A
FIRESIDE CHAT WITH KENNY WERNER
I
am quite possibly the most boring person on the planet, well, at least
on my street, and I own a home in the burbs. Most people who have known
me even for a brief period could probably predict what color tie I will
be wearing with what suit and most of the ladies (I jest) know that my
answering machine message has remained the same for years. I have witnesses
to authenticate my theory. Maybe that is why the surprise of creatively
improvised music is so attractive to me. So it is a pleasure to present
to you, a candid conversation with Kenny Werner. His honesty is refreshing
in this day and age where it is protocol to blow smoke up everyone else's
ass. I bring it to you, as always, unedited and in his own words.
FRED JUNG: Let's start from the beginning.
KENNY WERNER: Well, it's a little than a lot of people. I grew up in a
very suburban environment and wasn't that aware of jazz except for a few
players. I was studying sort of a hybrid classical music, but I was also
good at pulling music off the radio, like pop tunes, Broadway show tunes,
and a little bit of jazz, but I wasn't really into it. And then when I
went to college, it was as a concert piano major. And when that really
didn't work out for me because I didn't find out until I got there that
I was not interested in that at all. I went to the Berklee School of Music
for a jazz school, but for me, it was more of what I already liked to
do, which was improvise. Even there, the allegiance wasn't so much to
jazz, but liking to improvise, which is the essence of jazz. Of course,
while I was there I got the bug to so many jazz artists and all my friends,
who became my network, were all jazz musicians and so I sort of slid into
that world.
FJ: Influences?
KENNY WERNER: You have to remember Fred that I did not come to jazz through
the jazz door. I, sort of, came in through the backdoor. I was always
an improviser. My influences and what I had done, largely, before I played
any jazz were things like weddings and casuals and those kinds of jobs.
My influences were unusual, ranging from romantic movie music and Broadway
music to pop tunes. I used to just improvise my own made-up concerto with
lots of dramatic moments and before I played jazz, that's mainly the way
I played. All the jazz players, as great as they were, didn't touch the
deepest spot in my heart until I heard Keith Jarrett. I don't think I
wanted to copy him, but he employed some aspects of music that were not
in use before he came along. When the music had gotten this icy kind of
harmony to it, he brought back, really some romantic type melody and ways
of playing on chord changes that I related to. He really used the whole
piano like a solo pianist. So I would say, the '70s, for example, Keith
Jarrett was the biggest influence for me. The funny thing about that was
I was playing what we call in New York, a club date in Boston, which is
like a wedding. They are not really clubs. They are really parties and
we called them GB gigs, general business. I was playing with an old Irish
bass player, who really couldn't play well at all. We were playing some
sort of party and while I was suffering through that gig in a nub state,
I was at Berklee at that time, he turns to me and he says, "Did you ever
hear of Keith Jarrett?" I looked at him wide-eyed and thought, "Why on
earth would he ask me that?" This guy probably would have been transcribing
Guy Lombardo. I said, "Well, of course, I have heard of him." At that
time, he was like my biggest passion. I was listening to him all the time.
He says, "Keith Jarrett used to work for me." I said, "He did?" Now he
didn't know Keith Jarrett as a jazz player. He didn't know anything about
his records or playing with Miles Davis. He said to me, "Keith Jarrett
was the greatest society piano player that I have ever heard." Funny thing
is, since that was what I had most done at that time, I understood the
connection between me and Keith Jarrett, how to play society cocktail
music. That was the difference between him and the other players. That's
not to say that I didn't love or was tremendously influenced by Herbie
Hancock, McCoy Tyner, Chick Corea, and Bill Evans. That was a very big
influence. I saw Bill Evans more times live than anyone else. But Keith
actually had something that was missing in everyone else's music that
I didn't even realize it until he came along. What happened was, he was
willing to incorporate more real elements that he had found by doing the
various kinds of jobs he did and didn't just switch over to playing jazz.
We became that connection, but Bill Evans was also a very big influence
on me.
FJ: You pointed out how you spent time playing society parties. It must
have been quite the learning experience hobnobbing with the rich and famous?
KENNY WERNER: Well, you really don't hobnob with them. You know what it
does Fred, it kind of, when I was younger I knew how talented I was. Wherever
I went I was the best player with relative little effort. I thought to
myself, "Why am I just playing these weddings and parties where you are
virtually ignored?" I played them from fourteen years old until I was
thirty. I thought God was playing some cruel joke on me. There are a lot
of dynamics to how a person ends up where they end up and of course, it
all changed. Being on those gigs, it was like they weren't even there.
