Song For Someone: The Musical Life of Kenny Wheeler. With Nick Smart & Brian Shaw.
Welcome to the show notes for Episode #155 of The Other Side of the Bell – featuring the life of trumpet composer, performer and innovator Kenny Wheeler, a conversation with biographers Nick Smart and Brian Shaw.
Listen to or download the episode below:
About Kenny Wheeler, Nick Smart and Brian Shaw
Links From This Episode:
Purchase Song For Someone: The Musical Life of Kenny Wheeler
Music links:
- Some Days Are Better: The Lost Scores (Dave Douglas, Kenny Wheeler Legacy), 2025
- Gnu High, 1976
- Deer Wan, 1978
- Anthony Braxton, New York Fall, 1975
- Ralph Towner Old Friends New Friends, 1979
- Around Six, 1980
- Music for Large and Small Ensembles, 1990
Upcoming Bob Reeves Brass Mouthpieces Events
- Arkansas Trumpet Day, April 18th, Arkansas State University, Jonesboro, AR
Valve alignments: First come, first served! -
Next Up! Concert Series: Los Angeles Brass Alliance, with special composition by Dan Rosenboom
Pasadena Presbyterian Church, May 9, 7:00 pmhttps://www.labrassalliance.org/events/next-up-2026
Streaming link will appear in advance. -
July 9-12, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Ill.
Podcast Credits
- “A Room with a View“ – composed and performed by Howie Shear
- Audio Engineer – Ted Cragg
- Cover Photo Credit – Courtesy Nick Smart, Brian Shaw and Equinox Publishing
- Podcast Host – John Snell
Transcript
Please note, this transcript is automatically generated. It may contain spelling and other errors. If you would like to assist us in editing or translating this transcript, please let us know at info@bobreeves.com.
JOHN SNELL: Hello, and welcome to the other side of the Bell, a podcast dedicated to everything trumpet brought to you by Bob Reeves Brass. We’ll help you take your trumpet plane to the next level. I’m John Snell, trumpet specialist here at Bob Reeves Brass, and I’ll be your host for this episode.
We have a special episode today, we have two guests, trumpeters educators, composers, Nick Smart and Brian Shaw. And as you notice in the title of this podcast, we’re doing a special on Kenny Wheeler. so it’s gonna break a little bit of the rules of our normal format of this podcast, but that’s okay because this is a incredible conversation about, uh, one of the greatest jazz, trumpet players and composers, Kenny Wheeler.
Nick and Brian co-wrote the book song for someone, a biography [00:01:00] on Kenny Wheeler.
And so we are gonna be spending the conversation discussing Kenny’s life and it’s a fabulous conversation, so stay tuned for that. Uh, we’ll get to their, uh, conversation after a word from our sponsor and some news.
[00:02:00]
JOHN SNELL: We are deep into spring already. The weather has been gorgeous outside. Uh, I just got back actually funny, uh, from the Pacific West where I got to meet, Brian Shaw, one of today’s guests in person. Uh, a fabulous event at Metropolitan Music. A huge thank you to Paul and Jean McVicker, the owners of Metropolitan Music, great hometown music store based out of Seattle and Kirkland, Washington. And thank you to everyone who came by for alignments and mouthpieces. And then, uh, we capped off the trip with the Washington Trumpet Guild event. On that Sunday another amazing event.
And, uh, [00:03:00] a shout out to, um, Zacharia of McIntyre. he’s one of the, uh, hosts of the WTG event. And in contacting him, he’s the one that, uh, got me contacted with Brian and Nick for this Kenny Wheeler special. So a special shout out to, uh, Zacharia one for a fabulous event in Bellingham, last week and also for making this interview possible.
Um, coming up, I’m. Turning right around, heading to Arkansas. well, I’m flying out Friday, but the event is this Saturday, April 18th. That’s the Mid-South Trumpet Festival, uh, held at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Uh, hope to see some of you folks there at that one. And, uh, believe it or not, I feel like I’ve been talking non-stock stop.
About, stop about travel since, uh, since the holidays. Uh, I think I’ve been on 30 something flights already and it’s only April. Uh, well worth it. but I’m taking a few months off, uh, not from work, but, uh, I’m not doing any conventions. Um, we’re skipping ITG this year. so I’m not gonna be [00:04:00] out on the road for most of the rest of April, may, and probably June, unless we do a short little thing to San Diego or something.
Uh. Horn Trader, but I’ll let you know about that if we get that in the works. Um, however, uh, it’s never too early to plan ahead. The next event we will be at is the, William Adam Trumpet Festival. I never missed that. It’s like going to church. Um, the dates for that one July 9th to 12th, and that’s gonna be held.
Uh, Ricky Spears is hosting that Dr. Ricky Spears. It’s gonna be held at, uh, Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois. Uh, so again, the dates for that July 9th to 12th. It is one of the don’t miss events of the year, especially for you trumpet players, uh, and especially if you’re interested in, uh, the teachings of Mr.
William, Adam. So, I won’t say any more about that until we get closer, but, uh, hope to see many of you at that event. the other thing that I mentioned, a last episode, and I’m really excited about this, uh, coming up, on. May 9th [00:05:00] is the premier of the Peace Bob Res Brass commissioned, Dan Rosenbaum to compose, gonna be performed by Dan.
It’s for a solo, trumpet and brass ensemble. Uh, it’s gonna be per, uh, Dan’s gonna be performing the solo and, uh, the Los Angeles Brass Alliance will be. Backing him up and I got a sneak preview of the piece. The, the work is finished and delivered to the group. They are in the midst of rehearsals, uh, as we speak.
and it’s gonna be really, really cool. Um, there’s already some interest in the work, as we had hoped. Uh, to be performed at other schools, universities, uh, brass bands, things like that. so I’m excited for the premier, but I know the premier is just gonna be the starting point, for this amazing work.
