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 For the people who live in Manhattan, they tend not to venture out to Brooklyn or queens to hear jazz, I met Eric Wyatt about a year ago, and he has been invited me to the club, Gaithers, he was running a jam session in Brooklyn at a local club, Gaithers. So, I decided to go to see him and play some music together. That was the start of everything of this project. The location of the club is just on the North side of crown heights where an area more famous for the Rios of 1990 than jazz. Itf been a quite while since Jazz music lost itfs own power they used to have, and Itfs very rare to hear the call and response, like they used to have on many albums recorded live back in 50fs, even at the famous Village Vanguard or Blue Note in Manhattan nowadays. But, that is not the case here. This club has the feeling of a classic early50fs jazz club. The people are very aware of the music. Local residence and musicians like Antonio Hart, Vincent Herring, Nicholas Payton and Mark Shim, and so many others are usually coming for the 2nd set to sit in with Eric on any given Monday night. I felt like as if I have been time traveled to 50f at first, and I am playing with the top musicians of the day. One old storyteller told me that; they used to have many bars, restaurant, and clubs on each few blocks around here under the support of local community. That is when this project began to take shape. This environment really impressed me so deep. Jazz really still lives in this community, just like good old days. Eric told me that his father Charles was a good friend with Sonny Rollins. I wanted the musicians that have played with Sonny because of the experience and Ericfs big, beautiful sax sound. The first song he recorded was my original tune entitled <Calypsonny>, I wrote this tune for Sonny Rollins. All the musicians came to play with, Al Fosterfs tasty cymbal works, Rufus Reidfs fat & strong bass lines and Mark Soskinfs dynamic piano sound, and Guilhermefs gorgeous sound. The studio was just filled with the full mood of the Caribbean islands with its bright sunshine as soon as they started to play a few bars of this tune. He seems like struggling to adjust his mouthpiece and getting a little nerves surrounded by famous players in the beginning, and that made me a little nerves too as a producer. Because, this is the first song have to be recorded and the form is rather complicated, but the take2 came out OK, and after the first song I could relax for the rest of the session. This recording has to be done so smoothly by the evening, because Al Foster is playing at Village Vanguard this whole week. We canft waste any studio time. The second song, <Alfiefs Theme>, was done in one take with Al, Mark, and Rufusfs groovinf rhythm sections. Eric is very comfortable at this point. The third song was a beautiful ballad Eric wrote for his mother entitled < What Would I Do without you>. His sound here is so warm and soulful. Mark took a good melodic solo line. Eric plays soprano on his original <In the Spirit of Authur> that he has dedicated to his saxophone mentor and teacher, Arthur Rhames, who taught Eric and was a local hero of Brooklyn. Ericfs playing at this point is strong, inspired by Alfs smooth cymbal works. Mark and Rufusfs duty has been done at this point. After our half hour brake, Dan Kostelnik, original organ player of his regular group joined for the rest of recordings. Danfs accompany made Eric feel more easy, and he started to record the tune called <Moritat>, AKA <Mack the Knife> smoothly. Eric wrote the next blues tune entitled < All Because Of you>, AKA (Cookinf At Gaithers), dedicated to the owner, Benny, and his regular audiences who encourage us all the time. The next song, entitled <Strode Rode>, is a Sonny Rollins original. Both Eric and Dan showcased great straight ahead solos with Alfs great swinginf drums. It took a little while for me to decide which take I should use. Both are great but I decided to pick the second take finally. I finally decided to record just for the rest of the 2 songs, even though I was planning originally to record for all 5songs. I joined for <You Donft know what love is>, <airegin> in a hurry. And, I feel this my choice of instrumentation made CD to have more variety of the sound as a result. 11hours has past since we came in to this studio before noon. Ericfs sound is big and fat; a real tenor sound. In the low range, I hear influence of Sonny Rollins; in the high resister, I hear John Coltrane influences. His solo is Jazz. Eric plays his own system; he is not like musicians that come out of music schools. He plays jazz from his experiences through his father and he had been taught what jazz really is. Not only Eric, but also most of other musicianfs circumstances in here are like, Musicians of all the generations, like 16years old to over 70 years old musicians get together to play jazz, and the audiences react to them with call and response. Since small kids, they have been watching, feeling, and listening jazz played by his or her parents, relatives, and neighbors. Itfs just a natural thing to accept those experiences in here, and when they try to pick up instruments later on. They already know ,what jazz is, and, the rest of their task is, just try to look for their own voices. I believe thatfs why itfs often said, <There are as many kinds of music as the numbers on musicians in New York. > Listening and Playing with many guys who made it already, or who is coming up to the scene, or unknown yet musicians following them, I can tell the depth of American broad jazz scene which almost impossible to describe. Itfs will be my great pleasure to be able to introduce these talented musicians as many as possible, and contribute to the only art form in America since I have been involved in jazz music. I am proud of the job Eric did for this project. I would also like to thank Vincent Bellamy, owner of Gaithers, for keeping the jam session going. Also, I would like to thank Sonny Rollins for your time for our photo session, and your precious suggestions on Ericfs playing. I would like to thank, Jay Messina, as an engineer who balanced each sound on right places. It came out very balanced quality of CD recordings as a result. Shinobu Ito Apr. 1997  |
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