Far from hobnobbing, they didn't know I was there, but in a sense, I didn't
know they were there either. I was just in my headspace, doing my gig,
watching the clock, hoping it would be over soon, and dreaming like so
many young musicians that someday I would be allowed to play with the
aesthetic that is closest to my heart and have people appreciate that.
FJ: Granted you expressed that you had come to jazz through other than
the traditional means, but when you actually got in through the door,
were you firm in the commitment that this was the path for you?
KENNY WERNER: No, I negotiated all the way through because I was always
afraid. There are people that have that vision and courage and I really
admire them. I was always afraid for survival and I don't even know where
I got that. I didn't come from a particularly poor background. I was always
worried, for example, if I had a gig with somebody, I would not say to
myself that this was not the type of music that I really believed in or
that this person doesn't use the piano in a way that doesn't honor me
personally. I would not say that. I would be saying to myself, "Oh, man,
he gets work. I need this person. I need this gig. If he uses me, I will
get more of a name." I would place a lot of importance on the person,
which would be the opposite of what you need to do. You need to place
a lot of importance on yourself and have faith that the right things will
come your way if you articulate that to the universe, so to speak. But
it took me many years to learn that, a lot of horror stories. There's
good gigs and good gigs. There are gigs that you totally share the aesthetics
with the person that you are working with and there are very good gigs
where you really don't share the aesthetics, but you feel like this gig
serves some purpose of the overall possibilities of what you are trying
to get to and so you hang with this form of strategy. Now that I look
back on it, I don't know. I know I have learned a lesson now to risk that
and try to stay with what you care about the most. Today, I put more of
my energies, even if I am not going to make money, it is clear to me that
what makes life vibrant is recording, playing, and composing the music
that comes through me and getting it out there. Maybe when a guy gets
half way through life, he starts to sense his mortality or something.
I don't want to waste time doing someone's gig that might lead to a spot
with this that could lead to a connection with that. I say screw it. The
rest of my life I just want to make my music. Some people come out of
college like that and I really admire their foresight and their faith
in themselves. Maybe it doesn't take faith. Maybe they are just not worried
about it.
FJ: How much time did you spend with Charles Mingus?
KENNY WERNER: Well, that is on my resume, but I was just on one of his
albums. And that was the only experience I had with him. In fact, it was
a room full of the greatest musicians in New York City and he wasn't dealing
with me that much.
FJ: How long was your tenure with Archie Shepp?
KENNY WERNER: I played with him for about three years. He was the first
professional touring band that I played with. I played with bands and
we did a night here and two nights there, but when I joined him, I finally
found out what the road was like, the six week tour, which is at the heart
of what the jazz experience is like, but it's so rare these days for so
many jazz musicians. I learned a lot. I learned a lot about the tradition
there. I learned a lot about playing forcefully, or as we say, burning.
I learned a lot about being thick skinned, not just from him, but from
the scene in general and just how to put your head down and fall into
your own groove and not worry about anything else. He could really cause
quite a commotion around him, but he would always be tranquil within himself.
I certainly learned that you could have that inner balance no matter what
kind of craziness is going on around you. I sort of have stories on both
sides of the ledger as far as admirable and not so admirable. I could
just say on the positive side, I really learned a lot about what John
Coltrane was about and what the jazz experience was about, touring with
Archie and my playing got much stronger from working with him.
FJ: You have had a lengthy relationship with Joe Lovano.
KENNY WERNER: Well, I met Joe at Berklee. He was there for a year and
I was there for a couple of years. Now he says we met at Berklee, but
I don't really remember him there. I was playing a session in Cleveland,
which is his hometown. I was at a jam session and someone brought him
over. That's where I remember meeting him, but he said it was at Boston,
so I'll trust his memory better than mine because in the '70s I may have
wiped some memory banks.
FJ: I don't know what you are talking about (laughing).
KENNY WERNER: You know what they say about the '70s. If you remember them,
you weren't there (laughing). It was an interesting attraction because
I was everything he wasn't and he was everything I wasn't. Meaning, I
was into all types of commercial music. I was into music from '50s romantic
comedies. I was into music from TV shows. I could integrate it all in
one big cathartic concerto. He was a jazz player, son of a jazz player,
grew up listening to pure music. We were totally opposites, but I think
we were both rather fascinated with each other. Joe loved all the places
I could go that he would never think of and I loved how purely he could
play jazz and his voice in the music. Our careers went exactly that way
even though we were connected all the way through. He recorded on some
of my albums. In fact, this new album that is just coming out on BMG,
Beauty Secrets, he's on it again. For the first time in a long time, I
have him on one of my albums. I had been on a number of his albums. Of
course, his career really took off there. Even though we were connected
together one way or another, it was a very opposite experience. I was
bouncing from, I had so many sounds available to me, meaning, ways that
I could play, that I never really anchored in on what it was. Maybe it
is like a good left-hander in baseball. It takes a longer time for left-hand
pitchers to mature than right-hand pitchers. Maybe I am like that. I had
so much I could do, it was just as easy to do one thing over another.