Dan Rosen, boom, composed. so if you’re in and around Southern California. The concert is free. It’s held at the Pasadena Presbyterian Church, again, May 9th at uh, 7:00 PM they also stream their concerts, so as we get [00:06:00] closer, we will have the link that you can, watch from the comfort of your own home or wherever you are, uh, and watch the premiere of Dan Rosenbaum’s.
Exciting new work. So stay tuned for that. We’re really excited to make, uh, this happen. and we will be. Doing more of this, commissioning more works for brass in the future ’cause uh, you know, we need more literature to play. So that’s all the news I have for today. Thank you for listening. And let’s start our conversation about Kenny Wheeler, with Brian Shaw and Nick Smart.
JOHN SNELL: Well, I have two special guests today. I’ll start with Nick. Nick Smart is an internationally respected Grammy nominated jazz trumpeter, conductor, and educator and head of jazz programs at the Royal Academy of Music. A longtime colleague and friend of Kenny Wheeler. He played in Wheeler’s. Big band, helps steward Wheeler’s career and archive.
Co-wrote song for someone in 2025 and has become one of the leading voices, preserving and interpreting [00:07:00] Wheeler’s legacy. He also led and produced the Grammy nominated 2025 album, Kenny Wheeler’s Legacy. Some days are better. A major recent recording devoted to Wheeler’s music.
Joining him will be Brian Shaw. Brian is a highly versatile trumpeter, arranger and educator whose career spans jazz, orchestral, commercial, and early music performance on both modern and period instruments. He holds principle positions with the Dallas Winds, Santa Fe Pro Musica and Spire. Baroque Orchestra has served on the faculty at Louisiana State University and has appeared as a featured soloist and clinician across the us.
He is also co-author with Nick of Song for someone bringing both a performer’s perspective and a Scholar’s depth to Wheeler’s life and Music. And now without further ado, here’s my conversation with Brian Shaw and Nick Smart.
JOHN SNELL: Well, I’m so honored today to have two guests, uh, [00:08:00] Nick Smart, joining all the way from the uk, and Brian Shaw joining me all the way from the Pacific Northwest. Gentlemen, great to see you today. How’s it going?
NICK SMART: Fantastic. Thanks for having us.
BRIAN SHAW: Yeah. Great. Thanks a lot.
JOHN SNELL: Oh, uh, I’m really excited. Uh, and it’s gonna be a little bit different episode, uh, than we normally have. we’re gonna be talking about Kenny Wheeler today and, the book you guys just published. and I wanna start, uh, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll talk about Kenny obviously. but I want to know, uh, where, uh, how you guys both got connected
BRIAN SHAW: Well, we were actually connected by Kenny himself,
which was. kind of, kind of great. Yeah. Nick, you can correct me if I’m wrong, uh, but, but I remember meeting you in New York at Font, which is the festival of New trumpet music that they’ve had now for every year and it that year they chose to honor Kenny.
This is 2011. so Kenny had told me about Nick several times, uh, when we were talking before. and so I finally got to meet him there at font actually.
NICK SMART: Yeah,
And, uh,
Brian [00:09:00] did a book, a fantastic book of transcriptions of, of Kenny’s solos, and Kenny actually gave me a copy of that book, so likewise, I, I was aware of, of Brian. But it is interesting how he kind of knew you guys would get on, you know, seemed, uh, yeah, slightly spooky.
JOHN SNELL: So, uh, so you guys met at, uh, font and I actually, that’s a faab. Great. Uh, I had Dave Douglas on a few episodes ago, actually. Maybe it’s been a year. What a, what a fabulous festival that was. I wish, I wish that would’ve been there. That
NICK SMART: Yeah, it was good and, and huge, uh, credit to Dave for, you know, tirelessly put that together and, uh, as he does and continues to do. But that year was really special, you
know.
BRIAN SHAW: Nick was actually part of the big band that was put together as part of the festival. And so Nick was also sort of acting as Kenny’s assistant, I would say. I don’t wanna speak for Nick, but he’s too humble to say these things. So, um, but he, he was working as Kenny’s assistant in a lot of ways after some things with his [00:10:00] management had, had, uh, not worked out.
And so he, uh, was their accompanying Kenny and his son and helping Kenny get from place to place because he was starting to get a little fra at that point. and, uh, so Nick was playing in the big band too. So it was cool to not only meet him first time I.
JOHN SNELL: and, and you had mentioned, so Kenny was being honored, but did Kenny played as well at that, at that
NICK SMART: Yeah. Played every night. The Ingrid Jensen curated like a, a kind of 10 piece band. Tony Ick was on it, and
Jonathan Finlayson and and then Dave and me and Kenny and Ingrid did a, like a four trumpet version of how deep is the ocean that I’ve never been so terrified in my life. It’s like one of those invitations you don’t want to get, you know, you’re like, ah, it’s
too scary.
But, Uh, yeah. Then there were two nights with John Holland Beck’s big band, and then a quintet to finish with Dave Holland and, uh, Rudy Royce and Cro Table. Yeah. [00:11:00] Incredible. Four days.
JOHN SNELL: Amazing. Oh, I wish, wished I was there. Uh,
that’s, guess why you gotta go to these events. So you guys met there. Uh, I’ve obviously developed a, a connection friendship after that. then I’m curious, uh, how this project developed, uh, who decided to, uh, you know, uh, dedicate a book and write, co-author a book together about Kenny?
