Jimmy Giuffre - The Quiet Man

Saddened by the recent passing of Jimmy Giuffre, the editorial staff of Jazzprofiles thought it appropriate to pause in its preparation of other articles for the site and to offer a celebration of his memory by making available to its readers these exquisite insert notes that Mr. Davis created for the Mosaic series [Jimmy Giuffre - The Complete Capitol and Atlantic Recordings MD6-176]. It has taken some liberties with the paragraphing.

These notes form a discourse on just how much thought Jimmy Giuffre put into his music, as well as, an indication of Mr. Davis’ thoughtful insights about Giuffre and how he created this music.

Given a long history of animosity between musicians and those who write about music (or merely write about it, as some musicians would say), I hope that Jimmy Giuffre won’t take my suggestion that he would have made an excellent jazz critic the wrong way.

I simply mean that during his most prolific period as a recording artist, beginning with the release of his first 10” LP for Capitol in 1954, Giuffre in interviews and liner notes provided his listeners with a running commentary on his motives and methods, revealing in the process a great deal of knowledge of such other disciplines as philosophy and psychoanalysis.

Reading Giuffre on Giuffre, a critic might despair, because this is one of the rare instances in which a performer has already been as fair and impartial a judge of his own successes and failures as anyone could hope to be.

(Especially for an artist as committed to public trial and error as Giuffre was during the period in which he recorded most frequently. There is also a sense in which a new piece of music can be heard as a critique of the work that came before it – yet another way in which Giuffre beat after-the-fact commentators like myself to the punch).

Best of all, despite seeming to rebuke the jazz rank-in-file of the 1950s for their conformist tendencies, Giuffre never lapsed into what I call the existential fallacy, that leap of hubris by which an artist (or for that matter, any individual) presumes that his new direction is one that everybody should follow.

In one of his earliest pronouncement – a Down Beat [November 30, 1955] article published under his byline in 1955, in which he explained his decision to limit the bass and drums on his controversial new album Tangents in Jazz [Capitol T-634] – he was careful to point out in his lead that he wasn’t trying to “preach a sermon” in order to bring the rest of Jazz into line. “It’s just one way,” he reiterated at the end, “and every man must go his own way.”

Giuffre gave the fullest explanation of his “way” of that time in the liner notes to Tangents in Jazz, answering a series of “leading questions” put to him by an unidentified interviewer (if not annotator Will MacFarland, then possibly Giuffre serving as his own devil’s advocate, a` la Edmund Wilson or Norman Mailer).

“What is this music?” Giuffre was asked.

His reply – “jazz, with a non-pulsating beat” – accurately describes not only Tangents in Jazz, but also the more experimental of his Capitol recordings of a year earlier and some of his atonal work of the same period with Shorty Rogers, Teddy Charles and Shelly Manne. It also applies to most of Giuffre’s subsequent recordings, including even so deceptively “conventional” an effort as his 1957 “cover” of Meredith Wilson’s score for The Music Man.

“The beat is implicit, Giuffre went on to explain, [I]n other words, acknowledged but unsounded. The two horns [in this case, Jack Sheldon on trumpet and Giuffre on clarinet, tenor or baritone] are the dominant but not domineering voices. [Ralph Pena’s] bass usually functions somewhat like a baritone sax. [Artie Anton’s] drums play an important but non-conflicting role ….

I’ve come to feel increasingly inhibited and frustrated by the insistent pounding of the rhythm section. With it, it’s impossible for the listener or the soloist to hear the horn’s true sound. I’ve come to believe, or [to] fully concentrate on the solo line. An imbalance of advances has moved the rhythm from a supportive to a competitive role ….

[T]o the degree that the beat was there to guide dancers, it is, of course, no longer necessary to concert jazz ….

Several of today’s writers have dropped sounded beat for contrast, but never for an entire work. I’ve written works completely lacking sounded beat, but the difference between this music and all previous work is the use of drums. My previous attempts at this approach, while achieving some of the clarity I sought, were always vaguely unsatisfactory to me until I realized the trouble: the drums, by their nature, cannot carry a simultaneous or overlapping line; when the drums is struck any other note is obliterated, and attention is torn away from any other line. In this music, the drum lines are integrated but isolated.”

That may be fine during written passages, Giuffre’s interlocutor challenged, but how can such “isolation” be guaranteed during improvised solos, where a drummer’s responses are impossible to predict?

“By writing rests in the ad lib parts [and] allowing the drums to fill,” Giuffre answered, in effect arguing that composition and improvisation could overlap - a notion that may have struck some listeners of 1955 as far more treasonous than dispensing with the beat, even though it summarizes a lot of Duke Ellington and is practically a truism for today’s jazz avant-garde. “Classical music, once the rhythm is stated, [assumes] the freedom to move unaccompanied, and if jazz is going to continue to grow, it needs this same freedom,” Giuffre insisted, acknowledging that by taking such a giant leap, he risked sacrificing a “large segment of the usual jazz audience.”

