JAM: April/May 2007 Issue: Folly Jazz News

by Doug Tatum

Celebrating their 25th anniversary year as one of America 's most popular contemporary jazz groups, The Yellowjackets will return to the Folly Theater stage on Saturday, April 28th .to close out the season of the Folly Jazz Series.

Featuring pianist Russell Ferrante, saxophonist Bob Mintzer, bassist Jimmy Haslip, and drummer Marcus Baylor, The Yellowjackets retain a distinctive sound as they continually explore new directions. Founding members Ferrante and Haslip met in the late 1970s when playing on guitarist Robben Ford's first album. Ford joined the twosome and the Yellowjackets were born. Growth and evolution have characterized the group's history. The group initially featured strong elements of rhythm and blues in their music. “That was a very exciting time for instrumental music,” Ferrante recalls. “It seemed like a lot of people were open to mixing and matching various musical styles. There wasn't the strict compartmentalization that you see in radio now.”

With the success of innovative instrumental bands like Weather Report around the same time, crossing and merging genres had become a successful strategy, artistically as well as commercially. “There was no thought about whether this style should go with that one,” Ferrante adds. “Nothing was genre specific. It was just the music that we had all played — R&B music and electric music and acoustic music, blues, pop; the whole thing was just all music. We just did what came naturally.”

After Ford left the band to pursue his solo career, alto saxophonist Marc Russo replaced him and the band began to explore more jazz-oriented material. With drummers William Kennedy and Peter Erskine, the Yellowjackets explored world music, incorporating “world music” elements into their sound. Jimmy Haslip recalls, “During that time, I had been listening to a lot of African and Afro-Cuban music, and I started writing in a lot of 6/8 patterns and experimenting with that kind of thing. I brought it over to Russ, and he was really interested in it. We started experimenting with a lot of polyrhythmic things.” The result was Four Corners , an album with a distinctly world music sensibility, and one of the Yellowjackets' most commercially and artistically successful albums to date.

Reedman Bob Mintzer joined the group in 1990, adding a more bebopish sensibility to the mix. Mintzer's dedication to the jazz tradition, along with his highly developed skills as an arranger, have since taken the ‘Jackets to a new level of sophistication. “It was very interesting,” Mintzer says of his early days with the band. “I was challenged. There was a way of playing and writing that had been in place for a while. I basically tried to step into that, acknowledge what had already been going on, and add to that in some way.”

About Mintzer, Haslip has only high praise. “Bob is an amazing musician. He has a very distinct voice. He's the really serious traditionalist in the band. He also has a very wide, eclectic view of composing, so he lends himself to what we are trying to do. He's very much into experimentation, and he has his own big band, so his skills as an arranger are also very good to have on board.”

Over the years, the band has continued to push the creative envelope, establishing a mixture of group interplay and improvisation within the strong melodic structures that define their sound. Their efforts have brought them numerous Grammy nominations, with two Grammies awarded.

Regarding the diversity each member brings to the group, Ferrante states, “All of us have broad musical tastes. No one's a purist. We're all open to pulling from acoustic and electric jazz, classical music, and funk. That's what makes us so different from most jazz bands. We rebel at the idea of being categorized. Some people want to believe that acoustic jazz represents the real jazz tradition. But we feel that jazz is made richer as it takes on different musical influences.”

While The Yellowjackets are optimistic about the future, even the charter members aren't about to limit their options by mapping that future too carefully. “We never know, even when we start writing,” says Ferrante. “The music might take you in a completely unanticipated direction. I think you have to stay open to that. We just start playing and writing, and a thread starts to emerge, and we'll follow that and see what happens.”

Haslip states, “No matter where the thread leads, exploration will always be a primary objective. That to me is the key element; that's what jazz means to me. It means exploration. That's kind of a lost art.”

My “JazzTalk” discussion with the artists will precede the concert at 7:00 p.m. S ingle tickets are priced at $15.00 and $30.00, and members of the Jazz Ambassadors receive a $3.00 discount. For more information, call the Folly Theater at 816-474-4444, or visit our Web site: www.follytheater.com.

Doug Tatum is the Executive Director of the Folly Theater