How did that come about?
NICK SMART: Well, we’d both been thinking about, the fact that there currently wasn’t one at the time. And one of the things that we did at the Royal Academy of Music in London was put together like a, a, sort of museum exhibition, which was almost like a walkthrough biography basically. It started with his early life.
It ha we had letters and, you know, newspaper cuttings like the, the family kind of helped us do it, really, including Kenny’s still alive at this point and, and very much involved it. We’ll probably get into it,
but famously very shy and [00:12:00] self-deprecating. So he’s like, oh, you know, why is anyone gonna want to hear this?
But,
so Brian helped us with that, doing a, like a sort of. walkthrough biography. And the, the eight kind of spaces in the exhibition to this day became the eight chapters of the book. We, we then, when we approached the book, decided to, that that structure effectively was a sensible one to, to stick with.
So tho those two things, quite organically led from, from one to the other, you know?
JOHN SNELL: And, and you said this started while Kenny was still, still
NICK SMART: Yeah. And, and the book too. He knew that we were doing this just before he, he passed. I last, I think, I guess the last time I saw him in the summer of 2014,
I told him, look, Brian and I are doing this. And, and he was pleased. Uh. The, well, I didn’t tell him, I asked him is if, uh, is that [00:13:00] okay if we do this? And he said he Gen genuinely said, yeah, I’m glad it’s you two doing it.
And
also I don’t think anyone will be interested in reading it.
JOHN SNELL: still the self self-deprecating, but what an honor. What an honor to have his blessing. And so, did you have anything you wanted to add to that, Brian, we.
BRIAN SHAW: Well, yeah, I mean, Nick sort of laid the groundwork for this in, in a lot of ways by, uh, not only curating that exhibition with the help of the folks at the Royal Academy, but but also, by doing a bunch of. Really great long form sort of conversations with Kenny. It was at his house, right Nick?
NICK SMART: yeah,
BRIAN SHAW: And, and having the foresight to record them, obviously,
uh,
which, you know, in audio.
And so, you know, we had those later, I think, what was that, 20 10, 20 11
when you did those, something like that. Yeah. and so that really served as sort of the groundwork for all the other research that we did. You know, after that point, and gosh, I’m, since Kenny passed [00:14:00] away in September of 14, it was such a wonderful thing to have those
when his mind, I mean his, I don’t think he ever really lost his mind at all in any significant way, at least. but, you know, when he was really clear he was still playing at that point.
and so, uh, for those exist, I think is windfall. things we discovered, and you know, people who write biographies who are still of people who are still alive, who end up, you know, interviewing people within their orbit, you find out that those people are also getting elderly.
And one of the the worst things things unfortunately about writing this is that we lost some people during the process of writing the book. because Nick and I are, were new, very green authors and had not done this before. Um, and so it took us a long time to write the book and do all the research for it. and unfortunately, you know, some people passed away during that time.
that we, we had Gotten to, Um, we were fortunate that we [00:15:00] got so many interviews. I 130.
NICK SMART: Loads.
JOHN SNELL: Wow. That’s, so, uh, who are the, the kinds of people you were interviewing? Family, musicians, colleagues, things like
NICK SMART: Yeah. Manfred Iker from ECM and, and lots of interesting, you know, the, one of the things we wanted to get to was The sort of human element. ’cause he was such an interesting just person, you know, his, his qualities as a bloke were so fascinating and unique and so even talking to some of the people that he did like commercial session trumpet work with and things like that, gave such an interesting insight into the kind of brass, culture of the time as well, you know, how contractors or fixers as we say here, how, how all of that was working.
And Kenny, you know, always insisting on sitting on fourth trumpet, even though he could play anything. You know, Tony Fisher’s a real legend, a studio guy, and he, he [00:16:00] said some fascinating, uh, things about that. Unfortunately, Derek Watkins had died by the time we, we, decided to do this, so we didn’t get to interview him, which was a great shame.
But
Yeah.
BRIAN SHAW: and part of it also was, uh, us being on two continents was sort of seemingly, uh, disadvantaged and in some ways it did make things difficult, but it was also an advantage because Kennedy did so much here in North America, both being born in Canada and then, uh, you know, moving to the UK in 52. But, you know, working in New York and all around the United States in various ways, you know, when he was on tour, especially after he became more popular and more well known worldwide.
But Nick could obviously interview the folks in Europe and in, in the UK especially. And then I was a little bit closer to Canada and could go over there and, and I met, uh, members of his family, some of his childhood friends from the forties who are still around, uh, people he went to high school with. and, and, uh, like I [00:17:00] said, his family, his sister is the, was his only sibling that was still alive when we started
the book. And she is still alive. His sister Mable, the youngest, gosh, she spent hours with me on the phone and then hours in person at their house taking me around and showing me photographs of them as kids and all these wonderful sources. It’s one of the great things about writing about someone who was so loved is that everyone wants to share with you about them, you know?
Um, and also someone who never really promoted himself. So everyone around him sort of felt the need to say, no, no, no, this is really great and here’s why. Um,
and people were extremely generous. I think, uh, of all the people we asked, you know, hardly anyone.
you know, said no. And it was only, I think because they didn’t have time. We just weren’t close enough, you
JOHN SNELL: Yeah, yeah. But, oh, it’s so cool to hear how, how respected and loved Kenny was,
you know, in finding that process. and then also just kind of by way of background, so, so Nick, uh, you had mentioned, so you played in Kenny’s big band, correct.
