Discover Top Posts Tagged with #tom varner

Tom Varner - "Complete Communion: Paris Ambulance Song/Complete Communion (Reprise)"

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Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews composer and French horn player Tom Varner's new album, Nine Surprises:

"Tom Varner’s writing is a bit like shaker furniture: sturdy and well-crafted with clean lines, and details that rhyme from piece to piece. He once said he’s looking to construct “a big picture with lots of little pictures” in it. In his “Nine Surprises” suite, that march keeps coming back, transformed—as in a ghostly variation with clarinet in the lead."

Photo Cred: John Edwin Mason

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Tom Varner - "Watts '56"

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Why Roscoe Mitchell is Important: TOM VARNER

Tom Varner is a French hornist and composer, with 13 CDs out as a leader, and who plays on around 75 others. His most recent CD is “Heaven and Hell,” a work for tentet. His next project, “Nine Surprises,” is a new work for nonet, and will be out in fall 2013. Tom now teaches at Cornish College of the Arts.

In the summer of 1975, I had just graduated from high school, and all summer I worked at a Sam Goody’s record store in a suburban New Jersey mall. I bought and listened to a lot of music that summer (all LPs back then). One of my most important finds, in addition to my Charlie Parker, electric Miles, and Ornette Coleman LPs, was the Art Ensemble of Chicago’s “Fanfare for the Warriors.” It had been out around 18 months, and was on a “major label,” Atlantic. The third track, “Nonaah,” by Roscoe Mitchell, grabbed me by the throat. That intensity, that focus, those incredible wide intervals, the silences and space in guest pianist Muhal Richard Abrams’ solo, the abruptness of the ending, that combination of “brains and guts,” these elements had a huge appeal to a just-turned-eighteen, barelya-beginner, improvising French horn player. These elements spoke of “something more.”

Fast forward, after two years of listening and learning and woodshedding. Summer 1977, at the Creative Music Studio, that wonderful and wild place in the Catskills, where I had already spent some time around a year earlier, with Leroy Jenkins, Ed Blackwell, Karl Berger, Sam Rivers, Dave Holland, and Jack DeJohnette. Now, during the “blackout summer,” I was studying more, alongside fellow students Steven Bernstein and Peter Apfelbaum (both still teenagers) and pianist/composer Alan Bern (perhaps an ‘older’ 22 or so). We knew that the Art Ensemble was going to be playing at a NYC club, and so, with the kind help of free jazz drummer pioneer Sunny Murray, who was also spending time at CMS, we four “crazy kids” borrowed Sunny’s mother’s Cadillac (!) and drove down to the Storyville jazz club, in east midtown, I believe. The performance was jaw-dropping for all four of us. Lester Bowie was traveling in Africa, and so his “sub” was the trombonist/composer George Lewis. I think we were blown away by the authority, seriousness, and instrumental command of these players, but also by the playfulness and sense of humor that coexisted with the deep thought that went into this music. And also, we were impressed by the huge range of styles (“Ancient to the Future”) that was at their instant command. Again, we saw the possibility of “something more.”

In the next few months at New England Conservatory as an incoming transfer student, I went back and explored Roscoe’s compositions from the Art Ensemble’s 1969 Paris recordings such as the incredible “The Ninth Room,” and Roscoe’s own 1966 recording as a leader, “Sound.” Several saxophone players at school were aware of and practicing “Nonaah.” I wrote a paper on Roscoe in Carl Atkins’ jazz history class. (I wish I had that paper!) I do remember a quote (I’m paraphrasing from memory): “I would like to be as natural in making sounds as the ducks in my pond at home.”

Fast forward a few months, again: Another workshop at CMS, with the Art Ensemble, New Years, 1977 turning to 1978. My main memory is an improvisation workshop with Roscoe. Various small ad-hoc chamber groups would play short improvisations, and Roscoe would listen. Sometimes he would sit there quietly. Sometimes he would just say “hmmmm.” He might have said, “Think about what you are doing, don’t play until you really need to add something.” But just his presence there MADE us think. It made us think of intention, of space, of dynamics, of contrast, of abstraction, of winnowing something down to its essence, of MEANING what you play, of doing that with authority, and of shutting up, too. The performances of the Art Ensemble during that workshop also reminded us that, as creative musicians, we can be deadly serious, but with humor and joy at exactly the same time. I am still in touch with many of the students from that time—I think it changed our lives.

I have recently played that recording of “Nonaah” for students, and Roscoe’s more recent Note Factory recordings as well. I am still reminded by Roscoe, as I was as an 18-year-old, that there is “something more” – another way of structuring music, beyond “head-solos-head,” beyond “free jazz,” beyond “totally notated” –another way, with heart and brains and soul and freshness and humor and authority and beauty. Thank you Roscoe!

Table & Chairs Presents: Roscoe Mitchell Performs Nonaah on June 7th, 2013 at Benaroya Hall in Seattle.

More Info — Buy Tickets — RSVP on Facebook

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