5
CALL HIM RECKLESS
JACK WILKINS TRIO
Jack Wilkins, Guitar
Steve LaSpina, Bass
Mike Clark, Drums
7
9 Nardis
10
11 B Minor Waltz
Evans (Teneten Music Inc.; BMI)
6 By Myself
Dietz/Schwartz
"
Madame Curie" was on TV again last week, and for all its high-gloss Hollywoodisms in relating the saga of the discovery of radium, there's a relevant idea at its core: a small group of brilliant, intensely dedicated people sift through piles and piles of junk against enormous odds, to produce, or rather to find, the microscopic amount of precious material they suspect lies somewhere within.
The ratio of what is wasted to what is used isn't quite as high in your average jazz album, but then the raw materials here are considerably more expensive. Two days and nights worth of recording went into the hour of music you're about to hear. Still, the sifting doesn't so much involve the time required to produce a session like this, but the mental effort required to bring creative individuals up to their peak levels.
How they do it is quite beyond me. Lord knows, it's humanly possible to clear the mind and focus one's brain intently enough to produce teensy amounts of worthwhile matter. The modern recording studio is, in fact, designed precisely for the purpose of seamlessly splicing these minuscule bits together. But not so for the jazz musician. He reduces the microphones and recording machines to their most passive points, restricting them to serving as audience rather
than participant in the performance process. Wilkins, Clark and LaSpina use the studio as a facsimile for the club and, as if they were
performing for an audience, meet the goal marks set for them by Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins and the "LP" concept in jazz, creating melodies that interest, entertain and occasionally even astound, which would be remarkable even were they not improvised.
They don't start entirely from scratch. These men also have their own influences: Jack's long association with Buddy Rich (the two were drawn together, one suspects, primarily because of a common belief that all jazz styles are valid so long as they swing) and Mike's with Herbie Hancock are too crucial to their music to let pass without a mention.
Whatever happens at a recording session must be an outgrowth of what the performers work on live at a club. "Mike and I have been playing together for a long time, with different groups, " says Wilkins. "We've played enough gigs to know what tunes work for us, ... get our energy working. " They develop the forms around the tunes in the same way. "You learn what works on the bandstand and how the crowd responds, " he continues. "When they get into it, you get a feeling when the energy is right and the flow is right." Loose routines evolve: tempos, order of solos, spots for trading phrases, the merest outline of the shape of a performance to store away in one's subconscious. You don't have to think about when you play, it's just there like the faded outline of a map.
of all, the spontaneity occurs as a response to rehearsal, especially when something happens completely different from the way it was planned.
"On the Cusp, " a Wilkins original and the single duet between LaSpina and Wikins, was initially conceived as an uptempo. Come the session, it became a ballad. Listening to the tapes several weeks after the date yielded more surprises. "I had no idea how Mediterranean it all sounded, " says Wilkins. "I never knew I had that in me, even though my people came from Greece. "
The materials utilized by the musicians here, like so much contemporary jazz, have their origins in the line of standard-setters from Parker to Miles
Davis (and Bill Evans) to John Coltrane (and McCoy Tyner), touching on musical categories known as bebop, modal, free jazz and "introspection, " that recently recognized jazz genre. These terms are dropped more as reference points for the reader than as barriers for the artist; Wilkins and company would let nothing stand in the way of producing music as sublimely perfect as they can, whether it's a faulty instrument, the necessary evil called headphones or, least of all, the strictly verbal labels of genre limitation. Almost telepathically, their thoughts fly back and forth even faster than their fingers, to the point where you can sense the bud of an idea appearing in Wilkins' head and then catch its flowering in LaSpina's.
ensemble unity and each man's individuality exist
in equal parts, neither sacrificing to the other. It's impossible, but logic itself is yet another of the concepts they use when applicable and discard when restrictive. As Wilkins describes it, "Since I'm the leader, I take charge more, but in the scope of things it's not about me taking charge, it's sort of more like me being the point guard.
Once I make the initial statement, anybody can lead and they can take it anywhere they want. I follow them just as much as they follow me.
When it's working, it's like a second place altogether. It's not me, it's not them, it's not Mike, it's not Steve, it's not Jack, it's a whole other plane. "
And here's the marvelous paradox of this trio: ensemble unity and each man's individuality exist
Wilkins' own guitar playing constitutes another seemingly contradictory element. "My favorite musician is Bill Evans. He was the way -- I wanted to play the guitar the way he played piano. Another favorite is Clifford Brown. " Wilkins points out, "I listen to trumpet players and piano players more than guitarists, and try to play the guitar like a cross between a trumpet and a piano. " Even more than most modern string players in a piano-less setting, Wilkins makes you think he's in the foreground and background simultaneously, leading up front with his solo lines, pushing from the back with his chordal comping. Perhaps it's not so much a paradox as a parallax: to accomplish the mindbending feat of improvisation itself, to Wilkins anyway, one
needs to achieve several points of view simultaneously. "You get an overview rather than an innerview of each chord change. You hear them from a more objective position, standing [near] or away from it. If you think about each F? or C? you'll never get past the first one. " Viewpoint aside, Wilkins reasserts his basic precepts. "It's about high energy. It's about communication. And most of all, it's about rhythm. " He continues, "It's got to be swinging. That's most of it for me. The music has to swing first, then you can stretch it out where you want to go once that groove is established ... whatever the tune is, whatever the format." The trio breathes quite organically, secure enough in its completeness that it invites the presence of two more "players." The first is silence -- neither Jack nor Mike nor Steve needs to prove his dexterity by filling every open space, and that space in itself becomes a contributor, interacting with our heroes, giving and taking like
another musician. The final participant is the audience. The great joys of this music can be tapped more readily by listening close up and hunching forward on the edge of your chair, breathing along with the trio and following the lines they spontaneously weave in and around each other.
Let Jack Wilkins have the last word about this album: "I've got to be honest about what I'm feeling when I'm playing, to give my real feelings to the music .... The only way I can describe it is the energy I feel when it's really working: you get chills up the back of your neck, up your spine, it feels so good. "
WILL FRIEDMAN