Giuffre ultimately did pay a price for his boldness, once going ten years between new releases (after Free Fall in 1963) and being omitted from most contemporary roll calls of the 1950s. Luckily, Giuffre underestimated the progressivism of ‘50s jazz buffs. Although never a force in mainstream culture like Stan Kenton or Dave Brubeck, and never a cause celebre like Lennie Tristano or Ornette Coleman, Giuffre appealed to many of the same listeners, for similar reasons.

Having been acclimated to revolution by bebop in the late 1940s, modern jazz devotees of the 1950s kept their ears peeled for another uprising, and Giuffre was clearly up to something new.

The crux of the controversy that surrounded Giuffre following the release of Tangents in Jazz , reaching a crescendo with the introduction of the first of his several drummer-less trios a year later, was his aversion to the sort of drum thunder then coming to be identified by many as the very heartbeat of jazz.

But in complaining of “an imbalance of advances” in modern jazz, Giuffre was also questioning what he felt was an over-emphasis on harmonic movement at the expense of linear development and subtler aspects of timbre (he later characterized chord changes as “vertical prison” [Loren Stephens, “The Passionate Conviction,” Jazz Review, February, 1960], and in the liner notes to Tangents in Jazz, he identified being “fed a steady stream of chords” by a pianist or a bassist and “fighting a steady beat” as twin evils. Another way of putting it might have been to say that the innovations of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie had followed too quickly on the heels of those of Lester Young, with the result that Young’s still hadn’t been fully absorbed).

Giuffre’s displeasure with the chordal underpinnings of bop gave him something in common with Miles Davis and Gerry Mulligan, in addition to anticipating Ornette Coleman. His solution was to substitute melodic counterpoint – which he called “slow motion counterpoint” – for harmonic structure, as well as pronounced beat.

Giuffre told Nat Hentoff in 1957 [“Jimmy Giuffre: Blues in Counterpoint” Saturday Review, July 13,1957]:

“The result is a certain feeling of suspension, of dissonance, if it’s handled right. In slow-motion counterpoint, for example, if one melody is an eight-note pattern that is changing notes often, the other melody changes notes much less often, perhaps every four bars. And for rhythmic interest, the slow-changing line can be broken up by repeated notes and rests. A third line and possibly a fourth could be proceeding at other varying rates of speed simultaneously."

Perhaps in response to a question from Hentoff about where this left the listener, Giuffre went on to explain:

“the contrast between lines made possible by this approach provides the clarity that is necessary to follow all the lines. [A]nd to a certain extent, the listener will have more time to absorb each harmonic feeling, because in my writing, the harmonies are the results of lines, rather than lines being fitted to the harmonies."

Were he less theoretically inclined, or less articulate, the native Texan could just have said that the folk-like material he was then writing for his trio allowed even the most casual listener an easy way in. But in outlining the principles of slow-motion counterpoint in such detail, he was paying tribute to his mentor and the theory’s father, Dr. Wesley La Violette, a Los Angeles-based classical composer and proto-guru whose other followers included Shorty Rogers and John Graas. “He had a great influence on my life,” Giuffre years later told Ted Gioia [West Coast Jazz: Modern Jazz in California 1945-1960, New York: Oxford University Press , 1992]. “His scope of music is limitless …. It has given me the staff of life.”

Giuffre in the 1950’s was a man on a quest, much like Coltrane was a decade later. The difference was that Giuffre’s quest, like his music, was more muted, and that it manifested itself intellectually rather than spiritually. All jazz musicians seek their own sound, or at least pay lip service to that concept. The next step for those who find an individualistic means of expression is to attempt to broaden it into a group sound. For Giuffre, sound was a key to finding out who he was as a person, not just as a musician.

A former sideman with a variety of big bands, including those of Buddy Rich and Woody Herman, Giuffre was 33 when he began recording as a leader – a ripe age for a jazzman, by that day’s standard. He already enjoyed a reputation as a composer and arranger based on the success of his Four Brothers for Woody Herman’s Second Herd in 1947.

(Giuffre has always been quick to point out that he borrowed the idea of four tenor saxophonists – or in the case his anthem for Herman, three tenors and a baritone – playing in harmonic parallel and without a vibrato from Gene Rowland, his former roommate at North Texas State University).

He was in steady demand for gigs and recording sessions around Los Angeles in reward for a versatility that wasn’t limited to his being equally adept on three horns. On Howard Rumsey and the Lighthouse All-Stars’ 1952 recording Big Girl, Giuffre honked like a rock ‘n roller; at the opposite extreme, on Chant of the Cosmos, with Shorty Rogers three years later, he blew unpitched air through his horn without striking a note.

