Major biography on an enduring jazz icon
It’s only a decade since Kenny Wheeler’s last album Songs for Quintet appeared, a release that followed on from the trumpeter-composer’s death at the age of 84 the previous autumn.
Not long after the release a blue plaque was unveiled at the home in Leytonstone where Wheeler lived.
The year before his death the Canada born musician’s classic 1976 album with Keith Jarrett, Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette Gnu High was reissued on vinyl.
The looking back has rarely paused since given how much Wheeler, himself influenced by Booker Little, has remained an influence on contemporary musicians – for instance Jason Keiser’s Kind of Kenny appeared in the autumn followed swiftly by long time Wheeler collaborator Norma Winstone’s Wheeler With Words.
The process of acknowledgement of his greatness and fascination with the uniqueness of his compositional voice and impact goes into overdrive once again this year. Because later this month – had he lived Wheeler would have turned 95 on the 14th – there’s a marvellous ”Lost Scores” Legacy Project Some Days Are Better involving a collaboration between the Royal Academy of Music and Frost School of Music plus star guests including Ingrid Jensen and Chris Potter to look forward to.
One of the authors here Professor Nick Smart from the Academy got to know Wheeler well in his later years. And as the book explains he helped smooth the way to enable Wheeler’s taking part in New York’s festival of trumpet FONT which was honouring Wheeler in 2011.
Begins with a foreword by Dave Holland
The book is dedicated to Wheeler’s wife Doreen who died three years ago and has a foreword by Wheeler’s long time colleague and friend Dave Holland.
Chapters chart the trumpeter’s early life in Canada, through his arrival in England, time spent working as a member of the John Dankworth Orchestra, release of early work such as the classic Windmill Tilter to later landmark releases Gnu High and late-1990s classic Angel Song.
A sense of Wheeler’s quietly poetic and often moving work is captured in the telling
For such a quiet, good humoured often passive man the story of his determinedly getting on a ship to England thus forsaking his planned university studies is one key episode. Trumpeters by contrast are often brash and extroverted personality types. Not Wheeler as the authors frequently discuss. And his personality certainly comes across translated into his quietly poetic often moving work. His discography particularly for ECM and CAM Jazz is substantial.
But there were also some great pop session moments mentioned in the telling including Wheeler’s work for art rocker David Sylvian and folk singer Sam Amidon’s Bright Sunny South right up to his final session work on the James Bond film GoldenEye that the trumpeter was involved with. But above all it was a signature, mournful, bluesy minor key lingering behind the beat sound and a feeling whether playing conventionally or going more free that reached the soul of things time and again. And Song for Someone does a stoutly professional and highly readable job at describing the man behind that sound who made such an impact on so many in his lifetime and long beyond.
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