Listening in the Space: Kenny Barron Speaks
Photo by Philippe Levy-Stab, courtesy of the artist.
by Rob Shepherd
This Monday, November 7, The Jazz Gallery will host the final Vinyl Listening Series of the Fall season. Introduced in 2018, the series provides audience members with unique opportunities to engage with jazz artists in a curated listening experience in an informal and intimate setting. Our illustrious guest host this week is pianist Kenny Barron
To many, Barron likely needs little introduction. Across six decades in music, Barron has served as the pianist of choice for some of jazz’s most iconic artists, including Roy Haynes, Lee Morgan, James Moody, Dizzy Gillespie, Freddie Hubbard, Stanley Turrentine, Milt Jackson, Chet Baker, Yusef Lateef, and Sheila Jordan. Barron was also Stan Getz’s conversation partner for his much acclaimed final live release, People Time (EmArcy, 1992). As a leader, Barron has over forty recordings to his credit, most recently, Without Deception (Dare2, 2020), a trio album with Dave Holland and Johnathan Blake. Barron has also been nominated for eleven Grammy Awards and holds an honorary doctorate from Berklee College of Music. In 2010, he was named an NEA Jazz Master, a designation often held as the highest recognition available to a living jazz artist. The title of Jazz Master recognized not only Barron’s extensive recording and performance history but his decades in music education, teaching such important voices as Terence Blanchard, David Sanchez, and Gerald Clayton.
We caught up with Barron to discuss the Vinyl Listening Series and dive deeper into some moments in his impressive career.
The Jazz Gallery: What interested you in doing a Vinyl Listening Series presentation at the Gallery?
Kenny Barron: I did one with Johnathan Blake a few years ago [ed. December 3, 2018] and had a good time. I thought it would be fun to do one on my own. I get to pick songs and talk about the impact or influence that particular track may have had on me. And it could be any kind of music. It could be James Brown or John Coltrane, or really anyone.
TJG: Both Brown and Coltrane recorded many years ago. Are there any newer albums that particularly speak to you?
KB: Oh yeah. I really love Gerald Clayton’s last few records. Sullivan Fortner has also released some pretty incredible music. There's a lot of good stuff coming out.
TJG: Do you have a large vinyl collection?
KB: I do not have a huge library. I have maybe six or seven hundred LPs.
TJG: That is a pretty significant size.
KB: Yeah, but it could be larger. I’ve just started listening to LPs again. I didn’t even have a turntable until recently when my granddaughter bought me one for my birthday.
TJG: What format were you using before the turntable?
KB: CDs and my iPod. In the past, you could put your CDs into a computer and then move the music onto your device. Of course, now computers don’t even have CD drives. I loved when you could rip CDs, and you can’t do that anymore. Now I usually just stream everything from Spotify or Apple Music. They both have a pretty large selection of music.
TJG: Is there something special to you about vinyl in particular?
KB: Yeah. I don't know. People say vinyl sounds warmer, but that's not something I've noticed. I'm not an audiophile. Every format has its strengths. Streaming gives you a huge amount of music. Vinyl gives you liner notes that you can read to better understand the recording. CDs are smaller in size than vinyl and are great when it comes to storage. They all have both positives and negatives.
TJG: Do you know which records you will play during the vinyl listening series event?
KB: Not yet. I’ve been away for a week and haven’t yet had a chance to look through my library, which I will do today.
TJG: Were you on tour last week?
KB: No, I was up in Boston at Berklee.
TJG: Teaching?
KB: I did some workshops, classes, and clinics. But my primary focus was on working with strings. I’ve always wanted to play with strings. My manager hooked it up for me to go up last week and do three days of rehearsals with a string ensemble. One member of Berklee’s faculty, Eric Gould, worked with me on the project. I gave him about ten songs and he wrote a range of string arrangements in which I was the feature along with a rhythm section. We had a great time. It was wonderful to hear my music played with strings.
TJG: Was it difficult adjusting to working with strings?
KB: The biggest problem I had was that I had never really worked with a conductor before. Following the conductor was a problem for me. String players do that all of the time with so many different conductors. They are used to looking at both the conductor and their sheet music. The way the piano was positioned, I had to look sideways to see the conductor, which meant my eyes weren't on the music. Other than that, it was great fun.