Such versatility is usually thought of as commendable in a musician, but Giuffre soon talked as though it was an elaborate mask for his insecurities, not as an improviser, but as a man.

“I began to see that I … had been changing my personally all the time he told Hentoff [op.cit.]. If I was playing with a Basie-type group, I’d sound more like them, and the same with a bop unit. I was a little bit of Stan Getz and Miles Davis and Charlie Parker and a thousand different things, depending on who I was with."

In a subsequent interview with Dom Cerulli [“Jimmy Giuffre: I’m a Trio Now, he Says, But I Used to Just be a Boor,” Down Beat, September 19, 1957], Giuffre expanded on this theme in a way that his identity crisis wasn’t just musical:

“With the group [the original Jimmy Giuffre 3, with Jim Hall on guitar and Ralph Pena on bass], I’ve found that since the background follows the soloist, I’ve been shaking off all schools. Before, when I felt I was playing in an original manner, I was actually playing like a whole bunch of guys ....

[Dr. La Violette] helped me break down a lot of the inhibitions I’ve had. He made me realize I could do things my own way. The clarinet helped, too. There was only one way I could play it, in the middle and low registers. My lip’s just not ready to play in the high register. I don’t know if I can do it. I think I can, but we’ll see.

As I began to play the way I felt, it became comfortable. I could hear these voices saying I must play the other way. But it felt so good, I said, “The hell with it.” It has reached the point where a lot of the musical ideas I have might be considered old-fashioned or bluesy. I used to wonder, “What will the cats think? What will Miles think? What will Getz think? And Stan is miles ahead of me in technique. But something strange happened. I began to hear it in the music of the Modern Jazz Quartet, Horace Silver, in Gerry Mulligan, in the Getz group with Bobby Brookmeyer.

They were playing with this mood of the old-fashioned blues. It has a fresh new way about it. It sounds like a modern man playing with the old blues feel.”

Revealing that his first wife accused him of being a boor as a human being while a Lighthouse All-Star – a blinkered individual who demonstrated no interest in the solos of his fellow band members and who would go to his room to practice between sets – Giuffre explained to Cerulli that upon forming the 3, he had “developed an interest in [things other than music] and other human beings.”

Said Jim Hall in the same article: “Jimmy has a theory: Through finding yourself and getting a grip on yourself personally, you can do the same thing musically. There is a direct connection between personal and musical directness.”

Still later, in 1959, Giuffre responded to Lorin Stephens’s question “Why was sound so important to you?” by admitting that “perhaps it comes from childhood/”
“It was sort of like not wanting to go out unless I was dressed properly. I couldn’t release the music inside of me unless it sounded perfect – that was the first consideration – to have beautiful sound quality.”

“But why so important?” Stephens persisted.

“Well, it goes with my personality, I’m sure. I won’t accept the thing that I am an introverted personality, which some have tried to make me out. I have gone through periods, and I won’t say that I have shaken them off completely, but I have gone through periods where I was quiet: I like the pastoral, the country; I like Debussy and Delius – I like peaceful moods.”

Jazz In Holland - Rotterdam Jazz Orchestra

I often hear friends of my generation who grew up listening to the music in the 1950’s and early 1960’s lament that - “Jazz is Dead.”

Given the preponderance of the music at this time in its history in every setting from clubs to concert halls to radio stations, all featuring many of the original makers of the music and the generation that followed, this dejection is understandable.

Today’s “Jazz Scene” is a paltry comparison at best with clubs, large venues and record labels that offer Jazz vanishing at an ever-alarming rate.

And yet, there is hope, for to those who are busy composing Jazz’s epitaph, this post like its earlier companion “Jazz in Italy” [which is still up on the column or left side of this blog] is intended to allay these apprehensions with the reassurance that Jazz is also alive and well in The Netherlands.

This feature of Jazz in Holland kicks off with a review of Introducing the Rotterdam Jazz Orchestra the details of which can be found at http://www.rotterdamjazzorchestra.nl/. Succeeding articles under this heading will show that Jazz in Holland in all is manifestations is a going concern.

If you like your big band jazz with plenty of finger-poppin’, blaring brass riffs, mellow, unison sax choruses, driving rhythm sections, exciting solos, and churning shout choruses, the initial recording by this marvelous big band entitled Introducing the Rotterdam Jazz Orchestra is for you. Strap-in because this one comes at you full bore from the get-go with charts that are superiorly played by a group of quality of musicians.

The principal in charge of this swinging big band’s maiden voyage is arranger-composer Johan Plomp. Mr. Plomp is aided an abetted in the album’s production by trumpeter Rob van de Wouw and trombonist Louk Boudesteijn, both of whom assume prominent roles in the orchestra’s brass section and as soloists on the album.

