THE KANSAS CITY SAXOPHONE, PART II
This is the second part of JAM's three-part series on the areas vast sax talent. Thanks to Stanton Kessler, Everette DeVan, and Gerald Spaits for their contributions to these profiles.
Dave Chael –
“If You're Not Going Out on a Limb, What's the Point?”
When you encounter a musician that can really play, you sit up and take notice. Such was the case when I first heard David Chael, woodwind matriculater extraordinaire. Dave is a rising young star on the KC scene, brandishing his weapons with a style that is both polished and distinctive. Yet, I am constantly alarmed at how many people, even musicians, are unaware of his presence and talent. So, here's the skinny on Dave.
A Kansas City native, Dave was spawned from a musical and supportive family. He worked his way through that seemingly endless spring of talent, the Grandview school system. “I owe a lot to Danny Whatring, Garry Anders, and Bob Drummond, my music teachers. They gave me plenty of playing opportunities.” Except for one, thirty-minute lesson from Bill Caldwell in high school; he was self-taught, which partly accounts for his unique sound. However, he did get help from family. “My uncle, Denny Osburn, was a studio musician. He had a steady gig at The Fairway Grill, and let me play when I was home from college. I learned a lot of tunes that way.” Having embarked on college at Missouri State and that bastion of jazz education, University of North Texas , Dave began fine-tuning his skills, correcting some bad habits, and shedding two to six hours a day.
Having tried unsuccessfully to describe his playing to the inquisitive, I asked Dave to give me his perspective. “Initially, I was into the older stuff, like dance band music. I really enjoy playing with Bram Wijnands Majestic 7. It gives me a chance to play that style, which I really enjoy. Early on I listened to a lot of Dave Sanborn. I was concentrating mostly on a linear approach. It wasn't until college that I started to try to modernize my sound, focusing on patterns and intervals. I consider myself a hybrid. I don't like to be boxed into one style. I want to be the whole package, with an ability to get the appropriate sound in any situation—quite a challenge.”
We are prone to be affected by the musicians we play with and Dave is no exception. “Since I've been back in KC, my sound has changed quite a bit. I owe that to playing with The Westport Art Ensemble. Playing with them has helped shape my sound and to grow musically. Listening to Jake Blanton and Roger Wilder has really influenced my playing.”
Dave's appearances in town have truly been diverse. He's played with the KCJO, The Russ Long Tribute Band, The WAE, HoraceScope, Bram Wijnands Majestic 7, Kerry Strayer, and others, including R&B and rock bands. Versatility is an essential component of a musicians' skills, insuring longevity and some financial security, such as it is. Dave has displayed a willingness and desire to accommodate each environment. “I never wanted to be a jazz snob. There is good and bad music in all genres. Playing R&B, for instance, requires a different approach than jazz. It makes you focus more on your sound as opposed to how many notes you play. I love those gigs as long as the rhythm section is good.” Amen to that, brother! “In the long run, it helped my jazz playing. It forced me to simplify my ideas, which has paid jazz dividends. I just want to sound good at everything!”
A musician's early influences are paramount, setting the tone for the rest of his or her career, lighting a fire that kindles the passion, sustaining us through the tough times. It's a very personal thing. “I had Charlie Parker with Strings and listened to a lot of The Tonight Show Band recordings. Every day, I would come home from school and play with records for a couple of hours. It wasn't until college that I was finally introduced to Trane, for better or worse. I think it worked out.”
Jazz education can be a wonderful thing, but some skills are too often circumvented in order to find a fast track to performance. Unfortunately, ear training sometimes gets lost in the shuffle. “To me, that is the most important part of jazz education. When I used to teach, I had my students doing lots of transcribing—not just the notes, but the inflections and nuances.” Dave didn't learn to read changes until college, relying on his ear to pick up ideas. “In a lot of ways, I feel like a late bloomer.”
To a large part, we are all products of our favorite players. Dave's faves reflect his sensibilities in no uncertain terms. “I've always been a Trane-Head. I try to emulate his sound if I can. I like Mark Turner. He's got that intellectual approach I like. He's much like my favorite tenor player in KC, Doug Talley. It's very much a Warne Marsh bag, turning tunes inside out, if you will.” Cannonball Adderley was a huge influence. I spent a lot of hours playing along with his records. Dick Oatts was also a big influence on my alto playing.”
Dave's solos always sound fresh, like it's the first time a given idea has escaped his horn. Inevitably, it's a combination of tedious practice, theory, and just plain feeling. In the final analysis, you just want to touch someone. “Sometimes playing is pretty emotional. Up until a couple of years ago, I felt my playing was repetitive and boring. I got a tip from Rob Scheps . If you're not going out on a limb, what's the point? I've been forcing myself to try new things in public. I've been working on my solo development, and listening to Roger Wilder has helped me with that aspect of my playing.”