NICK SMART: Yeah, [00:18:00] I, I joined his big band to, towards the end, he was so loyal, Kenny, that, I mean, it sounds very macab, but basically until some, one of his regular musicians passed away that he was going to use them, you know, so it was when, uh, Alan Downey died, John Barkley came in and,
and the trumpet section became Derek Watkins, John Barkley, Henry Lauer and Ian Hamer.
And then when Ian Hamer passed away, I joined, and it was Derek and John Barkley and Henry Lauer and me,
JOHN SNELL: Amazing. And how, how long were you with, with, in the band?
NICK SMART: well, till Tilly died. Then the, the last, last few years that the last album called The Long Waiting,
uh, I did. So yeah, little while.
JOHN SNELL: Brian, did you, did you ever play with, uh, Kenny, or were you just connected through him? Through Nick?
BRIAN SHAW: Well, I discovered Kenny, uh, when I was in college actually, there was a [00:19:00] jazz pianist on faculty that had a Keith Jarrett seminar. And when I was a freshman, I got to, go to that seminar with some of the pianists. They said, we’re gonna listen to an album with trumpet on it tonight. You better go check this out.
And it happened to be Kenny’s, uh, first album for EEC m New High. I’m not answering your question, but I promise
JOHN SNELL: no. no. We’ll get there. It’s fine. We’re on internet time. It’s,
BRIAN SHAW: through that I, I, uh, worked on a cruise ship that summer and there were a bunch of Canadians in the band on the cruise ship.
and they had all been to this place that I’d never heard of called the Ban Workshop up in Canada. It’s in Alberta, outside of Calgary, about I think an hour and a half or two hours in the, the Bath National Park, which is this gorgeous, you know, uh, Rocky Mountain based Art Center. And so Kenny taught there every summer, I think from the early eighties I think 81, 82.
Nick, you remember
something like that? All the way up until, uh, we talk about this in the book, they, they effectively fired him, which is kind of a funny story. But anyway, in 1998, but the last year he [00:20:00] did it, I got to go because all these folks in the band, on the cruise ship, told me, you know, that they had played Kenny’s music with him.
And I said, oh my gosh, what? Because I, being in, you know, Eastern Illinois, I had no idea how I was gonna make contact with this European person that I had become, you know, kind of obsessed with his music and stuff. And then they said, oh yeah, you can just go, you know, study with him at this summer workshop So I said in my application and there it was. So I gotta play lead trumpet in the big bands, there at the workshop with Kenny, playing all the solos sitting in front as he always did. with the saxophone section. And, uh, the singer, usually Norma Winston. so I got to spend time with him. He ran trumpet classes every morning.
He would arrange trumpet, ensemble pieces for the class. we would wake up in the mornings and go, you know, have our breakfast. And sometimes Kenny was there at breakfast, which was hilarious because he didn’t talk to anyone. He just sort of listened to all of us. because he that shy. all us are kind of just, you know, Nervously eating our eggs, you know, [00:21:00] around this person not knowing that he was even more uncomfortable than we are.
Uh, but anyway, so we would go and have, you know, these wonderful sessions with him. And he was so generous with his music. You know, he, I’d say, you know, I really love that quartet that you wrote. Oh, here you go. You know, and he would just. Hand you all the music, you know, sometimes it was in his own hand in ink, you know, it wasn’t even photocopy. And so these precious artifacts have just been scattered all over throughout that it wasn’t just me. Of course there were tons of students that he was generous with all over the world. And uh, so that was a way that I, that I got to connect with him. And, uh, just being kind of a friendly Midwestern person, I just started to try to correspond with him thinking he would never get back.
I’d write him a letter and then, you know, a week or two later, I, I would get a letter back
JOHN SNELL: You get a response.
BRIAN SHAW: and yeah. And this was back during the era of fax machines. So once we had a fax machine at my parents’ house, he would send me a fax or at the School of Music where I was, you know. we [00:22:00] coed that way and, stayed in touch. and that’s eventually, you know what, 12, 13 years? how got to meet Nick.
JOHN SNELL: Incredible. Oh, I love it. I love it. And yeah, so that seems natural that you two would work together to, come up with this book that, I mean, based on that experience and
uh, that, that correspondence. Yeah, it, it’s amazing what kids these days, dunno how hard it was to. Write a letter and put it in the mail or send a fax.
Now, you
know, now we have a million ways to connect with each other and, and no one does. So,
uh, but it’s a, it’s a good lesson to, you know, reach out, reach out to your heroes. ’cause you never know, you might, might hear back.
Um,
BRIAN SHAW: they’re real people. Yeah.
JOHN SNELL: yeah. so with that context, let’s, let’s get into the book song for someone, the musical life of Kenny Wheeler. and if we can, let’s, let’s start from the beginning. Let’s get some background on, um, on Kenny. You know, as you said, he had, he grew up in Canada, correct?
NICK SMART: Yeah, and I mean, I think the first one talking about, you know, trumpet history and, and [00:23:00] jazz trumpet is just to mark the fact that he’s a lot older than the, the music he’s associated with. You know, people think of him as being something of a modern jazz kind of trumpet figure, you know, like
whatever that may be to people, whether it’s sort of seventies, eighties, or nineties.
But Kenny was older than Clifford Brown. He’s born January, 1930, so it’s, you know, it’s right, right back into swing era, like growing up with bebop as a, as a teenager. But yeah, he was born outside Toronto and his father was an amateur trombones, like good semi-professional trombones. So there were, there was a bit of brass. you know, understanding in the family and his and his dad. Eventually they, they played a bit of piano in the house, but his dad brought a ako at home for him to try, and he, he said, I kind of just looked at it for a while before figuring out, [00:24:00] and, and I don’t think his dad ever like taught him or showed him.
