Since his
first recordings of the 1980s, Billy Childs has developed into one of the most
distinctive and distinguished composers of our time. An accomplished symphonic
writer, he has also amassed a career's worth of jazz originals that can swing
hard, dazzle with intricacy, touch you with direct simplicity, or mesmerize
with crystalline lyricism.
On his new
Mack Avenue debut album Rebirth, Childs reaches back to the start of his almost
astoundingly varied musical experience-leading a small jazz band of
state-of-the-art musicians with his piano playing.
At his
musical core, Childs is an improvising pianist. He has the ability to equally
distill the harmonic and rhythmic languages of classical music and jazz into
his playing. The wide-ranging vocabulary on the taut track
"Tightrope" begs the question of Childs' love of classical music;
"I'm not just jazz," he stresses. His insistent pulse and melodically
probing introduction to song is a key to the Childs' musical identity: open to
extended harmonic possibilities as they come along, taking a flexible approach
to time and leaving an open door for input from his bandmates.
A Los
Angeles native, Childs grew up in a home hearing his parents' musical tastes:
Bach, Stan Getz and Antonio Carlos Jobim, the Swingle Singers. As Childs
developed, he was deeply touched by the music of Emerson, Lake & Palmer,
the Modern Jazz Quartet and Laura Nyro, among other contemporary musicians.
Childs
aficionados will recognize three tunes from his Windham Hill tenure of the
1980s: "Stay," "Backwards Bop" and "Starry
Night." They're recast to reflect his subsequent artistic growth, yet with
an acknowledgement of their import; Take For Example, This... (1988) was the
first Childs release on a major label. "I did all of those albums on
Windham Hill," he points out, "and now all of those recordings belong
to Sony. None of it is available on iTunes. That's a shame because those were
very important years for me."
As a young
player, Childs took his bandstand boot camp in the bands of trombonist J.J.
Johnson and trumpet titan Freddie Hubbard. While his compositions and
orchestrations have taken Childs into a realm that transcends jazz venues, the
fact remains that the improvising pianist is largely the product of his tenures
as band pianist with those two late masters.
The
percussive electricity of "Backwards Bop" and "Dance of
Shiva" taps into that part of his development. "J.J. and Freddie are
responsible for the jazz part of my pedigree," Childs asserts. When Eric
Harland's drums not only push the ensemble along but fire back at the players
in challenging ways, it's not hard to imagine the creative tension of the
Hubbard and Johnson performances.
"I
learned about comping from Freddie," Childs points out, "in practical
application. That's where I learned to expand accompanying into creating
environments for the soloists. Sometimes it was like: 'I'll be green; you be
blue.' You couldn't listen to him and not know what to play." Accordingly,
the piano accompaniment to the vocal on "Stay" is a sublime model of
well-placed color and sly musical commentary.
Saxophonist
Steve Wilson is central to Rebirth. "I met Steve in 1995," Childs
explains, "when we played a tour of Japan with bassist Buster Williams. I
didn't even like the alto at that time but on the first song where Steve
played, I said, 'Who is this guy? I don't know what they're calling modern jazz
these days but this is modern jazz!' I knew I wanted to work with Steve on one
of my own projects."
Vocalist
Claudia Acuña, who co-composed the title tune, is another of the album's
stalwarts. Childs produced her 2002 Rhythm of Life album, arranged and
orchestrated, and played piano on it. "She went out on a limb and
entrusted me to produce that album," he says. "My mother was dying
and it was an emotional time for me. I did a lot of writing at her deathbed; it
was therapeutic. So Claudia and I just decided to call the song
'Rebirth.'"
Singer
Alicia Olatuja sings on the soulful, minor key ballad "Stay."
"Dianne Reeves told me about her," Childs says. "She sang on my
Laura Nyro project and I knew she'd be perfect for the angular melody of
'Stay.'"
Hans
Glawischnig takes the nimble pizzicato bass solo on "Tightrope;"
drummer Antonio Sanchez referred him to Childs. "A lot of drummers really
like to play with me," Billy notes with pride. "I jump in there with
the drums. I really like to write the rhythmic concept and find the people who
can make it sing."
Rebirth touches
the combustible intimacy that Childs knew in the Hubbard and Johnson bands, and
has instilled it into his own ensembles. So is Childs returning to an
instrumental posture that he once knew or is he coming to the small ensemble
with new perspectives? "A little of both, actually," he offers.
"I'm revisiting some familiar ground with different musical eyes. My
playing is more evolved now-influenced by newer musical trends."
"You're
hearing something on this album that I love doing but that I haven't done a lot
of lately: having musical conversations as a member of a group. That's what I
love."
Four-time
Grammy® Award-winner Billy Childs remains one of the most diversely prolific
and acclaimed artists working in music today. Childs' canon of original
compositions and arrangements has garnered him an additional 10 Grammy Award
nominations, the 2013 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award and a Guggenheim
Fellowship (2009).
Childs
released his first solo album, Take For Example, This... in 1988, on Windham
Hill Jazz Records. It was the first of four critically acclaimed albums on the
imprint, culminating with the celebrated Portrait Of A Player, in 1993. Childs'
multiple musical interests also include collaborations, arrangements, and
productions for other world-renowned artists, including Yo-Yo Ma, The Kronos
Quartet, Wynton Marsalis, Sting, Chris Botti, and Leonard Slatkin, among
others. He has received orchestral commissions from The Los Angeles
Philharmonic, The Los Angeles Master Chorale, The Detroit Symphony Orchestra,
and The Lincoln Jazz Center Orchestra. In 2013 he premiered "Enlightened
Souls," a commission from Duke University featuring Dianne Reeves and the
Ying Quartet, to commemorate fifty years of African-American students attending
the school. In 2014 Childs released Map To The Treasure - Reimagining Laura
Nyro (Sony Masterworks), which was produced by Larry Klein and features Reneé
Fleming, Esperanza Spalding, Alison Krauss, Shawn Colvin, Rickie Lee Jones,
Becca Stevens, Ledisi, Chris Botti, Yo-Yo Ma and Susan Tedeschi.
Billy Childs
· Rebirth
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