Songs for Quintet

Kenny Wheeler, Stan Sulzmann, John Parricelli, Chris Laurence, Martin France

EN / DE

Kenny Wheeler (1930-2014) was an unassuming giant of modern jazz, a daring improviser, and a writer of many beautiful and slyly unorthodox tunes. His recorded legacy includes albums now regarded as contemporary jazz classics such as Gnu High, Deer Wan, and Music For Large And Small Ensembles. In December 2013 he recorded what was to be his last album. Songs for Quintet, an inspirational session featuring Wheeler compositions of recent vintage (plus a fresh approach to “Nonetheless”, first heard on Angel Song), was recorded in London’s Abbey Road Studio with four of Kenny’s favourite players. Stan Sulzmann, John Parricelli, Chris Laurence and Martin France work together marvellously as an interactive unit, solo persuasively, and provide support for the tender and lyrical flugelhorn of the bandleader. Songs for Quintet is issued on January 14, 2015, which would have been Kenny Wheeler’s 85th birthday.

Kenny Wheeler (1930-2014) war ein bescheidener Gigant des modernen Jazz, ein kühner Improvisator, und der Komponist vieler schöner und verschmitzt unorthodoxer Melodien. Sein musikalisches Vermächtnis enthält Alben wie Gnu High, Deer Wan, und Music For Large And Small Ensembles, die heute als Klassiker des zeitgenössischen Jazz gelten. Im Dezember 2013 nahm er ein Album auf, das zu seinem letzten werden sollte: Songs for Quintet, eine inspirierende Session mit Wheeler-Kompositionen jüngeren Jahrgangs (und einer frischen Annäherung an ‚Nonetheless‘, das erstmals auf Angel Song zu hören war), wurde in den Londoner Abbey Road Studios mit vier von Kennys Lieblingsmusikern aufgenommen: Stan Sulzmann, John Parricelli, Chris Laurence und Martin France arbeiten als interaktive Einheit fabelhaft zusammen, solieren überzeugend und unterstützen kongenial das zärtliche und lyrische Flügelhornspiel des Bandleaders. Am 14. Januar 2015 wäre Kenny Wheeler 85 Jahre alt geworden Songs for Quintet erscheint zeitnah zu diesem Datum.
Featured Artists Recorded

December 2013, Abbey Road Studios, London

Original Release Date

16.01.2015

  • 1Seventy-Six
    (Kenny Wheeler)
    04:58
  • 2Jigsaw
    (Kenny Wheeler)
    08:43
  • 3The Long Waiting
    (Kenny Wheeler)
    05:09
  • 4Canter No. 1
    (Kenny Wheeler)
    06:40
  • 5Sly Eyes
    (Kenny Wheeler)
    06:07
  • 61076
    (Kenny Wheeler)
    02:39
  • 7Old Time
    (Kenny Wheeler)
    06:11
  • 8Pretty Liddle Waltz
    (Kenny Wheeler)
    06:49
  • 9Nonetheless
    (Kenny Wheeler)
    04:54
His strength was beginning to go, but the unfamiliar sense of vulnerability that occasionally shows in his work — on flugelhorn only throughout the album’s nine pieces — never obstructs the music’s clarity or emotional impact. You would not want to miss his opening statement on ‘The Long Waiting”, a most elegant ballad, or the way he vaults into the theme of ‘Sly Eyes’ over France’s parade-ground snare drum. In any case, this is a record of a group playing Kenny’s tunes, so gorgeously stimulating for improvisers, rather than a showcase for the leader’s playing. One or two are familiar from earlier records, but all confirm the impression that other musicians will be exploring their glowing contours for many years to come. Here they draw a wonderful response from each of the musicians but in particular from Sulzmann, a collaborator for many years: a quiet presence with a gift for locating the essence of each composition and never playing a wasted note, he supports and sometimes takes the initiative in what may be a career-best performance. As a graceful coda to a wonderful career, ‘Songs for Quintet’ is not to be missed by anyone who ever fell under Kenny’s spell, however belatedly.
Richard Williams, The Blue Moment
 
