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I hadn’t heard much piano jazz when I was 13. Bill Evans and Bud Powell had not yet intruded upon the peaceful provincial idyll of the Danish town where I grew up. Nevertheless I was fascinated by the jazz music I had heard on the radio, for instance Armstrong and Art Blakey; and, also, then I had a friend who played the clarinet and had a record player and a small collection of jazz lp’s.
One day at his house I noticed a record cover which made me marvel. What I usually saw in his room were covers with clarinetists or more neutral covers which didn’t reveal too much about the music—that is to say, to the extent that I was able to actually see these covers, for at that time he was still sharing a room with his younger brother, who had already started a career as a chemist. But suddenly—amidst a chaos of dirty flasks, blackened test tubes and deadly spirit heaters—I noticed a colourful cover, in reds and browns, with a large picture of a smiling young man relaxing on a stool and holding a valve trombone in his hand.
My friend was almost apologetic when he explained that he had asked his father to buy the record because Jimmy Giuffre was featured on clarinet, and Giuffre was his favourite clarinetist at the time. Which goes to show that we were at least fairly advanced in the Danish provinces in the late 50’s: 13 year old solemn future musicians with Jimmy Giuffre as role model!
I took no notice of his apologies and asked to hear the record—and thus I came to hear Bob Brookmeyer for the first time. I remember that I felt instant fascination with his scintillating trombone playing, but there was no end to my wonder, for who was the piano player? My friend and I studied the cover but couldn’t find the name of the pianist, until our eyes fell once again on Brookmeyer’s name, and there was the answer: Brookmeyer also played the piano.
And what piano playing: as stimulating as his trombone playing, with slender articulation but a rich sound, a dazzling touch and effortless swing feeling. The technique was not overwhelmingly outstanding, but that didn’t lessen the expressiveness. And if anyone doesn’t believe me they can acquire this minor masterpiece, for it has been reissued on cd and still bears the title which I—a 13 year old—found it so very difficult to pronounce: “Traditionalism Revisited.”
It was on this recording from 1957 that Brookmeyer marked his respect for the tradition and his own roots by his simple, swinging way of playing. During the 43 years which have passed since then his respect for the tradition and for musical workmanship has in now way diminished. Even though he has developed his technique and his range of expression both as a trombone player and as a composer and arranger, tradition and history remain vital parts of his luggage—even when he travels uncharted lands as an orchestrator and demonstrates that in his capacity he must be considered the Grand Old Man of orchestral jazz today.
But in all these years, much what has actually happened to his piano style which I found so fascinating when I was young, and which again in 1959 was a brilliant counterpart to Bill Evans on his and Brookmeyer’s double-piano recording, “The Ivory Hunters?” Not much, to use his own words—and I tend to agree with him.
On this cd he plays the piano on every track for the first time since the Evans session in 1959, and it is the same virtues we find in his playing: the simple figures in the right hand, the carefully measured and bold voicings—composer Brookmeyer’s gift to musician Brookmeyer. But today we also hear even more of the same rhythmic suppleness, the same preoccupation with the melody, which has always been his trademark. So everything is as it was back in 1957. Nothing has changed, and thank God for that.
Brookmeyer might tend to make me responsible for his performance as a pianist after all these years. And I should be pleased to accept this responsibility. When Brookmeyer took his place at the piano for a couple of duo tunes with bass player Mads Vinding during the recording of his most recent album for Challenge, “Together” (Challenge CHR 70068), it wasn’t difficult to hear that he enjoyed doing so. Nevertheless, when I later suggested an entire piano recording I had to listen for a long time to his complaints—how he was completely out of practice, and that it would be difficult for him to reach even a tolerable technical standard. But in spite of the many objections it seemed evident that a person with so much music in him as Bob Brookmeyer should also try to express that musicality through an instrument which allows him to play several notes at a time—just as he does when he “plays” the large orchestra.
To those who might claim that his technique as a pianist is limited, I have only one answer: Well, perhaps. Yes, you’re completely right. But the result is still great music. Thelonious Monk did the same thing with his limited modest technique. Hemingway was no language virtuoso, van Gogh actually could not paint, and Billie Holiday could not sing, but did so anyway but they were all great artists.
This does not mean that I encourage those who listen to the music on this cd to assess whether Brookmeyer is an artist on the same level as the ones mentioned above, but I hope that the listeners (and perhaps a couple of young pianists) will stop in their tracks and observe how you can also play: in a simple way—without losing integrity, without losing expressiveness. And apart from this, Brookmeyer’s way of approaching the piano has another advantage: he does not play any of the piano jazz clichés so often heard—for the simple reason that he is not able to do so. In this connection let me quote Danish trombone player Erling Kroner, who recently said about Brookmeyer: “He is not able to play an indifferent solo. And when it comes to the piano there’s another thing he’s not capable of: he never plays any of the piano jazz clichés, for his technical skills simply do not allow that. This means that every single note has a meaning for him and for us.”
Together with two Danish world-class musicians, Mads Vinding on bass and Alex Riel on drums, Brookmeyer sets into motion a highly deliberate process, where an equal number of standard tunes and original compositions are given a new inner life by the use of simple means. Not being turned upside-down and changed beyond recognition, but by being embraced by a person with a great musical heart. They are brilliant and heartfelt all at once.
Peter H. Larsen |
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| | The Man I Love. | | | Summer Song |  | | It Could Happen To You. | | | Holiday | | | I Thought About You | | | I Should Care. | | | Things Ain't What They Used to Be | | | Pastoral | | | Jan Likes | | | Stupid Song | | | Child Song | | | It Might As Well Be Spring | |
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Bob Brookmeyer, piano
Mads Vinding, bass
Alex Riel, drums |
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