Musicians are sometimes defensive when critics compare them to their predecessors, as if there is an implication that they are getting by in the shadows of their heroes’ innovations. But trumpeter Wallace Roney openly embraces the musical similarities to his one-time mentor, Miles Davis.
“I was like his protégé,” Roney says of Davis, who recruited the young artist to play some of his own parts in a celebration of his career close to the time of Davis’ death in 1991. “He was always helping me. I think it tickled him that he saw some of himself in me.”
Roney, who brings his group to the Mount Vernon Country Club on Wednesday, figures the Davis influence he embodies in his virtuoso playing is part of the continuum of the jazz tradition.
“People are going to hear a great influence of Miles in me. I’m trying to develop it and take it further. I never apologize for my indebtedness to him. It’s something of value.”
But Roney has rarely taken to the stage to play the music associated with Miles for the sake of nostalgia. It’s more of an extension of Davis’ fabled stylistic triumphs. “What good is it to run away from it?” he says. “I can still find my voice and honor my influences. That’s what he (Davis) did. And that’s what Charlie Parker did, too.”
It’s true that those giants absorbed what was around them and applied their individual stamps to the music, forging something that became their personalized language. Roney argues that he’s extending a century-old tradition. One of those extensions includes the employment of a turntablist for Wednesday’s show, something Davis might have done if he were still creating music.
“Turntabilism is like modern percussion. It’s a sound that this generation of people are used to hearing. I don’t change for the style, the style needs to adapt to what you’re doing.”
The marriage of Davis’ innovations with Roney’s willingness to experiment has paid off handsomely on record, as many of his discs released on Warner Bros. and other labels in the past 15 years have served as high-water marks in satisfying mainstream jazz. And he insists that the older material he and his group manipulate on stage remains exciting, even though there are newer pieces to be performed (a CD with fresh material was recently completed).
“Every time you play them (the pieces that have been part of the group’s repertoire), you kind of stretch them out further,” he says. “When I’m playing the trumpet, there’s always this spontaneous thing (at work).”
Wallace Roney, 8 p.m. Wednesday, Mount Vernon Country Club, 24933 Clubhouse Circle, Golden Concert. Tickets for the performance only are $16, buffet dinner and concert are $44.95. Call 303-526-0616.
Vocalist a good thing
At first I was disappointed to find that the first new CD in eight years from New Orleans clarinetist Alvin Batiste featured a vocalist on several tracks. It’s not that I’m opposed to singers, and Edward Perkins, who appears on “Marsalis Music Honors Alvin Batiste” (on saxophonist Branford Marsalis’ label) sounds both experienced and sympathetic. Batiste doesn’t release very much music, and my concern was that a vocalist would disrupt the flow of acrobatic clarinet solos from an under- documented authority.
It turns out that Perkins’ human voice complements Batiste’s instrumental voice ideally, and it helps that the subject matter extends beyond standard love and longing fare. The disc’s opener, “Clean Air” is an ode to just that, and when you think about it, that’s a sentiment everyone can get behind.
But the real issue here is Batiste’s solos and compositions. He is sensitive and graceful on ballads and almost dangerous on the faster pieces, which showcase his ease with tangled complexity. I don’t know of a more adept living clarinetist than Batiste, and here he’s nothing short of mesmerizing.
Set list
Saxophonist Paul Riola’s Bottensini Project (with Ron Miles, Art Lande and more) plays Dazzle tonight … Leon Redbone sings at Lannie’s Clocktower Cabaret on Wednesday … Pianist/singer Bonnie Lowdermilk appears at Michaelangelo’s on Friday … It should be a gentle guitar battle between Gene Bertoncini and Dale Bruning at Dazzle on Saturday … The Ultraphonic Jazz Orchestra moves to Jazz@Jacks on May 15 … The Estes Park Jazz Fest and Art Walk happens May 19-20 at Performance Park. Call 970-586-6104 for details.
Bret Saunders’ column on jazz appears every other Sunday in A&E. Saunders is host of the “KBCO Morning Show,” 5:30-10 a.m. weekdays at 97.3-FM. His e-mail address is bret_saunders@hotmail.com.