Mr. Plomp offers three originals on the disc: “Tale for Tale,” “Happy Birthday, Cat!, and “Slow Piece.” All of these are well-constructed compositions that feature inspired solos by Rob van de Wouw [tp], Cyrille Oswald [ts], Louk Boudesteijn [tb], Simon Rigter [ts] and Marco Kegel [as].

But it is Mr. Plomp’s skills as an arranger who is very much in the Bill Holman, Thad Jones and John Clayton tradition that will help you take away from a listening of this recording the irrefutable sense that all is well with the Jazz World as it currently resides in Holland.

These excellent arranging and orchestrating skills can be heard to full advantage on Mingus’ “Nostalgia on Times Square” [which drummer Martijn Vink kicks and fills into next week], Cole Porter’s “Love for Sale” [close your eyes and you would think that trumpeter Jan van Duikeren is the rebirth of Clark Terry on Doc Serverisen’s “Tonight Show Band”], Wayne Shorter’s “Speak No Evil” [that will introduce you to the latest Dutch piano phenomenon with the engaging name of Rembrandt Frerichs], Bronislau Kaper’s “Invitation” [featuring Simon Rigter whose playing would put a smile on Zoot Sims and Al Cohn’s faces, respectively], and Oscar Pettiford’s “Bohemia After Dark” [with more van Duikeren on trumpet and the marvelous Aram Kersbergen on bass].

In addition to Mr. Plomp’s tunes, two additional original compositions are contributed by the Jazz Orchesrta of the Concertgebouw’s guitarist Jesse van Ruller’s “Have a Heart,” and the Metropole Orchestra’s principal trombone soloist Ilja Reijngoud’s “Original Blonde.” More about these orchestras and these artists will be featured in future editions of Jazz in Holland.

The orchestra’s ensemble work is impeccable, their attention to dynamics is admirably rare and their unison section work shows hours of practice in obtaining the enviable “one voice that still retains distinctive elements” that very much harkens back to the Ellington tradition.

While listening to this recording, I got the sense that the musicians in the orchestra enjoys what they are doing and are proud of being able to do it well. Playing in a big band with 15-16 other musicians entails a sense of responsibility and constant concentration as there are so many things that can go wrong. These guys also seem to have the infectious sense of camaraderie that is such a part of good big bands. They appear to be having a ball playing this stuff and want everyone else to have a good time, most especially the listener.

A predecessor to Introducing the Rotterdam Jazz Orchestra can be found in
Johan Plomp’s Swinging on a Star – by his ‘small big band’ [think Marty Paich’s sound on the famous Art Pepper + Eleven Contemporary CD OJCCD 341-2 ].

The small band is scaled back to two trumpets, three trombones, three saxes and piano-bass-drums with Hans Vroomans replacing Rembrandt Freichs on piano.

Once again, Mr. Plomp’s original compositions form the basis for the band’s repertoire but his treatment of Sonny Rollins’ “Airegin” and “Pent-Up House,” as well as such standards as “The Way You Look Tonight,” “Swinging on a Star” and “If I Should Lose You” provide enough familiar material to help judge his skills as an arranger-composer. And I’m sure after you had the chance to listen to his work you’ll come way with the impression that such skills are first-rate, indeed.

Mr. Plomp’s written, “improvised” choruses which appear throughout these compositions and which the band performs either in sections or in total unison are beautifully put together and swing like mad. Obviously they have the advantage of being planned-ahead rather than made-up-on-the-spot, but Gerry Mulligan Bill Holman, Hank Mancini and Bob brookmeyer, among others, also had the gift of writing wonderfully interesting ‘prepared’ solos which they made an integral part of their arrangements.

If you are a lover of big bands, in full or modified formats, listening to these two albums may tempt you to move to Holland where Jazz is obviously alive and well.

Michel Petrucciani: Part 3 - A Career of Urgency, The Blue Note Years

Still a few days shy of his 23rd birthday, on December 20, 1985, Michel Petrucciani along with Palle Danielsson on bass and Eliot Zigmund on drums recorded Pianism on Blue Note [CDP 7 46295 2]. With this recording, Michel achieved the distinction of being the first French-born Jazz musician offered a contract by this famed label. He would record seven albums for Blue Note during their nine-year association.

"Pianism" [which means the technique or execution of piano playing] was recorded after this group had finished a 6-week, 32-concert tour and Michel, Palle and Eliot approached the recording session as just another gig on the tour.

This superior trio outing features explorations of four of Petrucciani's tunes, "Night and Day," and "Here's That Rainy Day."

Invariably at this point in Michel’s development as a Jazz pianist, the question of the continuing influence of Bill Evans is raised and on Pianism, it does show through both in the nearly equal roles played by the instruments and in the manner in which Michel voices many of his chords.

