Barga jazz festival - Kenny Wheeler Concert

This year the BargaJazz Festival is host not only to one of the world’s most important contemporary trumpet players; but a musician who is also one of the foremost jazz composers and arrangers of the last forty years. Kenny Wheeler, born in Canada in 1930 and resident in England from the age of twenty two, is encouraged by his trombone playing father and studies trumpet, composition and harmony at the Toronto Conservatoire.

Initially influenced by Buck Clayton and Roy Eldridge he rapidly crosses over into bebop, following in the footsteps of Miles Davis and Fats Navarro. After the move to London Wheeler alternates between his job as a dance orchestra musician and other, personal projects. In 1959 he opens at the Newport Jazz Festival with the Johnny Dankworth Band together with whom he records his first album as leader: ‘Windmill Tilter’ - a collection of big band compositions based on Cervantes’ Don Quixote.

The year 1966 is a pivotal one in his career when, thanks to a meeting with drummer John Stevens, he gravitates towards free-jazz and collaborates with Stevens’ Spontaneous Music Ensemble and the Tony Oxley band. Saxophonist Evan Parker and guitarist Derek Bailey introduce Kenny to the Globe Unity Orchestra, the German big band directed by pianist Alexander von Schlippenback, with which he begins a lengthy collaboration. In 1971 Anthony Braxton invites him to join his band, where he remains until 1976. In the mean time Wheeler records the 1975 Melody Maker Album Of The Year ‘Song For Someone’, bringing together free elements and jazz, and also one of the critics all time favourite albums: ‘Gnu High’, with Keith Jarrett, Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette.

He records for ECM with the Azimuth trio (Wheeler, John Taylor and Norma Winstone) and, in 1977, ‘Deer Wan’ together with Jan Garbarek, John Abercrombie, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette and Ralph Towner. In 1979 he joins the Dave Holland Quintet, recording in 1983 ‘Double, Double You’ together with Michael Brecker, John Taylor, Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette. His 1988 tour with a new quintet comprising John Abercrombie, John Taylor, Dave Holland and Peter Erskine is greeted with enthusiasm by both the press and the public. He records another two masterpieces in 1990: ‘The Widow in the Window’ and ‘Music for Large and Small Ensemble’. The latter, in particular, displays Wheeler’s extraordinary qualities and absolute originality as an arranger. His prolific output and search for new musical experiences has not diminished since the 1990s. He records ‘Angel Song’ together with the new and highly original line-up of Bill Frisell, Lee Konitz and Dave Holland . His latest recording for ECM, ‘A Long Time Ago’, brings together a brass ensemble and the trio comprising Wheeler, John Taylor and the guitarist John Parricelli - thus combining classic timbres with the jazz trio.

Still very active on the concert scene, in 2005 Kenny Wheeler celebrates his seventy-fifth birthday with a series of concerts performed together with Lee Konitz, Norma Winstone and Dave Holland in some of the most important English theatres. Constantly balancing tradition with the avant-garde, Wheeler is without doubt one of the most important points of reference for the latest generation of trumpet players.

During this year’s Barga Jazz Festival, as well as playing together with the BargaJazz Orchestra the original arrangements of his compositions submitted by competitors, he will present ‘Kenny Wheeler’s Little Sweet Suite for 13 elements’ on the 19th of August. 

Kenny’s Little Sweet Suite Kenny Wheeler- tromba, flicorno Diana Torto - voce Glauco Venier - pianoforte Colours Ensemble diretta da Massimo Morganti Giorgio Caselli, Samuele Garofoli - tromba Mauro Ottolini – trombone, Simone La Maida, Enrico Benvenuti - saxes, Rossano Emili – sax baritono, Luca Pecchia - chitarra, Gabriele Pesaresi - contrabbasso Massimo Manzi - batteria, Paolo Caruso – percussioni

Click on the link below to listen to Kenny Wheeler and his band playing part of the Kenny’s Little Sweet Suite this evening in the Teatro dei Differenti

 

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