TJG: Will you be releasing the work with strings as a recording at some point?
KB: Yeah, we talked about doing that at some point. Berklee now owns the Power Station recording studio in New York. So yeah, the possibility of releasing a recording does exist.
TJG: Back to the Vinyl Listening Series, do you plan to play any of your own music?
KB: I don't know. It may seem a little self-serving to play my recordings. I expect I will probably play mostly or entirely music by other artists.
TJG: Do you listen to your recordings that often? I know some artists avoid listening to their music.
KB: Yeah, I don’t listen to my own music all that much. There are a few of my albums that I like but, usually, when I listen, I begin to think about things I could have done differently.
TJG: What are some of your albums that you do like?
KB: I am particularly proud of the one I did with Roy Haynes and Charlie Haden [Wanton Spirits (Decca, 1994)]. I feel very good about that recording.
TJG: How do you feel your music has developed over the years?
KB: Well, I hope I’ve gotten better. [Laughing]. That’s my hope anyway; that I have grown. I think I have learned to pace myself and leave a little bit more space. To take my time. Those things come with age. They especially come when you realize you can't play fast anymore.
TJG: As a music educator for many years, do you have a sense of how your teaching may have changed your performance skills?
KB: I am sure teaching has changed my music though I am not sure precisely how. Any change would likely come less from anything I have done and more from learning from my students over the years. I have been fortunate to have some great students. Gerald Clayton, Terence Blanchard, Jon Batiste, and Aaron Parks are a few of the incredible students I have taught. I've learned a lot from them.
TJG: Although you don’t plan on playing your recordings as part of the Vinyl Listening Series, would you mind if we discuss them a little?
KB: Sure. Go ahead.
TJG: You were on all of the studio sessions led by your brother, saxophonist Bill Barron. Did you feel a special level of communication with him compared to other musicians in light of the fact you were also family?
KB: I'm sure there was, though nothing obvious. We would talk about music a lot. He had his own particular way of looking at things and his own musical ideas. Musically, he leaned to the left. He loved Cecil Taylor and was influenced by classical composers like Schoenberg and Stockhausen. Also, Joseph Schillinger, who wrote a book about composing using mathematics. He was very intellectual in his approach to music.
TJG: Your music tends to be more straight-ahead than the avant-garde ideas of artists like Cecil Taylor. Was it difficult to adapt to fit where your brother was musically?
KB: No, not at all. When you investigate things and check them out, they may feel foreign at first. But once you get into it, you figure out how to make things work.
TJG: As far as your recordings as a leader, you had a few in the 1970s where you played electric piano and clavinet. It does not seem you have worked with either since then.
KB: I know I played the electric piano on my first album as a leader, Sunset to Dawn (Muse, 1973), and maybe one or two more as well. But you are right, I haven’t played it in a very long time.
TJG: Peruvian Blue (Muse, 1974), for one.
KB: That’s right. I like using the electric piano for certain kinds of colors. They’re really nice for that. They are also great for composing.
TJG: Why are they so good for composing?
KB: Just because the sound lingers a little bit longer than [an acoustic] piano. I don't particularly like the electric piano for straight-ahead music but they are great for composing.
TJG: Though you don’t perform on the electric piano anymore, do you still use it to compose?
KB: Oh yeah. I have a [Yamaha] Clavinova in my office that I use often.
TJG: Jumping to the late 1970s, in 1977, you formed the group Sphere with drummer Ben Riley and saxophonist Charlie Rouse. The band was a tribute to [Thelonious] Monk, and both Riley and Rouse had played with Monk. Did your time with that group change how you viewed Monk’s music?
KB: No, I don't think Sphere changed how I viewed Monk's music at all. When we put the group together, one of the things I quickly realized was that I couldn't play like Monk. It was also not my intention to imitate him in any way. So we played Monk tunes, but I think we put our own spin on them. I think it was important that we put our own voice in them. We did our own arrangements, and they were a little bit different, a little unique, I think.
TJG: And in 1978, you released an album, Together (Denon, 1979), as a duo with your hero Tommy Flanagan. What is your memory of putting together that record?