I think Kenny said he basically figured it out for himself and joined quite a conventional start, you know, joined the Sea Scouts and had a teacher that tried to teach him the, you know, basics and everything. So quite a normal start. Really.
BRIAN SHAW: And
He was always looking for instruction too, because I think there was such a vacuum of it when he was a kid.
And, and, uh, one, one of the stories he told that he. He got associated with this, this guy who had a sort of a pseudo kids military band. I’m still not sure exactly what this was, but they had uniforms and they would march around and he was very proud to have this uniform, you know.
But the main reason I think he wanted to join was he knew that this guy took a band to New York and all he wanted to do was get to New York and hear his bebop heroes
because, you know, this was like the, the hardcore rock and roll of his age, you know?
And so it was sort of a form of [00:25:00] rebellion in a way, because his dad was such a swing based trombone player.
And just like Nick alluded to, he played in some of Paul Whiteman’s bands actually when, when he was, uh, coming up in New York. so anyway, uh, Kenny actually got to go to New York from the Toronto area because he was associated with this band. And, you know, went to, I think the first thing he did was go to 52nd Street and try to seek out Miles Davis.
You know, and, uh, and Charlie Parker. he ended up looking for Miles and he just asked Charlie Parker, uh, excuse me, where’s Miles? You know? And Charlie Parker said, I think he’s out back. And so only later did he realize he just talked to Charlie Parker. You know, so little things like that are just scattered throughout his, his history, you know,
because he was always inadvertently sort of, you know, Mr.
Magoo his way through the world, you know?
JOHN SNELL: that’s hysterical. So how about how old would he have been at this point? I mean, this would’ve
been in the forties, you think,
NICK SMART: [00:26:00] yeah, 15, or it would’ve been maybe 1945,
something
BRIAN SHAW: Right. Yeah. We probably 15, 16. Yeah.
Something
NICK SMART: yeah, thereabouts. And he saw Charlie Parker with Kenny Dorham as well.
His dad would take him over to Buffalo for gigs. So he saw the Ellington and who was it that he saw Lee Conni playing with
BRIAN SHAW: Uh,
NICK SMART: Thornhill.
BRIAN SHAW: Thornhill.
Yeah.
NICK SMART: It was called
Thornhill. Yeah.
BRIAN SHAW: Yeah.
It was
NICK SMART: So, yeah, he saw lots, but it was, you know, he was like shy, retiring guy. So it was really through his, he fell in with a group of friends that were really into bebop, and that, that Kenny, I think was someone that he always needed a, like a sense of belonging in his, in his group, you know? And, and it was really when he found, like these guys that were all into modern jazz and bebop that he, he sort of felt like he began to have a kind of a path, you know?
JOHN SNELL: He felt, felt at home, but so he, he always was inspired and was [00:27:00] interested in jazz. Seems sounds like from a very young age.
NICK SMART: yeah.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. at what point did he, uh, jump over to the uk? Do you know why he, um, he, he went over there?
NICK SMART: Well, he was, um, that wa was in the end of 1952,
so 20, 22 years old. And he’d become friendly with a, a quite a famous jazz or later famous jazz writer called Jean Lees, who was a editor of Downbeat for a while. He, he’s written a bunch of of great books and was a good lyricist. He wrote lyrics for Bill Evans Tunes and, and others, and basically Gene Lee’s advised him, ’cause Kenny was kind of a lost soul, you know, he was always getting little jobs and then going home with his tail between his legs having been fired again.
You know,
just
’cause he was
BRIAN SHAW: musical jobs, just like
jobs at banks or grocery stores or
NICK SMART: Exactly. He’d just be bored, you know? It was like, [00:28:00] and uh, his dad enrolled him in McGill University to be a music teacher and he’s like, I just don’t want to do this. And, and Jean Lee said to him, look, how about London? You know, I hear the big band scenes still going strong. Everyone needs brass players. And so, I mean, there was maybe a, a thing we later discovered that he was thinking perhaps I could get to Paris and study composition with Nadia Boer. So he was obviously serious about the writing as well. But I think for sure. Going to London and pursuing a playing career was, was, uh, a thing.
So yeah, he, he didn’t even tell his family. It’s another one of his hilarious, kind of like almost, uh, you know, Forrest Gump sort of moments of like, okay, well I’m just gonna go. And so the family didn’t know where he was and he, he took the money that his dad had given him for the first term and just got on a boat and went to London.[00:29:00]
JOHN SNELL: Wow. I’m, so, I’m, I’m curious, thinking back at that time, uh, I mean obviously he had that connection to London, but, uh, I mean, he seemed like he had an affinity to New York, or, you know, you think about the other jazz centers, new Orleans or Chicago or something in the us. you ever, ever ask him or wonder why he would, didn’t go there?
Go to New York specifically?
NICK SMART: A lot of people did ask him and he, and he used to say a couple of things. One was, it was the Korean War and he was worried he might get drafted. Um,
and possibly even he’d known someone who, who that had
BRIAN SHAW: Yeah,
NICK SMART: or something.
BRIAN SHAW: one of his bebop friends from uh, St. Catherine’s. Yeah, it really did happen to him.
NICK SMART: Yeah. So he knew that that was a reality. Um, and, but then he also said, but I dunno whether this is just him laterally kind of saying it in hindsight, but that I’m not sure I would’ve been confident enough to make it in New York. You know, it seemed a little scary and, [00:30:00] and I dunno if I’d have been able to handle that.