Despite having a wife, two kids, and a full-time job, Dave always sounds like he plays every night. These days, he practices when he can. The result is a dynamic, compelling sound that you'll not want to miss.
Dave's Desert Island Picks:
- Stanton Kessler
Matt Carrillo – Talking Through His Horn
Matt Carrillo is still only twenty-one years old, but you'd think that he's been on the scene for years, as he has been a frequent visitor to the local jam sessions since he was fourteen and fifteen, prior to joining my band, the Everette DeVan Quartet, a couple of years ago. Or maybe it's his no-nonsense classic tenor style that is rooted in the masters from generations ago.
Matt got into music when he was four years old. “My older brother was taking lessons, and I'd watch him. I took piano lessons until I was eight,” Matt shared. He is actually the youngest of his three siblings. In elementary school, he took violin lessons, as well as trumpet. His first taste of jazz was in junior high school, in an after school jazz band. “I was playing alto sax at this time.”
The tenor saxophone must have been in the stars for Matt, as when he went to Shawnee Mission North High School there were no tenors in the band, and they needed someone to play. Around this time he also received instruction from Hal Melia and Kerry Strayer for about a year each. “But I also learned a lot from recordings, listening and playing along, figuring out what they were doing,” says Matt. He also attended UMKC, where he was in the band for a semester and took a few lessons from Bobby Watson. It was Bobby who pulled me aside one day and told me that he had a tenor player that he thought I'd really like.
This was just before the Quartet's stay at Bobby's Hangout on Broadway. Matt's growth was evident. “When I would go to jam sessions, I was a little tentative. With Everette, you need to put some air in the horn, or nobody will be able to hear you. You need that ‘big tenor' sound with Everette.”
Matt is quiet. It took him a month after I hired him for him to say anything to me! He really speaks through his horn. The steady weekends at Bobby's Hangout allowed Matt and the band to get real solid, and Matt was always working. Between sets, we always knew where to find him, and it was not t akin g a break and sipping a pop. Matt would be out back, leaning against the wall, working on the horn, a practice that he still employs. “I'd just try stuff out, try to play tunes in different keys. There's really no regimen; it's more spontaneous practice. My playing isn't where I want it to be.”
Musically, Matt is old, way beyond his years. He'll tell you that he's an “old soul.” Despite the youth, there aren't situations that he can't handle. He reads, writes charts, and of course plays. And he's not easily intimidated. When tenor giant Houston Person joined the DeVan band one weekend at Bobby's, the only players that Houston would allow to sit in were Bobby Watson and Matt Carrillo. If Matt was intimidated in this company on the bandstand, he sure didn't show it. The band calls him “Cool Breeze,” because he'll take in what's going on, join in, and tear it up.
The piano background has really helped Matt with his writing. “I do all my writing on the piano. I have this old Casio keyboard that I pulled out of the closet, and now I play it some every day. Writing is still hard, though. I'll write something, think it's okay, and a couple of days later I won't like it anymore.”
The “old soul” comment is apparent in the players Matt listens to, also. “I like Ben Webster quite a bit, but also Gene Ammons, Sonny Rollins, and Joshua Redman,” Matt shared. All of these players love the lower register of the horn, and much of Matt's playing is centered there, too. Of course, he has listened to Charlie Parker, Sonny Stitt, and John Coltrane, and he loves Hank Mobley, too.
When asked for his “desert island” picks, the “old soul” came out again, as only one of the selections was recorded after he was born! He first asked, “Does it have to be jazz?” Well, of course not. His selections:
In addition to his continuing appearances in the Everette DeVan Quartet, Matt is still a regular jammer around town. A frequent and favorite jam is Micah Herman 's every Sunday evening at YJ's.
Could we see Matt in his own band at some point? “Yes, I'd like to do that, but I'm not in a hurry.”
Why be in a hurry when you are still twenty-one?
- Everette DeVan, with Roger Atkinson
Rich Wheeler - Always Looking for New Ways to Play
While the Kansas City jazz scene is steeped in tradition, there is always a force trying to push the music forward. Mark Southerland and Brad Cox are examples of musicians who keep pushing the envelope. Tenor saxophonist Rich Wheeler is all about looking forward, too, and finds the Kansas City music scene open to innovation.
Rich is from Arkansas , and moved to the area while in high school. He has a BA in Saxophone Performance from KU, and though his family moved away while he was in college, “after I graduated, it seemed natural to stay in Kansas City , since I already knew a lot of the local musicians.”
“I actually started on tenor saxophone,” Rich told us. “It was the first instrument that I played. In many places, they start you in elementary school on clarinet, but they didn't do this where I went to elementary school. They had too many alto sax players, so I wound up starting on tenor. I started getting into the jazz side of things when I was in high school, and that really finalized the decision that tenor was where it's at, where my voice for improvising would be.”
At KU, he was fortunate to find a great program under Dan Gailey's direction. “I had five years in what might be the heyday of the jazz program under Dan Gailey. While there I studied with Vince Gnojek, the saxophone professor there, who really taught me. At the time, there were a lot of really good musicians there; we did a lot of interesting things, and won awards like Down Beat awards, that sort of thing. It was a really formative experience for me. Plus, it was good because I spent the time really learning how to play saxophone. I credit that time, really learning the horn, with the success that I've had since.”
Rich spent much of this decade away from the jazz scene, but you started seeing him around a little more a couple of years ago. Recently, though, the exposure has increased. For example, he is the tenor player in the successful band led by bassist Craig Akin, Topshelf Toons, which plays originals from Kansas City composers. “I knew Craig from KU, we were in school together for four years, and were good friends. We lost touch a little in the early 2000s, but a couple of years ago decided that we wanted to start playing together some. The idea for Topshelf Toons had been rolling around in his head for a while, and I was lucky to be called when he decided to get the band together. It's a very good band, and from a musical standpoint it is something that I'm really interested in, because it deals with original music. I really am very big on the idea of being forward-looking as a musician and improvisor. Part of that is looking for new music to play, and new ways to play it. So it was an ideal opportunity.”
He is also part of drummer Brandon Draper 's quintet, another band that plays original music. “This is some exciting, new, and real innovative music played with guys who can really play. All the music is written within the band. I really like having to find new ways to play, and playing new music forces you to do that, because you have to put your own imprint on it; there are no reference points out there for you to go back to. This allows me to put my own stamp on what I'm doing, and allows me to explore new ideas.” The band also includes Akin on bass, trombonist Kevin Cerovich, and keyboardist John Brewer. “The instrumentation is Dave Holland-esque; there are options that we have. It is also fun to play with a trombonist; that doesn't happen all that often. That's a great complementary sound, and both are very flexible instruments. You can go in any direction that you want and have a different kind of sound, even though you are using the same two instruments.
“That's one of the things that I enjoy about playing the tenor, it is such a flexible instrument. You can make it do anything that you want. You can go from the real throaty bottom all the way up to some really high pitches, if you want them. Plus, there are a variety of tone colors. That's why there are scads of tenor players. It's always seemed like the obvious choice for an improvisor.”
Rich had a “ton” of sax heroes as he was coming up. “The first tenor player that I got way into was Dexter Gordon. The first record I remember getting and getting into was his Our Man In Paris . It's still one of my favorites, and surely it's one of my “desert isle” picks. Joe Henderson, for sure, and Coltrane, of course. I like Jan Garbarek, too. And there are a lot of modern players that I dig, too. I'm a big Chris Potter fan, and a big Seamus Blake fan, and a big Mark Turner fan. Donny McCaslin, too. That guy is awesome; among other things he's in Maria Schneider's band.”
“I listen to new stuff constantly, always turning over the stuff in my CD player. I try to figure out what they are doing on the recordings, and once I do that I get tired of them quickly. Then I have to put them down and come back to them. I'm an intense listener; I don't put a CD on and then go do something, I have to just sit down and listen! I listen like I play, which means I'm in a concentrated state, and try to get as much out of it as I can. I believe in the old jazz adage, ‘if you want to learn to play, then learn to listen.' That's where you learn as much as you do anywhere else. If you are an improvisor, hearing as many new ways to get at something as you can, it gives you options, and that's what you really want.”
Brandon 's band with Wheeler will be playing at Jardine's on August 30, and they have done some recording that we could be hearing in the fall with more supporting gigs.
Rich is also trying to get some dates for his own band, which includes Jake Blanton, Jeff Harshbarger, and drummer Josh Adams. “We've had a few gigs, and late summer and early fall I'll be trying to get some more bookings. I've always done the sideman thing. I like that; it's fun, and if you are busy it is hard to do your own thing, too. But I'm at the point where I want to do that.” There is also some work with Harshbarger's band and the Brad Cox Ensemble, one of the more fun original bands in town.
Rich's other desert island picks:
- Roger Atkinson
Charles Perkins- Reedman Extraordinaire
This series on the Kansas City Saxophone is a little narrow when we are talking about Charles Perkins. It's that saxophone thing, as Charles is way more than a saxophonist. He's a REED man, as strong on his clarinets (alto and bass) and flute as he is on his alto sax.