Yet there is also ample evidence on this recording of Michel beginning to find his own way of incorporating the “Bill Evans influence” into a dramatically and forcefully evolving style of his own.

To hear a very specific example of this stylistic transition in the making, compare Michel’s scorching treatment of "Night and Day", in which he puts on a dazzling display of “pianism,” with the searching and tentative version offered by Evans of this song on the Everybody Digs Bill Evans, his second date for Riverside.

Of course, Evans was still in the process of discovering his system of voicings on his version of the Cole Porter classic whereas Michel comes to this system 30 years later with it available as a fully developed basis for harmonic substitutions while playing this tune. Nevertheless, more and more, throughout “The Blue Note Years,” one can discern the advent of Michel’s unique Jazz voice.

Another aspect of the importance about Pianism in Michel’s artistic development is that it introduced him to the role of a different kind of Producer, in this case, Mike Berniker, whom Michel had not met in-person prior to this recording.

As he explains in the insert notes that Mort Goode compiled and wrote for the recording:

“I want to give special credit to Mike. I didn’t really know what a ‘producer’ was. It’s not a clearly defined term.

When I finally met him it was interesting to see how much he helped me out and helped the band out. Really helped. Mike had critiqued my previous albums and had given me his reaction. He nailed me good, telling me I seemed to be playing too much for myself [the conceit that sometimes creeps into solo piano recordings?], giving him the impression I might be bored with playing the same things over and over again.

When we started working together he helped change something in my playing by his attitude. He’s the only one that could tell me what I had to do, the only one who said: ‘Maybe if you do it that way you can reach another step, another level.’ He was the only one able to do that.

I never could analyze my own playing. Though I know hundreds of critics, etc., no one has ever told me what to change. He did. He opened my eyes, as a producer really should.

Something magic happened on this album. There’s definitely a new step in my playing, because of his guidance and because of my playing so long and touring with the band. It’s different from all the albums that I made before. Maturity is normal, expected, if you are a creative artist – the change from day to day. But it usually isn’t this radical, this apparent.”

Michel is a two-handed pianist, that is to say, he uses both hands while improvising instead of playing an occasional chord or interval with his left-hand to form an accompaniment for horn-like figures being played in his right-hand.

He has the technical ability to carry this two-handedness even further by employing improvisations with both hands at the same time or even using both hands to play two different tunes or even two different time signatures simultaneously.

Michel has a special way of practicing that helps in achieving this skill that he described to Mort Goode in the insert notes to Pianism as follows:

“I play a song with my left hand in the original key. Let’s say it’s in ‘C.’ My right hand plays the same song a half-step higher in ‘C sharp.’ Then I improvise on ’C sharp’ and comp [accompany myself] in the original key so it sounds like a kind of study. It sounds terrible. It’s wrong but interesting, because when you change melodies it’s completely different. That teaches me to have two different brains, to keep my hand actions separate.

My technique goes where my mind would like to go. Sometimes I don’t have the mental agility to get there. That’s why I’m an instrumentalist. That tool (the piano) helps me go further than my mind might go. This practice helps me reach there."

Incidentally, Mort was to later discover that Art Tatum also practiced by playing a half-tone higher in his right hand than he was in his left hand. It is doubtful that many others Jazz pianists would have the discipline and the perseverance to practice in this manner.

Michel’s nine years with the Blue Note Label from 1985 to 1993 would find him on many new voyages of musical discovery. On these recordings, he would play in a variety of musical settings involving an array of both young and seasoned Jazz musicians, experiment with electronic instruments and synthesizers, and compose a wide array of original compositions. All of these experiments would contribute to the creation of a style of his own.

In 1986, Blue Note released Power of Three [CDP7 46427 2] that featured Wayne Shorter on soprano and tenor saxophones and Jim Hall on guitar. The recording was made from this group’s appearance at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. Shorter appears on three of the seven tracks, but the duets between Michel and Jim Hall are what make this recording special. The idea to perform at Montreux grew out of a concert Petrucciani and Hall had done together in Paris the previous December, 1985.

On this recording, the duo pairing of Hall and Petrucciani on "Careful" and "Waltz New" both written by the former and Ellington’s "In A Sentimental Mood," also harkened back to the Bill Evans/Jim Hall Intermodulation collaboration on Verve [833 771-2].

But as Fernando Gonzales points out in the following excerpt from his insert notes, more and more, even in this context, Michel is becoming his own man:

“He… [is] a romantic with a taste for lush voicings, high-drama soloing and bouts of introspection, while steadily refining and nuturing a rhythmic vigor and flair for melodic invention and forceful bass lines that contribute in setting him apart.”