BRIAN SHAW: Yeah,
I think there, especially for him as a Canadian, there was this sort of, right or wrong, probably wrong, this sort of impression of New York being this place that, you know, only the tip top people could ever be and that he wa you know, he always struggled with a lot of self-doubt and I think he just didn’t feel like he would be comfortable there.
you know?
Um, I think he probably, deep down he really wanted to, or he wouldn’t have sought it out when he was 15 with that silly little military band. But I think there was something in him that, that didn’t feel like he could. quite do that. Um, and all the reasons that
that.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah, it is, it is. Good. New York is cutthroat. That is for sure. lot of work, but it is, it is cutthroat. So, so he finds himself in, in London, and I mean, he, he just had his what, uh, one connection and what, what, what happened
NICK SMART: Yeah. Well, gene, he, he
had no connections
because.
JOHN SNELL: Gene wasn’t based outta London.
NICK SMART: [00:31:00] No, no. Gene was in Canada and just saying, and I think at the time, said, look, I, you know, was one of those, follow me, I’m right behind you moments.
’cause he he said, yeah, I’ll be there. But he never did come,
you know, so, no, Kenny, it was a, a huge leap of faith and he went completely on his own. But he found us, there used to be a street in Soho called Archer Street where all the musicians would go to pick up work. And after a short time, he found Archer Street and began to, to get kind of jobs. You know, there were working bands by then. So he, he, you know, give or take, he was beginning to get just basic kinda live swing band kind of work pretty quickly, you know?
BRIAN SHAW: right away with a group, uh, led by this corn Edison, American Corn named Roy Fox.
actually. And, uh, and there’s even, you know, newspaper article that his sister had in this, [00:32:00] uh, again, you know, all these resources we were given, but a huge scrapbook of his life and newspaper articles. And there’s a picture you it’s really blurry, but you can tell it’s Kenny in the trumpet section in this, this article.
and it mentions him being, you know, a new Canadian trumpeter to the area. So he’s already getting publicity, you know, probably what within a month or two of being In, in, uh, England.
JOHN SNELL: Fascinating. And so, I mean, was he playing, I assuming he’s working, he’s playing at a professional level at this time. I mean, do you, do you get a
NICK SMART: Oh yeah.
JOHN SNELL: his, like his pedagogy, his chops? I mean, they, they were up to speed by this point.
NICK SMART: Yeah, this is the interesting thing where it, it can get difficult to disentangle his, his sort of self-deprecating nature. And, and the first, the very first recording that we have was his first recording in 1956. So
it’s about like four years [00:33:00] later, three and a half, four years later, with a, a sex phone. Uh, kind of a star of the time called Tommy Whittle
and Kenny. There’s one tune, uh, autumn in New York that Kenny did the arrangement for and plays like this full on feature from start to finish. So he is 26 years old and he’s absolutely killing, like ridiculous. He doesn’t go screaming high or anything, but just the quality of sound and the consistency of sound from top to bottom.
And it, and already you can kind of tell it’s him soloing. He’s got this kind of interesting idiosyncratic approach, you know, so he could really play. He, he, I’m no doubt that he figured out more to do with stamina and range and, and some of those other things, but this was really beautiful, impressive. And [00:34:00] obviously in the fifties in a completely live like no editing situation, you know?
JOHN SNELL: Mm-hmm. Fascinating. So did, I mean, did he have any like private teachers or instructions or was he primarily self-taught?
BRIAN SHAW: He did a bit in Canada. He didn’t, he didn’t talk about these folks too much. He really more talked about his, his composition teachers
actually. so those seemed to have been a little bit, maybe more formative to him. But, uh, he did have a teacher at the Toronto Conservatory. He spent. A little bit of time there.
I don’t think he ever actually finished. We couldn’t find any record that, that he actually graduated. Um, but he did spend time at the Toronto Conservatory mostly again, studying composition with this Canadian serial named John Wines Swag, uh, who was, uh, a pretty important uh, person in that world then. And I think that led Kenny down a path of, of composition that was more serious than, uh, maybe not, I shouldn’t say more serious, but a little bit more formally studied than a lot of, uh,
jazz composers that we [00:35:00] know. but yeah, he did have, a little bit of teaching here and there, and sometimes it was, you know, basically to do the opposite of what that teacher had said because he said that he, he, at one point when he was in Canada, he had a teacher that kind of made him basically pinch, is what I understand.
You know, kind
of like that smile method that might have been kind of still popular back during that era pedagogically. which we now, uh, say is kind of a big no-no. But, uh, he said that didn’t work for him. And so I think he did the opposite and opened up his aperture. Really huge. And so I think that’s where this massive sound that he
created, kind of came from.
And, you know, he, he made a joke actually in one of Nick’s interviews. He said, I had the best octave in Canada, you know, because,
NICK SMART: yeah.
BRIAN SHAW: because because he played with that big setup and so he had such a limited range, but, you know, it, it, there was this big sound. So he, I think he found a way to work through that,
but a lot of it was on his own.
it’s funny, while we’re talking about that though, he was always seeking out instruction [00:36:00] and new exercises to do, new warmups to do. Uh,
when I was studying with Jim Thompson, I gave him a copy of the buzzing book, you know, to try that. He’s like, I tried this. I think it helps, you know. And then he, he, uh, when he was in New York, actually, uh, it wasn’t for fun.
It would’ve been probably about 10 years before that. I know he had a lesson or two with Lori Frank.
too. So even, you know, a after, he’s a worldwide known jazz trumpeter, respected kind of a hero of people at this point. He’s still seeking out, you know, help and instruction and trying to get better, which is, I think, you know, the hallmark of someone who’s a lifelong
learner
and, and a wonderful, uh, influence on all of of us, you know?
