Whenever
problems arise, it’s always helpful to remember that we’re not alone. On his
new album, Everybody Gets the Blues, pianist Eric Reed draws strength from his
mentors and heroes, the celebrated and the unsung, in order to face down
struggles both personal and global. The album finds Reed reaching back into his
roots in the church to find a singular way forward.
Due out
April 12 via Smoke Sessions Records, Everybody Gets the Blues digs deep into
personal emotions to expose universal truths, discovering a few unexpected
connections along the way. Whether bridging the generations between Cedar
Walton and Stevie Wonder or inventing a fresh take on such a familiar favorite
as Freddie Hubbard’s “Up Jumped Spring,” Reed finds the inspiration to move
forward by following the paths forged by those who’ve come before.
“I always
look for answers in the past,” Reed says. “What is there in history that I can
draw from? Who else has gone through what I’m going through? Who has felt what
I’m feeling? That helps me to answer the questions that I have in life right
now.”
For Reed,
“the past” inevitably leads back to the church, and to gospel music. It was the
sound that he first heard and first played, and was at the core of his earliest
love of jazz. “When I first started playing jazz as a child, my fascination
with the music of Horace Silver, Ramsey Lewis, or Dave Brubeck resonated with
what I heard growing up in church, listening to piano players like James
Cleveland and Herbert Pickard and Curtis Dublin. I said, ‘Wait a minute, this
doesn't sound like the stuff I play in church, but it’s very closely connected.
What’s going on here?’”
In recent
years, however, Reed has found himself at a personal and professional
crossroads, realizing that he’d deviated from those roots. On Everyone Gets the
Blues, he reorients himself along the right path, rediscovering the gospel
lifeblood that fuels his jazz passion.
A native of
Philadelphia, Reed began playing piano in the storefront Baptist church where
his father sang and preached. His parents encouraged his gift, signing him up
for private piano lessons. After relocating to the Los Angeles suburbs with his
family, Reed studied at the Community School of Performing Arts (now The
Colburn School), where his talents were recognized by no less an authority than
Wynton Marsalis, who later enlisted Reed for the piano chair in his Septet.
Beginning in
1990, Reed spent the better part of two decades in New York City, where he
became a regular at the legendary club Bradley’s and had the opportunity to
learn at the side of many of the music’s pioneering figures. At the same time,
he was swept up in the tide of the Young Lions movement, garnering a reputation
as a strict hard-bop traditionalist that became an increasingly uncomfortable
fit.
“For too
many years I ignored my own instincts,” the pianist says. “I started out
playing different kinds of music with all different kinds of people, but I took
a detour. This record is a turning point; it’s finally time to start doing what
it is that I want to do.”
To realize
that goal, Reed has assembled a stellar group of musicians who share his
rejuvenated, wide-ranging vision, as well as his gospel bent. Both saxophonist
Tim Green and drummer McClenty Hunter share his religious roots, while bassist
Mike Gurrola has deep roots instilled by the inspiration of Ray Brown and his
apprenticeship under John Clayton.
Everybody
Gets the Blues opens with the title track, a deeply felt original that finds
comfort in the fact that whatever we’re going through, others have faced a
similar darkness before. Taken from a slightly different perspective, it also
provides an invitation: if everybody “gets” the blues, here’s a warm example to
welcome listeners into the communal emotions of the album.
The spirit
of the late piano legend Cedar Walton looms large over the album, beginning
with Reed’s tribute, “Cedar Waltzin’,” which finally bursts into the hopeful
strains of Stevie Wonder’s classic “Don’t You Worry ‘bout a Thing.” Walton is
also represented by his own composition, “Martha’s Prize,” as well as Reed’s
new arrangement of “Up Jumped Spring,” which featured Walton on its first known
recording, on Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers’ 1962 album 3 Blind Mice.
Freddie
Hubbard was also a direct mentor, though Reed’s take on “Up Jumped Spring” was
a personal challenge, a successful attempt to offer a fresh new take on a tune
that’s become almost ubiquitous. “It’s become one of those songs, like ‘The
Days of Wine and Roses’ or ‘Take the A Train’, that were great songs when they
were first written and they’re great songs dozens of years later, but they’ve
become kind of hackneyed.”
John
Coltrane’s “Naima” finds Reed taking more risks, approaching the ballad on
Fender Rhodes and reharmonizing the tune – an approach, he realizes, that
purists might see as sacrilege. “It’s the kind of thing that I always felt
oppressed by in my 20s,” he says.
Both “Naima”
and “Martha’s Prize” pay homage to their composers’ then-wives, another aspect
that Reed wanted to recognize: the under-sung support system provided by
musicians’ families. “Naima essentially saved John Coltrane’s life. They got
married young, Coltrane was struggling with substance abuse and was spiritually
searching, and she gave him stability. I enjoy celebrating and honoring people
who might be forgotten.”
Reed takes
an elegant solo turn that begins with The Beatles’ “Yesterday,” then invites
the rhythm section in as the song transforms into Jerome Kern and Otto
Harbach’s standard “Yesterdays” – a connection that is far more emotionally
profound than simple wordplay. On a pair of originals, Reed pays one more act
of homage on the tender “Dear Bud,” then offers a ray of hope on “New Morning.”
The album ends with a robust romp through James Williams’ “Road Life.”
Through a
range of moods and styles, Eric Reed recognizes that Everybody Gets the Blues,
offering a spirited act of communion for those wanting to commiserate and a
vigorous set of swing for those who’ve come out the other side.
"Everybody
Gets the Blues" was produced by Paul Stache and Damon Smith and
recorded
live in New York at Sear Sound's Studio C on a Sear-Avalon custom console
at
96KHz/24bit and mixed to ½" analog tape using a Studer mastering deck.
Available in
audiophile HD format.
Eric Reed ·
Everybody Gets the Blues
Smoke
Sessions Records · Release Date: April 12, 2019