Throughout his career, Michel was constantly altering his musical settings; this was particularly true of his choice of bassists and drummers. In general, he simply enjoyed playing with as many good musicians as possible. Since his preferred group format was a piano, bass and drums trio, one way to enhance the development of his own style of Jazz piano was to play with a wide variety of bassists and drummers.

As Michel commented to Mort Goode:

“I don’t want to get too intellectual about my music. My philosophy is quite simple. For one thing – too much intellectualizing is boring. Too much comedy is boring. Too much of anything is boring. We all need to know when to get off, to simply stop.”

In step with the mantra of change and variety, Michel Plays Petrucciani released on Blue Note in 1987 [CDP 7 48679 2] finds him in the company of two rhythm sections involving Gary Peacock on bass with Roy Haynes on five tracks and Eddie Gomez with Al Foster on drums on the remaining four. Guitarist John Abercrombie bexomes an additional 'voice' on two cuts with Steve Thornton adding percussion on Michel’s beautiful "Brazilian Suite."

In many ways, this is a breakthrough album for Michel in terms of the evolution of his own approach to Jazz piano for with, and perhaps because of, the concentration of original compositions and because the Evans-Jarrett-Tyner influences are hardly discernible [even with the presence of Peacock and Gomez, two of Bill Evans’ former bassists on the album].

From the enchanting, "She Did It Again," to the somber ballads "13th" and "La Champagne" to the up tempo romps "One for Us" and "Mr. K.J.," this recording is an expression of Petrucciani’s Jazz conception.

And what an conception: improvisational ideas that seem to flow limitlessly, punctuated by a forceful attack and encapsulated in a variety of constantly changing tempos and rhythmic displacements.

With Michel Plays Petrucciani, Jazz is not only Whitney Balliet’s “Sound of Surprise,” it is becomes The Sound of the Never Heard Before.

The Blue Note voyages of musical discovery were to continue, albeit headed in a markedly different direction, with the 1989 release of Music [CDP 7 92563 2]. This album would introduce Michel’s involvement with electronic keyboards and synthesizer and a collaboration with Adam Holzman [synthesizer] and Robbie Kondor [synthesizer programming] that would continue on the 1991 Live [0777 7 80589 2 2] and also in 1991 with Playground [CDP 7 95480 2].

For musicians of Michel’s generation, electronic instruments and the ever-present “synths” were musical facts-of-life and something that one eventually tried one’s hand at. To his credit, his use of both never get in the way and are used to create unique musical environments and to complement what Michel is trying to achieve in expressing his music.

On these albums, Michel brings together more magnificent rhythm sections with which to ply his trade in the form of bassists Anthony Jackson or Chris Walker with drummer Lennie White; bassists Andy McKee or Eddie Gomez with drummer Victor Jones on Music; drummer Victor Jones once again does the honors on Live with bassist Steve Jones; while Playground again features bassist Anthony Jackson this time with either Omar Hakim or Aldo Romano on drums.

However, the stylistic goldmine represented in these three Blue Note recordings are the bevy of inspired and beautiful original compositions authored by Michel. These tunes will become the basic repertoire he would perform for the remainder of his career.

These originals form a block of melodies that are a joy to listen to as much as they are a wonderful platform upon which to improvise.

"Looking Up," "Memories of Paris," "My Bebop Tune," "Brazilian Suite No. 2," "Bite," "Miles Davis’ Licks," "Contradictions," "Rachid," and "Home" are all at once, intriguing, challenging and prolific compositions that reveal a fertile musical mind at work.

Other highlights from these three albums are the up-tempo burner, "Happy Birthday, Mr. K." from Music, during Michel reveals a burst of chops that would be the envy of any Jazz pianist - not a key on the piano escapes his attention – the sensitive and softly played version of Bruno Martino’s "Estate" on the Live CD and the disparately soulful solo piano introductions and solos that Michel lays down on the two versions of "Miles Davis’ Licks" that appear on Live and Playground, respectively.

Throughout, Michel’s extremely well developed sense of humor is on display in the use of unexpected resolutions, startling tempo changes, key modulations, and rhythmic displacements, all of which seems to say that 'Music is fun and I’m having the time of my life playing it.'

Michel’s last effort for Blue Note would be the 1993 issue of Promenade with Duke [0777 7 80590 28] in which he would express his appreciation to the man whose appearance on French television inspired Michel to want to play the piano at age 4.

If you are a fan of Duke Ellington’s music and enjoy solo piano, Promenade with Duke is a musical treat not to be missed. His versions of the rarely performed African Flower and One Night in a Hotel alone make this CD a treasure, not to mention his original composition, Hidden Joy, written in an Ellingtonian style.

This recording not only represents the culmination of his time with Blue Note, it also marks a point of departure for a number of aspects of Michel’s career, both personal and professional.