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Oh, fascinating. So, um, I, I wanna talk a little bit about his jazz influence. I mean, he, he already hit, seemed like he had this little rebellious, uh, streak going to, wanting to go to New York with his dad being more of a swing style. Do you know who his ear early listening, his early inspirations were, or I say early, like up to the [00:37:00] time he is like, say, moving to the UK who he was listening to.
NICK SMART: Well, fats Navarro was a big one. ’cause again, you know, you were talking about when he moved to the uk
that’s 1952. So it’s, there’s no Freddie Hubbard book a little, you know, no, nothing like that
has has it’s come onto the scene. Yeah. So Miles for sure. dizzy.
Roy Eldridge and, but Fats Navaro, he used to talk about just loving the sort of elegance of, of, of his lines and things like that.
JOHN SNELL: Mm-hmm.
BRIAN SHAW: before that even, he was really into Buck Clayton and Mo Spaniard actually, uh, were so as when he was a kid and just, you know, flipping the radio
station until bebop sort of came over the airwaves,
NICK SMART: What’s that? Stardust he used to talk about was that. But Clayton
or
BRIAN SHAW: uh, that was Billy Butterfield, I
NICK SMART: Billy Butterfield. Yeah. He used to talk about the
cleanness of the
BRIAN SHAW: Clean Octas.
NICK SMART: that he’d play. Yeah.
BRIAN SHAW: the big
intervals. Yeah. I believe [00:38:00] that was Butterfield. Yeah.
That had that There’s iconic recording that. Yeah.
NICK SMART: if you ever asked him about, oh, what was it that inspired you for this or that, and you are thinking like quite a modern thing, you know, like he’s, I don’t know, he’s gonna say, oh, book a little or so, but actually it then mentioned something much older that, that is, was his kind of role or his model for that, thing.
But it just manifested in him in a much more contemporary kinda way, you know?
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Fascinating. What about, uh, compositionally, who inspired him, uh, in his writing?
BRIAN SHAW: The big one I would say is Hindemith actually. Um, because, what he was studying in Canada with wine swag, he worked through the, I I forget the hinde, the title of the book, but it’s something like, uh, book of Standard Harmony or, or some sort of treatise like that. And, uh, you can hear it in Kenny’s music, you know, obviously you.
know the.
The Cliche about hin is it’s, you know, [00:39:00] tons and tons of fourth and fifth sort of structures, you know, and you can hear that in Kenny’s big band voicing There’s fourths all over the place. It’s in, you know, it’s, it’s in the voicings, it’s it’s in the chord movements. It’s, it’s everywhere. And so that combined with some of the serialism that he studied with others, I think was, was a huge influence on, it. and, and a lot of early music, actually, especially toward later part of his life, I remember he was arranging, trumpet quartets based on gis Waldo and Hildegard and, and, uh, bird and, you know, folks like that from earlier than Bach actually.
NICK SMART: Hmm.
JOHN SNELL: Pulling, pulling from everyone. Um, at what point did he, his, I would say his taste, but when, when did his, uh, jazz kind of evolve from, sounds like more of like a bebop influence to, you know, more of the modern avant-garde, however you wanna label it.
NICK SMART: That’s kind of the most important bit of his, of his story really. And the
most fascinating [00:40:00] thing. ’cause he, so I’ll be as quick as I can with it. But
JOHN SNELL: No, take your time.
NICK SMART: he, he really loved bebop. That’s the important thing to, to note, that none of what he did was trying to get away from bebop, but he had this feeling that he couldn’t do it.
He felt like he was failing to do it. And it was really specifically the time feel. He just felt like he couldn’t get up on top of the beat enough. And actually he’s, he is right. When you hear his recordings like that, that is a thing. And I think it sort of. Very interesting that you realize your rhythmic feel is, is like connected to your emotional personality.
And you know, we often think of harmony or tone or being a, your sort of expressive qualities, but actually rhythm is emotional too. And Kenny, he, he just didn’t have that fire in, in his [00:41:00] time feel so, and he knew it. So he felt for years like, well I’m just failing to play bebop. How it should, should in quotation marks be played. And he got increasingly frustrated right up into his mid thirties, even when he’s getting early kind of newcomer star interview. Publicity, he’s, he’s always putting himself down. You know, it’s, it’s kind of hilarious. But actually these days you see that it’s kind of a mental health issue, uh, to do with how he sees himself, the, the value that he places on himself. And what, what he didn’t really recognize is that, which is the classic sort of imposter syndrome thing, is that while he thought he was failing to play bebop authentically, what he was coming up with as a solution to that challenge was something completely new and innovative. You know, [00:42:00] so on the one hand you had him going, oh, I can’t do this, you know, I suck. And then on the other hand, other trumpet players. Beginning to cite him as an influence. So it was quite a, a paradox. And then in, in the end, his frustration reached a, a kind of a peak, and he started to explore completely free open improvisation, just as a, like a valve to, to let off steam and, and frustration it was a completely sort of cathartic experience, which ironically, basically rocket fueled his career in Europe.
He became a huge star in the free improvisation scene and would joke that none of them know I can play changes. They just, they all think I’m a free player. Um, but the, what he found so fulfilling was that the free playing began to give him confidence in his straight ahead playing [00:43:00] and the, the harmony and the. The, the kind of conventions of regular jazz playing gave structure to his free playing. So he had this kind of dual career, and the, the, thing that then brought it all together was one night after a free jazz concert, he went to someone’s house and they played in book a little. And he, and he really, it was like a seismic moment where he said it was like a light going on. I realized it, it basically, you are allowed to be yourself. It was permission to be yourself that you, the words he used where you could be in the tradition, but still do it your own way. And from the moment he, he heard book a little and brings those two things together, you really hear like the most unbelievable trumpet playing beginning to emerge, you know, from late, late sixties.
