Composer and bandleader Ken Schaphorst, chair of the Jazz
Studies Department at New England Conservatory since 2001, pays tribute to some
of his most profound influences on his fourth big band release, How To Say
Goodbye. The deeply moving and wide-ranging album includes homages written in
honor of jazz and education visionaries Bob Brookmeyer and Herb Pomeroy, both
of whom went from mentors to NEC colleagues during Schaphorst's tenure at the
Conservatory. Those compositions join an emotional ode to another formative
influence, Schaphorst's late grandmother, in a richly diverse set that draws on
influences from Ellington and Gerry Mulligan to African mbira music.
How To Say Goodbye, due out December 2 on JCA Recordings,
features an all-star lineup, many of whom can trace their relationships with
Schaphorst back to his earliest large ensemble efforts 30 years ago. Veterans
of the composer's True Colors Big Band like tenor saxophonist Donny McCaslin,
trumpeter John Carlson, trombonist Curtis Hasselbring and percussionist Jerry
Leake sit alongside rising stars like saxophonists Brian Landrus, Jeremy Udden
and Michael Thomas who studied with Schaphorst at NEC and played some of these
pieces in student ensembles during that time.
The ensemble is also studded with current and past
colleagues from the NEC faculty, including McCaslin, Leake, trombonist Luis
Bonilla, guitarist Brad Shepik and trumpeter Ralph Alessi, as well as alumni
including Hasselbring, trumpeter Tony Kadleck and bass trombonist Jennifer
Wharton. More than just a source for collaborators, Schaphorst says that his
time at New England Conservatory has played a fundamental role in shaping his
compositional voice. "These pieces have been profoundly influenced by my
interactions withŠ many tremendously talented students," he writes in the
liner notes.
Of course, Schaphorst's music can't help but be impacted by
the many long-lasting musical relationships represented on the album, many of
which date back decades. "I've worked with almost every member of this
band many, many times," he explains, "and all that history is
imprinted on me. I've learned so much over the years from hearing these guys,
and I think they've been influenced by hearing and playing my music. As I get
older I realize how important and irreplaceable that is."
The results of such deeply-rooted and intimate knowledge is
evident from the outset of How To Say Goodbye, which opens with the title track
that Schaphorst wrote to feature trumpeter John Carlson. The composer describes
the piece's constant changes and shifts as tracing an autobiographical tale,
with fellow trumpeter Carlson playing a surrogate narrator. The varying tempos
and moods play out as the up-and-down chapters of a relationship, and while the
title becomes more sentimental over the course of a full album containing
loving farewells to lost loved ones, in this case the abrupt and somewhat
discordant finale suggests another, less polite way of saying goodbye.
"It's not a happy ending," Schaphorst says with a laugh.
The lush Ellingtonia of "Blues for Herb" was
penned in tribute to influential trumpeter and educator Herb Pomeroy.
Schaphorst first encountered Pomeroy in a summer jazz studies program in 1979,
beginning a musical relationship that would last for the remainder of Pomeroy's
life. "I was blown away by him on a human level," Schaphorst recalls.
"He was an amazing educator and a very musical, sincere, lyrical player. I
learned so much from him, and he was always very supportive of me and my
music." During his final years, Pomeroy coached jazz ensembles at NEC at
Schaphorst's request. "Blues for Herb" is a showcase for the
boundless tenor playing of Donny McCaslin, whose talents have been crucial to
music by everyone from Maria Schneider to David Bowie. McCaslin was also a
student of Pomeroy's, a personal connection that shines through in his jaw-dropping,
virtuosic solo.
The folksy shuffle of "Take Back the Country" is
Schaphorst's homage to legendary trombonist/arranger Bob Brookmeyer, whom
Schaphorst came to know quite well through their work together at NEC until
Brookmeyer's passing in 2011. If the rhetoric of the title sounds over-familiar
in this presidential election year, that's no accident - it's the composer's
acknowledgement of Brookmeyer's outspoken political views, which found him
actually buying property in Canada following the 2000 election (though he never
ultimately made the threatened move). The folk-jazz inflections reflect music
that Brookmeyer made with both Gerry Mulligan and Jimmy Giuffre.
The swaying rhythm of "Amnesia" is inspired by
Argentinean tango master Astor Piazzolla, but more importantly serves to
memorialize Schaphorst's grandmother, who passed away in 2000 at the age of 90.
Her memory was fading, the composer recalls, but she still loved to dance. A
similar, if less mournful mood is summoned by "Float," a ballad whose
name is self-explanatory as soon as one hears Matt Wilson's weightless rhythms
and the soaring horn lines.
Schaphorst essays a solo Rhodes intro to the first of two
"Mbira" pieces on the album, both influenced by the characteristic
rhythms of the African thumb piano. Integral to both is the percussion mastery
of Jerry Leake, a colleague at NEC throughout Schaphorst's tenure and a crucial
influence on the composer's integration of West African and Indian traditions
into his music. Leake's tabla playing also adds an intoxicating texture to the
album's closing tune, "Descent," offering an exotic atmosphere for
Ralph Alessi's bold trumpet solo to explore.
The gentle swing of "Green City" is a cheerful
celebration of Boston, the city that Schaphorst has called home for much of his
life - first through most of the 1980s and then, following a decade-long stint
at Lawrence University in Wisconsin, since 2001 and his assumption of the Jazz
Studies chair at NEC. Finally, the impressionistic "Global Sweat" is
meant less as a comment on global warming, though Schaphorst has no problem
with that interpretation, than as a vivid sonic depiction of a swelling storm,
which finally breaks into a torrential group improvisation.
With ten vivid, memorable pieces and an abundance of
outstanding musicianship, How To Say Goodbye ends by suggesting one more way -
leave 'em wanting more, and keep the door wide open for those we'll be happy to
see again.
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