“It’s not the display of technique itself, which for me was never a compelling message. Rather it's how the technique clears all the brush, so to speak, between the player and his instrument, leaving a completely clear playing field.” – Kenny Werner
Kenny Werner has long been regarded as one of the lyrical and creative masters of modern jazz. While he released a small handful of solo recordings in the early years of his career, his reputation primarily has evolved from his exceptional ensemble work, particularly with his trio, as well as his successful forays into quintet and sextet formats and as the featured artist with big bands. Thus the release of Me, Myself & I is a milestone of the Werner canon, and one that bears repeating. Recorded over two nights in the Upstairs Jazz Bar and Grill during the 2011 Montreal Jazz Festival, this was not originally intended for commercial release. But then the recording engineer and Werner himself heard the tapes.
"Usually when I play a great set some place, I always think, 'Geez, I wish someone was recording this,'" he says... but fortunately, the tape was rolling, yielding what Werner feels "just might be the best piano playing I have done on record...." In the liner notes to Me, Myself & I, Werner adds: "So we have a happy confluence of elements here: a well-oiled pianist, an exceptional engineer, a club owner who really loves the music and a record producer who also gives it up for the music. Put that all together and...you have one of my best offerings." The offerings here include one original composition (“Balloons,” the title track to his recent quintet recording) and six wide ranging favorites, from Monk to Miles to Coltrane, from Hammerstein and Kern to Thad Jones and Joni Mitchell. "I was feeling the fun of playing these tunes that I know so well. The longer you've played a tune in your life, the more you enter into a fantasy where you play further and further away from the melody. Journey is at the heart of what I was doing those nights,” notes Werner.
And particularly on four tunes, the journey is rather extensive, beyond ten minutes per track, starting with the opening “Round Midnight.” Normally interpreted as one of Monk’s most accessible, melodic works, Werner here defies even Monk, explaining that “I took the general shape but played it atonally to give it a surreal feel." And it’s hard to imagine that Thelonious would not have approved. Werner retains the bluesy, stride-inflected beauty of the original and the underlying sense of mystery, but creates a more ominous, and quirky, atmosphere with intricate patterns of ascents and descents and extended, off-quadrant voicings. “Balloons” was first released in a quintet format; here it is stripped down to its essence and given over 13 minutes to breathe, with an evolving left-hand ostinato droning below the wanderings of the right hand, an Old World feel with New World strategies.
“Blue in Green,” notes Werner, “lends itself to opening up panels to got to another place and eventually return.” And he takes his time on his round trip, highlighting the elegance of lines and melody such that one might reconsider Bill Evans’ role in the composition. The journey takes a more angular “blue” turn before heading home with some trilling and classically informed detours.
“All the Things You Are” provides a relatively quick respite between “Balloons” and “Blue and Green,” the familiar melody more or less intact while rhythm and harmonies get a full, abstract remodel with an abrupt mid-line finish. Kenny’s reading of Joni Mitchell’s “I Had a King” has an East European folksong vibe, gentle but swaying and exotic, while the relatively short spin through “Giant Steps” covers a wide range of ideas as Werner hop-scotches his way across jagged terrain. "I was in such good shape pianistically that I had a rowdy time with it and I felt freer to move,” he explains.
Werner saves his wife’s favorite song, “A Child Is Born,” for last, taking components of Thad Jones’ standard to evoke a variety of moods over the nearly 12-minute finale. Left hand voicings expand the emotional palette of the repeating right-hand melody, at times lyrical, at times symphonic, an apt summation of the entire proceedings.
Wherever Kenny Werner goes next, let’s hope the tapes are rolling.
(First posted on jazzink.com )
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