Although he would maintain a residence in New York, from 1993 until his death in 1999, he would make his home in his native France once again and it would be the place to which he would return from his world wanderings

Moreover, while he would continue to tour with a variety of trios, his primary recording and concert emphasis would be solo piano, both of which would be supervised by Francois Dreyfus and recorded on his Paris-based label – DreyfusJazz.

Part 4 will therefore focus on the return to France of one of its illustrious prodigal sons. What better place for him to conclude the remaining years of this - a Career of Urgency?

Michel Petrucciani: Part 2 - A Career of Urgency, The Owl & Concord Years

In January 1999, a week after the death of Michel Petrucciani from a pulmonary infection at the age of thirty-six [36], Mike Zwerin recorded the following anecdote in The International Herald Tribune:

“One midsummer evening in 1978, pedestrians on the narrow unpaved main street of the village of Cliousclat in the Drome region [of France] were startled when what looked like a puppet wearing Count Basie’s yachting cap leaned out of an old tinny Citroen 2 CV and exclaimed: ‘Hey, Baby!’

It was Michel Petrucciani. At the time, they were the only words of English he knew. But the Provencal musicians who lived in the area had spread the word about the 15-year old piano player who lived in the city of Montelimar [near Avignon] and who played Jazz like a veteran.

It’s a good thing he started early because he was not going to last all that long.”

Sadly, it was to last only twenty [20] years, but what a 20 years!

At the age of 15, Michel was to play with Kenny Clarke the legendary drummer who some years earlier had become an ex-patriate living in France. He also played and with trumpeter Clark Terry at one of Cliousclat’s monthly jam sessions and with guitarist Joe Pass at the same venue.

In 1978, Michel met the French drummer Aldo Romano whom he would thereafter refer to as “my guardian angel.” They formed a trio with bassist Jean-Francois Jenny-Clark and Aldo introduced Michel to OWL Records’ young producer, Jean-Jacques Pussiau.


“Two days later, we were in the studio. Now that I am well-known, a lot of people want the credit for discovering me. The truth is that Aldo and Jean-Jacques made way for me."

This photograph is of Jean-Jacques Pussiau driving Michel to Roissy Charles de Gaulle Airport in 1982 is a still from Lettre`a Michel Petrucciani by Frank Cassenti.

Between 1981 and 1985, Michel would record six albums for OWL including a 1982 duo album with alto saxophonist Lee Konitz entitled Toot Suite [OWL 028]. The others include the previously mention 1981 trio album – Michel Petrucianni, a 1981 solo piano album – A Date with Time [Owl 064], two other solo albums, one in 1982 – Oracle’s Destiny [OWL 032] and another in 1984 – Note’n Notes [OWL 037], and finally a duo album with bassist Ron McClure in 1985 – Cold Blues [OWL 042].

In 2000, Universal Music S.A. France released a 2 CD compilation of these six [6] recordings entitled Michel Petrucciani, Days of Wine and Roses: The Owl Years, 1981-85[548-288-2].
As one would imagine, these early recordings find a very young Michel demonstrating his prowess on the piano by overplaying, playing too many notes and doing everything in his power to announce to all and sundry in the Jazz World that a new monster player has arrived on the scene. Like so many other young musicians, playing fast and throwing everything that one can think of into every solo is the ideal; after all, what good are all those long hours of wood shedding [practicing] if one can’t put it all out there?

While searching for every conceivable note, re-harmonization and rhythmic displacement to use in making the recognizable uniquely unrecognizable, stylistically, Michel was also looking for his own identity somewhere between those of Bill Evans, Lennie Tristano, McCoy Tyner and Keith Jarrett.

Or as Stuart Nicholson expressed it in his Jazz: The 1980s Resurgence:

“… a compression of ideas that simultaneously impressed but ultimately detracted…. Given Petrucciani’s tendency to embellishment, the result was an almost naïve desire to simultaneously please and prove himself that resulted in aural indigestion.” [p.318],

And yet, while the matter of finding his own voice or “sound” and of learning to be more selective and judicious in what he played were still to be major leaps for Michel’s development as a mature player, what was evident from the beginning was that this was a pianist who played with passion and with fire and who had the chops to back up these exciting qualities.

There was much to be encouraged about in these early Owl recordings and a host of other Jazz critics writing at the time would have agreed with Nicholson’s assessment that

“ these recordings revealed a startlingly self-composed musician … with his percussive touch, contrasted by Bill Evans-like chord voicings and long linear runs reminiscent of Lennie Tristano plus his sheer authority marked him as a major young musician.” [p.317]

It was only going to be a matter of time before he brought it all together, and yet, Time was to be the great irony and tragedy in this too short-lived life.