Nine compositions warmly interpreted by a sensitive ensemble that captures the essence of his bittersweet aesthetic.[…] A moving testament to a major voice in UK jazz.
Mike Hobart, Financial Times
 
His improvisational flurries and melodic imaginings are as tender and delicate as ever. There’s both chaos and calm in the lovely Jigsaw, in which musical phrases seem to break up, float and reconfigure, and in the way Wheeler’s flugelhorn soars over the crashing drums and swirling electric guitar chords of ‘1076’.
Jane Cornwell, Evening Standard
 
Each cut sings with the breath of life. Like the lark ascending, Wheeler’s solos, still graced with that easeful elegance where each note seems inevitable, rise and distill to an airy nothingness that takes our breath away even as it gently fades.
Andy Robson, Jazzwise
 
‘Songs for Quintet’ sits comfortably alongside Wheeler’s classic albums for ECM such as ‘Gnu High’ (1975) – Keith Jarrett’s last session under another leader) – and ‘Music For Large And Small Ensembles’ (1990). It’s more intimate than either of those expansive works, but by no means inward looking. The Quintet knew Wheeler and his music intimately, as he knew them, and the music they made together is full of the richness of intimacy. ‘Songs for Quintet’ is a powerful and moving culmination of a significant body of work.
Tim Owen, Dalston Sound
 
A poignant ending to a magnificent career.
Bill Milkowski, DownBeat (4 1/2 stars)
 
Wheeler (who would have been 85 years old at the time of release) plays flügelhorn throughout and delves into each number with a warm fragility that belies his adventurous harmonies and free-flowing lyrical ideas. […] Ultimately, ‘Songs for Quintet’ is a beautiful and poignantly subtle farewell from one of the quiet giants of jazz.
Matt Collar, Allmusic.com
 
Guitarist Parricelli stands out for his Jim Hall-like elegantly mellow sound; saxist Sulzmann for his tender but assured shepherding of the music. Yet Wheeler’s still the reluctant star and this, his superb swansong, is destined to be an ECM classic.
Garry Booth, BBC Music Magazine
 
Not a backwards glance in this last recording, but a quintet album of real substance and sure to be regarded amongst the very best of Kenny’s recorded legacy.
Nick Lea, Jazz Views
 
A delightful showcase for the Canadian-born horn man who demonstrates the pellucid eloquence of his flugelhorn-playing alongside the likes of saxophonist Stan Sulzman and drummer Martin France. A supremely beautiful record.
Charles Waring, Record Collector
Songs for Quintet, Kenny Wheeler’s final recording, features compositions of relatively recent vintage, plus a fresh approach to “Old Time” – which the Azimuth trio used to play – and “Nonetheless”, a piece introduced on Angel Song. The album was recorded at London’s Abbey Road Studios with four of Kenny’s favourite players. Stan Sulzmann, John Parricelli, Chris Laurence and Martin France work together marvellously as an interactive unit, solo persuasively, and provide support for the tender and lyrical flugelhorn of the bandleader.

The session turned out to be the last occasion on which Kenny played with other musicians. He was not well enough to participate in what was intended to be a celebratory quintet gig shortly after the recording. If age and illness temper the strength of his sound on Songs for Quintet, the melodic imagination and the improvisational courage remain; the flugelhorn soloist could not be anybody but Kenny Wheeler. His exchanges with Stan Sulzmann throughout the album are full of charm, and indicative of the sense of friendship and mutual respect that characterises the whole band. Everybody’s looking out for the leader, which need not imply a reining in of energies. Listen to the roaring of the ensemble on the strangely-titled “1076”, for instance, and the way in which Kenny solos above the groundswell of drums and the thick swaths of electric guitar texture. This doesn’t fit conventional notions of “late music”.

