BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//www.yoshis.com/sanfrancisco//NONSGML kigkonsult.se iCalcreator 2.10.5// X-WR-CALNAME:www.yoshis.com/sanfrancisco X-WR-CALDESC:www.yoshis.com/sanfrancisco X-WR-TIMEZONE:US/Pacific BEGIN:VEVENT UID:20120517T012319CEST-8008nCirCx@www.yoshis.com/sanfrancisco DTSTAMP:20120516T230519Z DESCRIPTION:Anything can happen when pianist/composer Michael Wolff enters a studio. From the heavy grooves of his band Impure Thoughts to intimate s olo and duo recitals\, Wolff the recording artist is a man of many skills and moods. "\;It's never intellectual for me when I record\,"\; he emphasizes. "\;It's about what I feel."\;\n\nWolff was feeling ja zz - the tradition that has nurtured him and the spirit of adventure that keeps moving the music forward - when he cut Joe's Strut\, his new disc sc heduled for release by Wrong Records on February 10\, 2009. "\;Jazz is my background\, it's what I grew up playing\,"\; he says. "\;I lo ve Impure Thoughts\, but the emphasis on percussion and the volume make it harder to deal with things like harmonic movement and my piano touch. And after my trio album Jazz\, Jazz\, Jazz was released in 2007 and I began p erforming in that format again\, playing in an acoustic setting just felt right. I can retain the blues feeling underneath\, while using all of the sophisticated harmonic things I've learned. As a pianist\, it gives me mor e space."\;\n\nJoe's Strut also provided the opportunity to assemble t wo fine ensembles\, a quintet that performs four recent Wolff originals pl us the Joe Zawinul classic "\;74 Miles Away"\; and a trio heard on the title track and two standards. The larger group features a rhythm sec tion in which Wolff unites with two of his oldest associates\, bassist Chi p Jackson and drummer Victor Jones. "\;The three of us have been playi ng together since I moved to New York\,"\; the pianist says. "\;In fact\, they were on my first New York gig\, with Ronnie Cuber in 1975. To gether we've played all the funk gigs\, the rock gigs\, the jazz gigs\; we love Stravinsky and Country and Western music. It's all at our fingertips . But the music that we play here is our common language\, our reference p oint\, something that we never even have to talk about."\;\n\nTo compl ete the quintet\, Wolff brought together Steve Wilson\, one of New York's most in-demand alto and soprano saxophonists\, and newcomer Ian Young on t enor sax. "\;Steve is just amazing\, with his soulful feel and melodic creativity. And Ian is someone who I heard playing alto in a big band. Wh en I found out that he also played tenor\, I could tell just from his alto sound that he would create a great blend with Steve. There is something a bout two saxes together that comes closer to what I was hearing in my head than trumpet and tenor. It's a little more elastic\, and it can even be a little out of tune\, which I like after all of the quarter tones I've hea rd in Indian music. And the stylistic difference between Ian and Steve add s something else."\;\n\nWolff features the horns on four original comp ositions. Both the opening "\;Harbour Island\,"\; a straight-ahead cooker with a two-sax blend inspired by the work of James Spaulding and W ayne Shorter on classic Blue Note albums\, and "\;The Third You\," \; which evokes a moody foreign film score\, were written during a recent visit to the Bahamas. The more open form of "\;Freedom"\; allows e veryone to stretch out over a waltz tempo. "\;Wheel of Life\,"\; w hich begins as a duo for Wolff and Wilson (on soprano sax)\, turns in an i mpressionistic direction when the rhythm section enters. "\;I've been so busy recently that I didn't have time to write material specifically fo r the session\,"\; Wolff admits. "\;But when I looked on my piano to see what had accumulated in the past year\, I realized that these piece s were just what I needed."\;\n\nThe album's final track\, "\;74 M iles Away\,"\; recalls both Wolff's time in the last edition of the le gendary Julian "\;Cannonball"\; Adderley Quintet and the tune's co mposer\, Joe Zawinul. "\;Cannonball's greatness has gotten overlooked in a way\, which is something that Joe and I used to talk about. People fo rget that\, when they were both playing with Miles Davis\, John Coltrane w as afraid to follow Cannonball. When I got the gig\, I used to ask Joe for advice about how to comp for Cannonball\, and he'd just say\, 'If you eve r figure it out\, call me.'"\;\n\nWolff's relationship with Zawinul\, who died in 2007\, also inspired the album's title track. With its mix of blues\, boogaloo and New Orleans rhythms\, "\;Joe's Strut"\; is a perfect tribute to the cross-cultural giant who traveled from his native V ienna to Birdland before changing the course of contemporary music through his work with Adderley\, Miles Davis and Weather Report. It also reveals how the same boundary-breaking spirit informs Wolff's music. "\;I grew up in New Orleans\, and then after my family moved I returned to spend ev ery summer with relatives\,"\; he says. "\;I grew up hearing that music and playing with all of those guys. All of that is inside me."\; \nMore of the inner Wolff comes through on "\;If I Were a Bell\,"\ ; a relaxed inspection of the Frank Loesser classic that was inspired when the pianist recently shared a bandstand with the Count Basie Orchestra\, and an introspective exploration of the Arlen/Mercer masterpiece "\;Co me Rain or Come Shine."\; Both performances find Wolff drawing upon th e examples of his keyboard idols\, a group that includes Basie\, Wynton Ke lly\, Red Garland\, George Shearing and Ahmad Jamal. "\;When I was abo ut to record my first album\,"\; Wolff recalls\, "\;my piano mento r\, Jerome Gray\, advised me to 'let the band play you\,' which is kind of what Ahmad's approach is about. That's a great lesson\, to not just play notes but instead wait until you have something to say."\;\n\nAll thre e trio tracks find Wolff and Jones in the company of bass stalwart Richie Goods. "\;I haven't been writing music every day like I once did\, and that opened up the chance to play a couple of standards with the trio\,&q uot\; Wolff explains. "\;Since I've been playing a lot with both Chip and Richie and love them both\, I wanted to have both of them on the album ."\;\n\nThe sum of Joe's Strut is\, in Wolff's opinion\, "\;the be st album I've made in terms of taking all of my experience and being total ly creative with it. It's where I'm at right now\, and now that I'm older I can appreciate all of the great things that Cannon and Sonny Rollins wer e doing when I played with them in the '70s. At this stage\, I feel that I can play on many levels simultaneously. The rhythmic mode is jazz\, but I can stretch it. I have the confidence to explore according to my own pers onality."\;\n\nA central part of this confidence is Wolff's commitment to individuality\, which is reflected in both his original music and the new spin he puts on the three non-originals. "\;The idea of doing a tr ibute album has been suggested\, but why?"\; he insists. "\;It's l ike Cannon told me when I joined his band: 'let other people play their mu sic. Write me some of your own.' As sensitive and vulnerable as you have t o be to remain a good musician\, you also have to be tough and fight to ke ep your own voice. So that's my tribute to Cannonball and Sonny - to keep going and being original."\;\n\nJoe's Strut finds Michael Wolff realiz ing his goal in what is sure to be one of the most acclaimed jazz recordin gs of 2009.\n- Bob Blumenthal\, 2009\n\nhttp://www.michaelwolff.com/ DTSTART:20100511T000000 DTEND:20100511T000000 DURATION:PT3H LOCATION:San Francisco SUMMARY:Michael Wolff Band END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR