KENNY GARRETT - PUSHING THE WORLD AWAY,
AVAILABLE SEPTEMBER 17 ON MACK AVENUE RECORDS
Album Follows His Recent Double GRAMMY®
Nominated Project, Seeds From The Underground
"Let's just go ahead and call Kenny Garrett the best and most important
alto saxophonist of his generation, because he is. He's also perhaps
the boldest of that generation..." - Washington City Paper
For his third Mack Avenue Records release, Pushing the World Away, alto/soprano saxophonist/composer/
"I'm
always writing, so coming up with the music wasn't a problem," says
Garrett, who is arguably the most imitated alto saxophone player in
jazz. "But I had been traveling a lot with my band, and I don't rehearse
new material on tour. Yet to record an album requires a lot of
preparation and to conceptualize the music I had to push away to receive
the blessings and gifts from these songs."
On Pushing the World Away, Garrett continues to mature as a composer. As the late Mulgrew Miller, his close friend for many years, noted in a DownBeat
feature on the saxophonist last year: "Kenny has always had a great
sound from the beginning. He had his own unique sound, but [thanks to
his compositions] that sound has transformed into a more captivating and
lyrical voice."
Garrett,
in turn, nods to the pianist who he had known for more than 30 years on
the jaunty, upbeat and at times explosive opening track of the album,
"A Side Order of Hijiki," which is decidedly not about the hijiki
culinary seaweed. "No seaweed," says Garrett who takes an expansive alto
flight on this track. "It's actually the word that Mulgrew used to
describe my playing style. He would say, "I hear you playing that
hijiki."
While
not directly paying homage to Miller, Garrett does pay tribute to a
number of other friends and heroes - Chick Corea, Chucho Valdés, Sonny
Rollins, Donald Brown - on Pushing the World Away, which connects the album to Garrett's 2012 critically acclaimed gem, Seeds From The Underground. "I wasn't thinking of continuing the tribute idea like I had on Seeds and before that [in 1997] on Songbook,"
Garrett says. "I was just writing. For example, during one of my trips
to Guadeloupe, I was composing an upbeat, happy piece about the
Caribbean islands, and that made me think of Sonny. I call it
'J'ouvert,' which is the Creole name for Carnival. It's my 'St. Thomas.'
I hope Sonny likes it."
"Hey,
Chick" is an elegant, graceful dance with Garrett's expressive alto
solo. "It captures that Spain, Eastern Spanish, Moroccan vibe," says
Garrett, "and it's something I imagined Chick playing, something
interesting, something he could really blow on."
The spirited, dance-oriented "Chucho's Mambo," with spicy percussion by Rudy Bird
and party trumpeting by Ravi Best, is Garrett's Cuban salsa
interpretation of what a collaboration with Valdés could have been like.
"We were trying to get together, but I couldn't get a visa to get to
Cuba," Garrett says. "We had been writing for each other." He proudly
adds, "Chucho and I have the same birthday."
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Photo Credit: Keith Major
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Vernell
and Benito are two of Garrett's go-to band members, who are both
graduates of the informal Kenny Garrett School of Music. "When I think
about Art Blakey being a mentor for so many years, and how Miles
mentored me as well, I like to give back in my own way," he says. Kenny
points out that his band was the first marquee stop for such drummers as
Brian Blade, Chris Dave, Ronald Bruner, and Jamire Williams. On Pushing the World Away the drummers include McClenty Hunter, Marcus Baylor and Mark Whitfield Jr..
"They come through, and then there are people always waiting to get
them for their own bands," he says. "I'm just happy that I'm able to
help them find their voices."
Presently, Garrett's core working/touring band is comprised of pianist Brown, bassist Corcoran Holt
and Hunter on drums. Gonzalez subs on piano when he's free. And Garrett
has expanded his basic quartet to quintet with percussionist Bird.
"Rudy adds a lot to the band," Garrett says. "He too used to play with
Miles and he adds so much to the music."
The
band members figure prominently on the new album, ranging from Brown's
charged run through the cool and refined tune "Lincoln Center" and his
harmonic exhilaration on "Alpha Man" (a tune Garrett wrote for him,
thinking about how he plays) to Gonzalez setting down the graceful
melody on the ballad "Homma San" (which the band convinced Garrett had
to be on the album) and being showcased on the romantic "That's It,"
which also includes Hunter delivering wordless vocals as part of the
rhythm section.
Just like he did with Seeds, Garrett renders a variety of music on Pushing the World Away,
stretching out on two pieces in particular: the expansive, journey -
like title tune that clocks in at over nine minutes with song - like
chanting and a gong and the swinging end song, "Rotation," which
features both Brown and Gonzalez on pianos and his three drummers:
Hunter, Baylor and Whitfield. Of the latter tune, Garrett says that he
likes hearing the pianistic contrasts (he almost joined in at the
prodding of his band, but decided to romp on his alto) and invited all
the drummers to let them play off each other - all moving in playful
rotation.
On
the sublime "Pushing the World Away," Garrett explores the theme of the
album, undergirding the tune on charging and whinnying soprano. He says
he wanted to write a simple piece like "Take Five" or "My Favorite
Things." "But I couldn't force it, so I let the song be," he says. "I
wanted this tune to be powerful. I had the image of Atlas pushing the
world and at the end there was light. I thought, 'I'm going to need a
little help with this,' so I asked Vernell to chant. He chants as a
Buddhist and I chant as a Christian - both voices accomplishing the same
goal of pushing the world away to get to the light."
In all, Pushing the World Away
features twelve tunes, all of which were composed by Garrett except for
one cover, a superb, lyrical, odd-metered take on the Burt
Bacharach/Hal David song "I Say a Little Prayer" (put on the musical map
in 1967 as a huge AM-radio pop hit for Dionne Warwick). "We played it
at sound check while touring in Europe," Garrett says. "And the people
who were working in the venues always applauded. So we knew we had to
include this on the album. It feels right."
In last year's DownBeat article, Garrett said, "You want to see growth in each album you record." That's certainly the case with Pushing the World Away,
his 17th album as a leader, which captures the 52-year-old artist at
the peak of his creative abilities, both as a saxophonist and as a
composer who is committed to clearing the path so that he can delve
deeply into his indelible art.
Upcoming Kenny Garrett U.S. Appearances:
August 24 / Charlie Parker Jazz Festival / New York, NY
September 27 / Henrick Chapel, Grinnell College / Grinnell, IA
November 9 / EXIT 0 International Jazz Festival / Cape May, NJ
November 17 / Jewish Vocational Services Benefit Gala / Livingston, NJ
December 5 - 8 / Iridium / New York, NY
January 11, 2014 / Nova Southeastern University -
Rose and Alfred Miniaci Performing Arts Center / Ft. Lauderdale, FL
April 5, 2014 / University of Massachusetts: Amherst / Amherst, MA
May 2, 2014 / Lawrence Jazz Series at Lawrence University / Appleton, WI
Upcoming Kenny Garrett International Appearances:
July 13 / Théâtre de la Mer / Sète, France
July 25 / Stadttheater Gmunden / Gmunden, Austria
August 3 / TÓNICA / Guadalajara, Mexico
September 13 / Moods / Zurich, Switzerland
September 14 / Jazz à la Villette - Grande Halle - Espace Charlie Parker / Paris, France
September 15 / Auditorio de Girona / Girona, Spain
September 29 / MEMORIAL TO MILES Targi Kielce Jazz Festiwal / Kielce, Poland
October 10 - 11 / Ronnie Scott's / London, U.K.
October 12 / Théâtre du Vésinet / Le Vésinet, France
October 15 / Chapiteau de la Pépinière / Nancy, France
October 16 / Jazzclub Fasching / Stockholm, Sweden
October 17 / Tourcoing Jazz Festival / Tourcoing, France
October 18 / Jazz en Tête / Clermont-Ferrand
October 22 & 23 / Budapest Jazz Club / Budapest, Hungary
October 25 / International Mugam Center / Baku, Azerbaijan
October 27 / LantarenVenster / Rotterdam, Netherlands
October 29 / Theater Rüsselsheim / Rüsselsheim, Germany
April 16, 2014 / Epcor Centre for the Performing Arts / Alberta, Canada
Kenny Garrett· Pushing The World Away
Mack Avenue Records · Release Date: September 17, 2013
For media information, please contact:
DL Media · 610-667-0501
Maureen McFadden · maureen@dlmediamusic.com
Jordy Freed · jordy@dlmediamusic.
Management:
The Management Ark · 609-734-7403
Vernon H. Hammond III, CFP · managearkeast@comcast.net
For press materials on Kenny Garrett, please visit KennyGarrett.com
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