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2007-04-06
7:30PM
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His last album, Beyond The Wall (Nonesuch) is nominated for Best Jazz Instrumental Album this year.
"One of the finest jazz saxophonists around."
-LA Times
"His music is different, edgier, more thought provoking that the usual jazz fare..he gives more"
-Jazz Scene
"Someone should post a storm warning prior to a Kenny Garrett concert"
-Washington Post |
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One of the most distinctive saxophone voices to emerge in the 1980s and 1990s, KENNY GARRETT is a product of the flourishing jazz scene in Detroit, where, like his contemporaries Geri Allen and Regina Carter, he came under the influence of inspirational trumpeter Marcus Belgrave.
The fruits of the saxophonist/composer's spiritual sojourn have been woven into the silken and hopsack songs of his eleventh recording as a leader, Beyond the Wall (his first for Nonesuch Records). To bring the project's nine songs to life, Garrett assembled a cross-cultural cornucopia of masters that includes saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson, pianist Mulgrew Miller, drummer Brian Blade and bassist Robert Hurst, III. Though these gentlemen are all stalwarts of jazz, much of the music they bring forth on Beyond the Wall proves to be a chameleonic fusion beyond category.
The spirit of Beyond the Wall is dedicated to majestic pianist McCoy Tyner. Garrett is proud to have shared the bandstand with the jazz legend who was also a member of the great quartet led by Kenny’s hero, John Coltrane. Kenny composed most of the album's songs on piano with Tyner's protean strength in mind in hopes that the master would grace the sessions with his presence. Unfortunately, scheduling conflicts prevented him from doing so. "The only person who got to deal with the music beforehand was Mulgrew," Kenny shares. "I showed him all of the voicings. I didn't want Mulgrew to play like McCoy, but I knew he understood McCoy and would get the vibe that I wanted. When everyone else arrived, I talked about the music conceptually - not about what I thought should happen on the session, but what I was thinking when I wrote the songs."
But it was his work with another inspirational trumpeter, Miles Davis, that brought Garrett's work to an international audience for the first time, mainly on the albums Amandla and Dingo from 1989 and 1990 respectively.
By then he had recorded his own debut album and also played with the group Out of the Blue, but it was after leaving Miles and recording a string of distinguished albums in the 1990s that Garrett really showed his strength and individuality.
He has worked with many major figures, including guitarists Pat Metheny and John Scofield, and his own groups have often included pianist Mulgrew Miller and bassist Charnett Moffett. In all this Garrett's blues-tinged, precise and rapid-fire style stands out, and it is mainly so individual because of his seemingly inexhaustible fund of invention.
www.kennygarrett.com |
