JACK WILKINS TRIO: CALL HIM RECKLESS (Liner Notes)

JACK WILKINS TRIO

Jack Wilkins, Guitar

Steve LaSpina, Bass

Mike Clark, Drums

1 If I Were a Bell Loesser (Frank Music Corp.; ASCAP) 2 Carnival (Manha de Carnaval) Bonfa/Creatore/Peretti/Weiss (Anne

Co.;

Corp.;

"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.

Most 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. "

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:

And here's the marvelous paradox of this trio: ensemble unity and each man's individuality exist

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