Charles could be a poster child for a couple of the more important educational organizations that have been in Kansas City , Sumner High, and the Charlie Parker Academy . “Sumner High, that was a long time ago. Leon Brady was there, and he had his traveling stage band. They had just been to Paris ! It was exciting, the sports were good, and the music was really happening. I had just switched from clarinet to alto. Clarinet was my first instrument in elementary school. The sax was my brother's; he used to play. It was in the attic and my dad let me fool around with it, and before you knew it I was playing it. I couldn't read, but I could solo okay. I went to Mr. Brady and asked if he could help me, and he said he could. After about a year I got with the stage band, a year after they went to Paris . We traveled to all kinds of places, like the Wichita Jazz Festival gigs, and Washington , D.C. The band, we were into Maynard Ferguson and Count Basie. By the time I finished high school, I had come to the crossroads of deciding whether or not to be a musician. My heart said music! My parents supported this. My mom was an organist in churches, and my dad loved music; he played Basie and Ellington records at the house, and I got to hear that all the time.”
After high school, Charles attended Kansas City Kansas Community College and Johnson County Community College . It was at JCCC that he met long-time friend and collaborator Gerald Spaits. He also studied at the Charlie Parker Academy .
“I was at the Charlie Parker Academy , and hooked up with Eddie Baker. That was a real good experience, one of the best I've had. I had learned to read much better with Marlon Cooper at Kansas City Kansas Community College , who could read anything, and he gave me a good foundation. Ahmad Alaadeen was my teacher at the Academy, physically and mentally; he was my last major musical teacher. There were many teachers I learned from there, actually, like Sonny Ken ner, Luqman Hamza, and of course, Eddie Baker.”
Some folks called Perkins “Little Bird” at the time, as Charlie Parker was his major influence when he went to the Academy. “Charlie did so much around those chords;, it tripped me out, what he did on those recordings. Then they got me into John Coltrane--that was the next step, Giant Steps-- and then came Eric Dolphy. I'm classically trained, and I could hear that in Dolphy's playing, so it was a natural match.”
It was the “search” for Dolphy that led Charles to New York City in 1984, where he stayed for a year. “Alaadeen was the guy who understood Dolphy in Kansas City , so I needed to go to New York to learn more. I had been studying Eric, and wanted to know where I stood. I wanted to meet guys who played with Eric. I met Ted Curson, who also played with Mingus, and some other guys. They dug what I was doing. But the jobs were scarce, so I came home.”
While in New York , he made another change, too. At that point he was always Bill Perkins, but while he was at KCKCC he saw that a Bill Perkins had an endorsement on the back cover of a book of jazz etudes he was using. This, of course, was the late West Coast saxophonist, a great player. “His writing on the back cover was just like I would write, too. This kept weighing on me. My full name is William Charles Perkins, and I decided that Charles was a good name, so when I went to New York I told folks I was Charles. When I came back, I kept using Charles.”
He has stayed with that Dolphy style, but hasn't forgotten Parker, either. “The styles are totally transferred. I have the ways and means to play like Eric Dolphy, but it's more flexible now. I can take it to whatever level I want to. It's assimilated into my language.”
As Dolphy was a master on the bass clarinet, so is Perkins. In any given set he'll play all four of his horns with equal facility. The same goes with the Perkins repertoire, which seems to span generations of jazz. “I'm really into old standards; I love old standards. The Ellingtons, and the real popular standards, and the ones that aren't played all the time, too. I listen to a lot of vocalists: Ella Fitzgerald, Abbey Lincoln… a lot vocalists. I also like Dixieland! Russ Long did, too, and we'd play some together, like “Royal Garden Blues”, when we were all down at Crown Center . I just like good jazz.”
Over the years, Charles has played with just about everybody in Kansas City . Early on, he and buddy Scott Robinson (who Charles stayed with in New York ) had gigs with Milt Abel. He was with the Scamps and also with Long. Over the last fifteen years or so, he has played with Vince Bilardo, both in small group and big band settings. There has been a long-standing quartet with Gerald Spaits, Arnold Young, and Jack Lightfoot that plays some of the most adventurous music in town; their appearances have been rare in recent years, but are not to be missed. More recently, Charles has been one of the heroes in the wonderful Russ Long Memorial Band led by Spaits, and his solos on Russ' Time to Go are among the highlights on that recording. And in July, he led his own quartet at the Blue Room, with Spaits, Sam Wisman, and Roger Wilder , playing everything from Fats Waller to Bird to George Russell…on all of his reeds.
Charles' Desert Island picks:
- Roger Atkinson
(Thank You to Gerald Spaits for assistance in preparing this profile.)