hobgood, the pianist's father, who passed away in
December 2000. "Sanctuary" movingly projects the sense of "quiet
strength" that Hobgood always associated with his father, a theater artist
and devoted family man. "He was very loving and brilliant but quietly
so," Hobgood remembers. "For me, the ideal of manhood is a quiet,
giving, loving strength and support. And that's who he was. Hence the statement
about how he was my sanctuary for 41 years."
Another integral figure in Hobgood's
early development was his teacher at the University of Illinois, the
Sicilian-born classical composer Salvatore Martirano. He's memorialized with
the elegant sweep of "Triptych;" intricate yet melodically lyrical,
this piece exemplifies the "left turn," Martirano's cherished concept
of the unexpected moment that makes harmonious sense. "It's the perfect
thing to come right now, but the last thing you would have expected,"
Hobgood explains. "Sal and I both liked risk. I like to hear people
painting themselves into corners and I want to find out how they'll get
themselves out. Sal embodied what I think of as the big lessons of music."
Most of the tributes on Honor Thy
Fathers pay respect to musical rather than personal influences. That begins
with "Straighten Up and Fly Right," a cannily harmonized reinvention
of Nat King Cole's signature tune. Buoyed by a sleek groove--and a smartly
re-cast in 7/4 times--the piece is a raucous and rollicking take on the classic
song, maintaining the sly humor of the original lyrics. Hobgood sums up the
legendary pianist's legacy succinctly in the liner notes, writing, "Nat
Cole is one of the most underrated jazz pianists who ever lived. Period."
"Give Me the Simple Life" and
"The Waltz" celebrate Hobgood's two earliest piano heroes: the former
is the first track on the first jazz record that young Hobgood ever owned,
Oscar Peterson's "Tracks;" while the latter is an original penned in
tribute to Bill Evans. Hobgood's own approach to the keyboard may show the more
obvious influence of Evans' hushed genius, but the traces of what he calls
Peterson's "ebullient, virtuosic artistry" remain as well. The
album's closer, "Shirákumo No Michi (White Cloud Way)," salutes
Wayne Shorter by drawing on The Way of the White Clouds, an inspirational book
about a German-born man who became a Lama in Tibet - an apt parallel for the
mystically-minded Shorter, who Hobgood calls "the paramount Bodhisattva of
modern jazz music."
Stevie Wonder's "If It's
Magic," from the classic Songs in the Key of Life shows off Hobgood's deft
ability to both interpret popular song and to wholly re-imagine his material.
Originally a wistful ballad, which Wonder sang to the accompaniment of a
classical harp, Hobgood's rendition is a spry, up-tempo burner. Finally, with
"The Road Home" Hobgood memorializes Charlie Haden, the influential
bassist who passed away last year. The two played together on Hobgood's 2013
release When the Heart Dances, which proved to be a momentous occasion for the
pianist.
"With 'The Road Home,' I set out to
capture the combination of Charlie's soulfulness with his incredible
intelligence, something that Charlie and I had in common," reflects
Hobgood. "We both had family-based roots in southern traditional music -
in his case, the folk music of the Ozark mountains, for me my parents' ties to
Kentucky and the Appalachian traditional music of the Pine Mountain region.
Getting to make a duet recording with Charlie was one of the most meaningful
experiences of my life. His sound was so huge because his spirit was so
huge."
On Honor Thy Fathers, Hobgood's tips of
the hat to these mentors come across not only through the pieces' literal
dedications and choice of material. Perhaps the most important tribute he pays
is by playing in the expressive, distinctive voice that each of them has played
a part in forging.
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