But Joe simply always picked up the horn and played. Whenever he played,
he sounded exactly like him. It didn't what the context was. He really
taught me a lesson because in the '80s, if you can't sound like Michael
Brecker, what are you going to do? He just did what he did with all these
positive vibes and without a lot of thought about, again, the opposite
of what I was doing, which was thinking too much. The world came around
to his way of thinking. He hung in there and it was a great lesson for
me. Him and a few others taught me that. I would not have this criticism
of myself, if it is a criticism, of the last ten years or close to fifteen
years, I would say from the middle-'80s on I realized that God put me
on this earth to make the music that comes through my head and I should
really gear myself towards it. Joe was like that since the day I met him
and probably way before that. He comes from a pure lineage. It's like
if you are the son of a rabbi, you are not going to incrementally become
Jewish. He was like that. That's his religion. We always had something
for each other when we played. Today it is great. All he has to do is
start playing at the same time I start playing and perfect duet music
comes out. That's the way you grow with somebody. He's great.
FJ: Are you pleased with where you are at now?
KENNY WERNER: Yeah, I am. Finally, most of the time, the person I collaborate
with now other than my own music is Toots Thielemans. I been playing with
him quite a bit and although I occasionally sideman with him, meaning
playing in a quartet, but we have been doing much more duets together.
Duets is his gracious acceptance of me as an equal partner. We play and
we are billed that way. So that gig feels like my gig and so even the
one thing that I routinely do that is not "my own," it still feels like
my own because I can take the music anywhere I want. Between that and
I am doing much more trio work now, promoting the albums that I have been
doing on RCA.
FJ: Are you comfortable in the trio format?
KENNY WERNER: What happens is, the trio, if they are your sidemen, then
you can take it anywhere you want, almost like if you were playing solo.
And then if they are intuitive, they figure it out and the next thing
you know, all three of us are doing that. I think I have always been a
better leader than a sideman because my mind is always coming up with
different places that the music can go to. On a dime, we can be right
over here and really make a trip out of it. If you do that as a sideman,
you may actually unsettle the leader. The leader may not appreciate that.
I think I was fired more than one gig just for that reason.
FJ: You got a pink notice?
KENNY WERNER: You don't have to get fired. You don't get called back.
You hear the guy is playing somewhere and you weren't called for the gig.
It kind of equals that and I used to go through a lot of pain over it
and now, I think I understand it better because I understand myself better.
I'm just not a sideman. I guess this is what I have settled on now. If
the guy I am working for doesn't appreciate the fact that things come
to me and what I doing to it, trying to make the music better then I am
not in the right place. I want to make the music better. I don't want
to tune myself out so I can mail in the same performance every night.
If that unsettles the leader then obviously, I am playing with the wrong
leader. In Toots Thielemans' case, he loves the surprise and how it pushes
him and this thing has turned into a very risky and far out duet. It's
great. I'm writing music. I'm writing more orchestral music, which is
something I have been wanting to do for a long time. I am recording for
a real good company now. Yeah, I am happy where I am and I am making money
at it, which is really lucky because I have a daughter.
FJ: Let's touch on your first album for RCA Victor, Delicate Balance.
KENNY WERNER: Here's the thing, Fred. I was on Concord and before that,
my original company was Sunnyside. Sunnyside was a very pure little label.
The head guy was a really pure jazzman, who really appreciates his talent,
but in fact, like most small labels, spends nothing after the fact. He's
got a distributor. The distributor always tells him that everything is
OK, meanwhile, you don't actually see your CDs anywhere. I don't fault
them. They probably found that even when you spend money on promotion,
they still didn't do much better. The fact is, I started on Sunnyside
and record three albums for them, two of them with my trio, which I had
for fourteen years. That was a really unique trio. After fourteen years,
I broke that up. What is interesting about Delicate Balance, is that it
was my first attempt at doing a trio album with people other than Ratzo
Harris and Tom Rainey. So when I did this with Jack DeJohnette and Dave
Holland, as great as they are, even simplified versions really gave them
trouble. They had never played that stuff with me before. We got through
it. We got to a nice place with the music, but it was a real transition
record for me. I learned what it was like to play with great players,
but players who haven't played with you for fourteen years.
FJ: So there must have been quite a bit of rehearsing involved?
KENNY WERNER: No, everyone had busy schedules, so I simply booked four
days in the studio, so in my mind, the first two days could have been
rehearsals, if that's what they turned out to be. It turned out that by
the end of the third day, we had gotten the whole record. I was very happy
with it.