In 1983 and 1984, Michel released on the Concord label his first albums recorded in the United States.


The presence of a Bill Evans influence on Michel style is very discernable on the second on these recordings – The Michel Petrucciani Trio: Live at the Village Vanguard [Concord CCD-43006].

By the time of this album in 1983, Evans had been the dominant influence on any number of Jazz pianists over the past 20 years. Frankly, it’s almost impossible to talk about any pianist in the Jazz world of the 1960’s and 70’s who wasn’t influenced by Bill Evans to some degree.

Petrucciani was only 21 years of age at the time these recordings were made and as he commented to Leonard Feather: “Oh man, for me, Bill Evans is the salt of the earth.”

Incidentally, Michel Petrucciani only met Bill Evans on one occasion before Bill’s death in September 1980. The two had an amiable visit during which Bill suggested that Michel’s name was too long for a Jazz musician. Instead he suggested that Michel use the name “Mike Pee.” Thereafter, all of Michel’s original composition which published through his very own publishing house – “Mike Pee Music!”

On the Live at the Village Vanguard recording, considering that venue’s close association with Bill Evans throughout the latter’s illustrious career and the fact that Eliot Zigmund, who had a long stint with Bill is the drummer on the date along with Palle Danielsson on bass and that the opening tune is Nardis, a signature piece of Bill’s, is it any wonder that it was hard for Michel to get out from under the Evans influence?

Yet here again, one can hear Michel reaching out to be his own man on a blistering version of Sonny Rollins’ Oleo with its rambling solo introduction that was much in Sonny’s tradition of coming-at-it-from-all-directions introduction to tunes. Michel’s chromatic runs and percussive riffs and his ability to play the entire piano brings out colors and textures in the music that are indications of the direction that he would ultimately take in his later improvisations.

More and more, imitation is giving way to derivation as he reaches out to bring together the elements to form his own musical identity and this is especially the case in the solo piano feature - 100 Hearts [Concord CCD-43001].

His interpretation of Charlie Haden’s Silence and Ornette Coleman’s Turnaround are a portent of things to come in terms of the singular solo piano style that he would put on display later in his career, especially on the Dreyfus Jazz solo piano recordings of the 1990s about which more later in Section 2C.

Michel learned the blues Turnaround from Charlie Hayden and he was to play it in a variety of arrangements and tempos for the remainder of his career. In commenting to Leonard Feather about the piece he noted: “It’s hard to find a really good blues line that hasn’t been used too much. This has a feeling of major and minor at the same time.”

In September, 1988, Michel appeared with Ben Sidran on his NPR series entitled Sidran on Record. In 1995, Ben transcribed these interviews into book form and DaCapo Press published it as Talking Jazz: An Oral History of 43 Jazz Conversations.

Ben remarked to Michel that

“… the playing [on 100 Hearts] has a certain dream-like quality to it. Almost an impressionistic quality. That record started to bring a lot of notoriety to you in the United States. Did your life change at that point?

Michel later responded:

I have the feeling that I’m getting more and more a personality, like my own personality. I don’t really know how to describe it, because I mean I still have the same mind. I still think of Bill Evans and Wes and Miles and Coltrane and all those people, and other people that I’ve played with. … But somehow, the more I listen to my music, which I don’t do very often, but when I do an album, I listen to it a lot … after it’s done, you know because I wanna criticize and like that… but I realize that I’m getting more and more to be myself. If that means anything, you know, to anybody. But it’s getting more and more Michel’s Petrucciani’s sound and not Michel Petrucciani quote Bill Evans quote McCoy Tyner quote Keith Jarrett quote, you know, everybody in town except me, you know?

So now it’s becoming more me. … So that’s what I’m looking for in my music. I wanna play stronger, better and sound like myself. [Pp. 227-228]

As an aside, it should also be mentioned that a chance meeting between Michel and Charles Lloyd in 1982 had such an impression on the latter that it moved him out of retirement. As Stuart Nicholson noted:

“Michel’s playing inspired Lloyd to make a comeback in jazz. ‘For me,’ Michel is an avatar of the keyboard,’ he said. ‘It all comes through so lovingly clear.’ Petrucciani appeared with Lloyd on the 1982 ‘Live at Montreux’ (Electra Musician), the 1983 ‘A Night in Copenhagen,’ and on the Claude Galloud film ‘Le festival International du Jazz d’Antibes from July 1982.” [p. 318].

In 1985, Michel signed with Blue Note Records and this treatment of Michel and his music will pick up from there in Part 3 of this Jazzprofiles feature on one of the most unique musicians in the history of Jazz.

Part 4 will conclude this overview of Michel Petrucciani’s legacy of recordings with a discussion of his 1990’s output under Dreyfus Jazz before moving on to an in-depth analysis of the Petrucciani style in Part 5.