The jaunty “Old Time”, whose bluesy impetus feels midway between Mingus and Adderley, may sound familiar to long-time ECM listeners. There is an earlier version entitled “How It Was Then”, with lyrics by Norma Winstone, which appeared on an Azimuth recording in 1994.

Waltzes were amongst Kenny’s favourite forms, and there are many in his discography. “A Pretty Liddle Waltz” is more than the characteristically self-effacing title suggests, its open spaces allowing Stan Sulzmann, Kenny and guitarist John Parricelli to stretch out. The tango “Sly Eyes” addresses more dramatic passions over its quasi-military beat. “Jigsaw” embodies a quality common to some of the loveliest of Kenny’s pieces. Built upon asymmetrical phrases that fit together according to their own logic, it flows in a manner entirely natural, eased along by Martin France’s drums, and with an elegant bass solo from Chris Laurence near the conclusion. Another bass feature, at the start of “Canter No. 1”, sets up the tune for its initial cantering, due to evolve, behind Sulzmann’s powerful solo, into full-fledged gallop.

“The Long Waiting”, which Kenny previously recorded in a big band version, seems ideally suited to the quintet. This version conveys the atmosphere of austerity and openness that Wheeler liked so much, a beautiful melancholy expressed so very well in the solos of Parricelli and Sulzmann and in Kenny’s own vulnerable solo.
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Kenny Wheeler (1930-2014) was an unassuming giant of modern jazz, a daring improviser, and a writer of many beautiful and slyly unorthodox tunes. His recorded legacy on ECM includes albums now regarded as contemporary jazz classics, such as Gnu High, Deer Wan, Music For Large And Small Ensembles and Angel Song.

Born in Toronto but based in England from 1952, Wheeler was, by the late 1960s, a highly regarded figure on the London scene, living a sort of double life – as a post-bop trumpeter and flugelhorn player inspired by Clifford Brown and Art Farmer and as a pioneering free player moving into unexplored territory in the company of improvisers including John Stevens, Evan Parker, Dave Holland and Derek Bailey. Jazz tradition and free experimentation would intermingle in Kenny’s palette as player and composer. As he put it, “the free stuff relaxed my conventional playing and the conventional playing gave shape to my free soloing”, and ideas discovered in improvising, especially a fondness for intervallic leaps, were subsequently deployed in his pieces. He cited Duke Ellington, Gil Evans and Stan Kenton as formative influences on his writing but also listened closely to classical and contemporary composition. Gesualdo, Debussy and Hindemith were favourites. Wheeler often said that Hindemith’s harmonies reminded him of McCoy Tyner. In his own writing, melody was the core, and he always found new ways to frame it, harmonically and rhythmically. In terms of emotional atmosphere, he found melancholy cheering. “Sad music makes me feel happy”, he said. “My favourite people in jazz are the ones who sound a bit sad. Billie Holiday, Miles Davis.”

Wheeler first came to ECM’s attention in 1970 when Chick Corea told Manfred Eicher to check out the soulful trumpeter then playing in a Hamburg workshop band. In 1975 Eicher invited Wheeler to New York for the recording of Gnu High, a now-legendary session with Keith Jarrett, Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette. The album brought Kenny international press attention and recognition as more than a musicians’ musician. It was followed by many other ECM sessions: as a leader of his ensembles small and large, as a co-leader with John Taylor and Norma Winstone in Azimuth, as a member of Dave Holland’s Quintet, and as sideman or guest with John Abercrombie, Pierre Favre, Bill Frisell, Arild Andersen, George Adams, Rainer Brüninghaus, Ralph Towner and Leo Smith. He was also heard in the freewheeling contexts of Alexander von Schlippenbach’s Globe Unity and the Berlin Contemporary Jazz Orchestra – both of these adventurous big bands included Kenny Wheeler compositions in their respective repertoires.
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Songs for Quintet was recorded at Abbey Road Studios in December 2013, and produced by Manfred Eicher and Steve Lake. The album is issued on January 14th, 2015, which would have been Kenny’s 85th birthday.