FJ: And you latest, Beauty Secrets.
KENNY WERNER: It starts as a trio, about three or four trio tunes and
then it spreads out like a butterfly. If you listen to it without the
usual references, I think you hear something that just develops and it
almost morphs into something else. That's very unusual for a jazz record,
so it is a little vulnerable to criticism if one likes a jazz record that
ends the way it begins. In fact, I am not about what is usual in jazz
and I have gotten to the point where that is OK. It provides a human experience.
After four trio tunes, Joe comes in with a duet. We do a duet and now
you hear a new tune and then I have a quintet that plays and then it moves
into an orchestral space and somewhere in there, it actually has one of
the most unique things on a jazz record, which is Betty Buckley singing
a duet and me playing piano, us doing a duet on "Send in the Clowns."
That's just a collection of just a lot of places that I'm at.
FJ: Ironically, listeners enjoy diversity, but critics really aren't keen
on this form of variety, aren't you concerned that this album may become
a critical lighting rod?
KENNY WERNER: You know, Fred, there is a certain expiration date as to
how much you will worry about anything about a record. Just like a guarantee
or something. It's past the expiration date. When I first finished the
record, I sort of worried about, what does everybody think of what I came
up with. But the longer it goes, I am not thinking about that record anymore.
I'm thinking about music that I am doing now and what I would like to
do next. I do think that that is a possibility and the dynamic in music,
in jazz and probably everything has always been that way. What can work
for people and might even make the music more attractive, doesn't work
for critics who think that they are the template. That's always the way
it is and so what you have to do is, bottom line, you have to decide what
it is as an artist that you are passionate about. Like anything else in
life, you have to align yourself with your passion. One thing is a little
painful, but I can't let it affect the other thing because the CD will
be forever. The criticism will fade into a blur of sound and noise anyway.
But I would be lying if I didn't say that it affected me. I would hope
that if I kept doing what I do, they would start to, you see, when Mingus
did something, they did not try to tell him what he should do. They got
to know who he was and then came to describe that, but somehow people
went from people who describe the scene to people who articulate and speak
for the scene. The artist that fit in that category aren't even worth
listening to. One time, I read to most elaborate, brilliant criticism,
more than a criticism, a review of a Philip Glass thing. The guy's writing
was brilliant, or it must have been because I did not frankly understand
a word of it. He had references to all these things throughout the history
of the world and places and movements and tribes. I did not know what
he was saying, but it looked like something terribly wonderful. I was
smiling to myself because I was realizing that he had all this lavish
language over something that barely exists. There is so little to his
music. Maybe that is what they liked, there is so little to his music
to talk about that they can just wax. The more the music has, the more
they should just simply describe it. That said, I made a decision after
this record too that every trio record that I do from now on will be live
record.
FJ: Why did to come to that dramatic decision?
KENNY WERNER: For a couple of reasons, a trio record is not such an ambient
sound that it needs to be done in such in antiseptic environment as a
studio. The way a trio interacts live is so much more affected by the
people sitting there drinking it in and soaking it up and we are bouncing
off of that.
FJ: How is the state of jazz here in the mainland?
KENNY WERNER: As far as work, America has gotten better. There's more
places where people are interested in jazz and it is not like all Europe
now. We go to Europe, but we also play around America. There is an amazing
pool of talent right here in New York City, unrivaled anywhere else in
the world. It so unbalanced as a matter of fact because if you added up
all the great players in the entire rest of the world, it would not equal
what is here. New York has become this absolute Mecca. Europe has crept
ahead on this, they are open to music that might have other influences.
Their jazz players play alternative music or new music with some Western
European classical elements. This for them is great. This brings the music
more home to who they are. So some of the most interesting experiments
go on over there, not more interesting than here, but there are more places
for it. They are not trying to hold to template or some media image, like
it is here. Now, I feel like it is opening up again here in America. Luckily,
the musicians are not waiting to find out what the media has to say about
the music. That would really he the horse chasing the cart. It is opening
up. You will find that people are attracted to new music in jazz and in
classical music. I had one guy tell me how in Canada one of the symphonies
was on its last leg and on a respirator. They were not getting enough
money from the government and of course, people weren't showing up to
hear the classics, but when they did their new music festivals with all
this wild and crazy stuff, it was packed. Sometimes it is the people that
get ahead of us. They don't realize they are ahead of us, but if you want
to bring people out of the woodwork, especially young people, you might
have to have something that exists in the time that they live in.
Fred Jung is Editor-In-Chief and washes the dishes and folds the laundry.
Comments? Email
him.