KB: Yes, that was done with a Japanese producer [Yoshio Ozawa]. It was [Yoshio’s] idea. He came to New York, and we recorded it in New York. To be honest, it was one of the few times that I was very nervous. Playing with my idol was nerve-wracking.
TJG: You have also recorded a few Brazilian-influenced albums over the years - Sambao (Verve, 1992), Canta Brasil (Sunnyside, 2002), and Kenny Barron & The Brazilian Knights (Sunnyside, 2012). You also worked with Stan Getz toward the end of his life. Though you mostly played standards and originals with Getz, do you feel working with him, given his significance in bossa nova, influenced your approach to Brazilian music?
KB: I don’t know. It’s really hard to say. Yes, we didn’t play that much Brazilian music in terms of repertoire when we worked together. I really got turned onto Brazilian music when I heard Sergio Mendes & Brasil ‘65. That is when I started to hear more Brazilian music. Other than that, there was “Desafinado.” I played “Desafinado” with both Dizzy [Gillespie] and Stan because it was such a popular song. Actually, when I was playing with Stan, most of the time he refused to play the song, just because he had been asked to play it so many times and was tired of it.
But, no, I have to credit my interest in Brazilian music to hearing Sergio Mendes. His group is certainly what led me to investigate it even more. And, of course, I ended up working with The Brazilian Knights, which is a group of Brazilian musicians, and that opportunity allowed me to hear even more Brazilian music than before.
TJG: A minute ago, you mentioned your time with Dizzy. Did your interest in Latin music more generally come from your time in his band?
KB: Partly. But it was also largely from my moving to New York. At the time, Symphony Sid had a show that, on a particular day each week, would play only Latin music. That program was a big influence on me. I did play a few Latin tunes with Dizzy, but not a lot. Symphony Sid immersed me a little more in Latin music. Of course, I also lived in Brooklyn at that time [around 1962]. Living in Brooklyn, I got to hear Caribbean music a lot. Actually, one of the first gigs I had after I moved to New York was with a West Indian band, so I was influenced by that.
TJG: In 2001, you released Freefall (Verve, 2001), a duo recording with Regina Carter. How did that album come together? It is a gorgeous record.
KB: Oh, thank you, man. It's funny because we just played duo together last weekend in Raleigh, North Carolina, and we hadn’t done that in a long time.
I first met Regina some years ago and we talked about playing together. Eventually, she hired me to work with her band, and I hired her to work with my band. Those experiences led us to talk about working as a duo. And that is how the record came together. I was happy with how it came out, but the producer wasn’t too happy with it.
TJG: Why was the producer unhappy with it?
KB: She said it was an art record. One of her complaints was that the album didn’t have a title track with a memorable melody. The piece “Freefall” was totally improvised. We just turned on the tape and saw what happened. But I love that record. It was really fun to make. Hopefully, Regina and I can make some more music together but we are both busy with other projects. So, we will see.
TJG: Are fully improvised pieces something you do often?
KB: Oh, yeah. I've done it several times on different records. There is a solo piano piece named “Shibui” on my record with Mino Cinelu [Swamp Sally (Verve, 1996)] that is totally improvised. There is also an improvised duo with Lionel Loueke on another of my albums [“Duet” on The Traveler (Sunnyside, 2008)]. I like doing fully improvised pieces like that because you never know what's going to happen.
TJG: In general, you have made many duo recordings over the years.
KB: And many duo performances that may never be released as recordings.
TJG: Such as?
KB: Well, for one, I did a duo performance with Brad Mehldau at the Umbria Jazz Festival [in 1999]. It was great fun. Our performance was videotaped, but not the audio quality isn't sufficient to release it as a record. But I did see Mehldau last year, and we talked about maybe doing a recording or another duo concert in the future. So, we’ll see what happens.
TJG: What do you like most about the duo format?
KB: It provides a lot of freedom. The duo setting is all about reacting to what you hear while leaving space for the other person so they can react to what you do. It is all acting and reacting. It is all about not being afraid to take chances on what you have in your mind. You never know what's going to happen.
The Jazz Gallery Vinyl Listening Series featuring Kenny Barron will take place at The Jazz Gallery on Monday, November 7 at 6:30 P.M. EST. Wine, cheese, and fascinating conversation are supplied. $50 general admission ($45 for members). Purchase tickets here.