Kenny Wheeler – Live ’71: The Kenny Wheeler Big Band & Friends (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 29:32 minutes | 308 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © British Progressive Jazz
A soaringly joyous album from British trumpeter Kenny Wheeler – one that has him leading a larger group in a style that resonates with similar projects of the time from artists like Mike Westbrook or Michael Gibbs!
Wheeler delivers some magnificent trumpet and flugelhorn solos – very much at the more straightforward, soulful side of his range – and the ensemble is overflowing with work from top-shelf contemporaries – including Mike Taylor on some key electric piano lines, next to Mike Osborne on alto, Tony Roberts on tenor, Ian Hamer on trumpet, Bobby Lamb and Keith Chrsitie on trombones, Alan Branscombe on acoustic piano, Ron Mathewson on bass, and Tony Oxley on drums and percussion.
The feel of the record is great – very much like better-known sessions where some of the top-shelf UK talents come together in a unified voice – and the set also features guest tenor from Evan Parker, trombone from Chris Pyne, and vocals from Norma Winstone. Winstone sings on “Song For Someone” – and other instrumental tracks include “Mikei”, “Some Days Are Better”, and “CP EP”.
Recorded live in London on the 24th May 1971. Previously unreleased. Stereophonic sound. Currently the earliest known recording of Kenny Wheeler leading his own big band.
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Kenny Wheeler – Live ’71: The Kenny Wheeler Big Band & Friends (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 29:32 minutes | 308 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © British Progressive Jazz
Recorded live in London on the 24th May 1971. Previously unreleased. Stereophonic sound. Currently the earliest known recording of Kenny Wheeler leading his own big band.
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Kenny Wheeler, Stan Sulzmann, John Parricelli, Chris Laurence & Martin France – Songs for Quintet (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 52:14 minutes | 996 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ECM
Kenny Wheeler (1930-2014) was an unassuming giant of modern jazz, a daring improviser, and a writer of many beautiful and slyly unorthodox tunes. His recorded legacy includes albums now regarded as contemporary jazz classics such as Gnu High, Deer Wan, Music For Large And Small Ensembles and Angel Song. In December 2013 he recorded what was to be his last album. Songs for Quintet, an inspirational session featuring Wheeler compositions of recent vintage (plus a fresh approach to “Nonetheless”, first heard on Angel Song), was recorded in London’s Abbey Road Studio with four of Kenny’s favourite players. Stan Sulzmann, John Parricelli, Chris Laurence and Martin France work together marvellously as an interactive unit, solo persuasively, and provide support for the tender and lyrical flugelhorn of the bandleader. Songs for Quintet is issued on January 14, 2015, which would have been Kenny Wheeler’s 85th birthday.
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Kenny Wheeler – Deer Wan (1978/2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 43:45 minutes | 1,50 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ECM
Born in Toronto in 1930 but based in England from 1952, Kenny Wheeler was by the late 1960s a highly regarded figure on the London scene, living a sort of double life – as a post-bop trumpeter and flugelhorn player inspired by Clifford Brown and Art Farmer and as a pioneering free player moving into unexplored territory alongside improvisers such as John Stevens, Evan Parker, Dave Holland and Derek Bailey.
Jazz tradition and free experimentation would intermingle in Wheeler’s palette as player and composer. As he put it, “the free stuff relaxed my conventional playing and the conventional playing gave shape to my free soloing,” and ideas discovered in improvising, especially a fondness for intervallic leaps, were subsequently deployed in his pieces. He cited Duke Ellington, Gil Evans and Stan Kenton as formative influences on his writing but also listened closely to classical and contemporary composition; Paul Hindemith was another key influence.
Melody was the core of his own writing, and he always found new ways to frame it, harmonically and rhythmically. In terms of emotional atmosphere, he found melancholy cheering. “Sad music makes me feel happy,” he said. “My favourite people in jazz are the ones who sound a bit sad. Billie Holiday, Miles Davis.” His recorded legacy includes albums now regarded as contemporary jazz classics such as Gnu High, Deer Wan, Music For Large And Small Ensembles and Angel Song.
His 1978 masterpiece Deer Wan was engineered by Jan Erik Kongshaug and finds wheeler working with top shelf musicians like Jan Garbarek (saxophone), John Abercrombie (guitar/mandolin), Dave Holland (bass), Ralph Towner (12-string guitar), and Jack DeJohnette (drums). Featuring four original smooth Wheeler compositions, three of which clock in at over 10-minutes, Deer Wan is both lyrical and romantic in all the right places.
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