He’s nearly 40 years old when that happens. He’s, he’s an amazing model for [00:44:00] a long patient career.
BRIAN SHAW: Yeah. And also those, just to add onto the, the discussion of free players, those folks really embraced him early on and gave him another sense of community. I mean, he
already had people, especially in the studios that he was playing with in London and also on the jazz scene. But then there’s this whole other group of sort of misfits of the misfits,
you know, that that he’s playing with, you know, in the London Jazz, in the free jazz scene, people like Evan Parker, and John Stevens, and eventually Dave Holland, you know, and, and they, they welcome him into their group and the free players loved him.
And at one person, I forget who it was that told us, is like, you know, we weren’t used to having people like Kenny at his level. So that shows how much. Respect they had for him
wanting to play with us,
you know? And so they already sort of held him on a pedestal. And then he’s going and having what Nick was describing as these sort of therapeutic sessions, just [00:45:00] playing free jazz.
And you know, he always said he never knew if it was any good, but he felt like,
it helped him in some way. that sense of community, I think was, something that was really important to him because he was so shy that he found these people that accepted him. Just as he was, and he played the trumpet so well that they could write anything they wanted to.
Uh, when there was writing, you know, they, they could write anything they wanted to for him and he could play it. Which led to associations with people like Anthony Braxton, who wrote just these freaking impossible trumpet parts for
Kenny to play. And they practiced for hours and hours. If any of the listeners are in hearing some ridiculous sort of very modern out there trumpet playing that’s incredibly technically, you should check out Kenny’s music with,
Braxton and Braxton wanted to
NICK SMART: Hmm.
BRIAN SHAW: would actually play it.
NICK SMART: Oh, it is mind blowing some of that stuff in, in the early seventies. There’s a, a record called New York [00:46:00] Fall, 1974,
and some of the, the, the head, you know, the written themes he has to play. I mean, that you’d, you’d take it back to the shop if it came in a trumpet attitude book, wouldn’t you? You’d be like, this is impossible, you know, you’ve made a mistake. Um, you’ve sold me like the flute book or the violin book or something. ‘ cause it, I mean, it’s just insane what he, what he did and he, and he makes it, you know, it’s, it’s just mind blowing.
BRIAN SHAW: And just to go back to the era that Nick was talking about when he discovered Booker Little, and that’s right Nick, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that’s right before. Windmill Tilter, right? His
kind of seminal album from NI recorded in 1968, released in 69, where you could really hear this huge shift
in him as a player. And it’s not that he was imitating book, it’s not that at all, but he’s taking that inspiration of
being free and open within a set of chord [00:47:00] changes. and being able to apply that to his own aesthetic. And, and I think that’s where he really, uh, impressed so many of his colleagues.
You know, not only with his amazing playing, but also with his writing. that was incredibly personal and you can sort of hear the seeds of everything, that he was gonna become in that record, uh, with the John.
Orchestra.
JOHN SNELL: Wow. So, and, and correct me if I’m wrong, so at, at this stage in his life, he kind of has like one foot on either side of, I hate say, I don’t wanna say like legitimate, but you know, like bebop, traditional swing, legacy, jazz, uh, swing to bebop, and then one foot in pushing the envelope and exploring new territories.
Is that a fair assumption?
NICK SMART: Well it is. And, but even more than that, and, and most relevant on, on a, you know, brass trumpet podcast. Is it, it was three things really, because there’s, he used to call it conventional jazz. So there was the
conventional jazz, the free, the free scene, [00:48:00] but also really busy as a studio player, like a session musician. He was brilliant. You know, he could read anything and they were some of the most interesting conversations from a, a trumpet point of view, talking to Tony Fisher about what it was like being in the studio with, with, Kenny and it, and he would always like rush to the fourth trumpet chair and, and would never want to play lead.
And, and Tony said, like, to be honest, it was sometimes a bit annoying because Kenny could play anything like he was as good as any of us, but he would always want to be on the end. And he, he’d insist on. Kind of playing the character of the jazz guy who’s like, oh no, I, you know, I can’t do what you guys do. But Tony was like, actually, he could. And, and there were times we could have done with a bit of help, you know, but he was, he was [00:49:00] that good a, a player, you know, he used to do right through when he was a, a big star in, um, in European jazz and free jazz and his composing and recording for ECM, he’s still playing on like family TV shows and pop records and things like that.
You know, proper session trumpet player.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. So, and yeah. Was, is that, that the, sounds like the scene in London at that point was really rolling. I mean, in terms of studio productions and, but also, jazz appreciation. Jazz clubs. Jazz festivals, things like that.
NICK SMART: Yeah, a lot of work and a lot of big band recordings that there was still the money to do kind of almost semi commercial. So it was, it was another really interesting thing Tony said about if you showed up to the session and saw Kenny Wheeler there, Tony said, it became like, huh, I wonder what we’re doing today.
We might be basically, we might be playing some [00:50:00] interesting music today, because whoever’s called this guy knows their, their shit as it were.
Excuse my French. And so he’s, um, you know, Kenny became almost like symbolic of, of, uh, good taste or something like that, you know?
JOHN SNELL: So, and, uh, I mean, do, do you think the, uh, him, I mean I’ve, we’ve talked about him being self-deprecating, you know, him always going to the fourth, chair. Uh, I mean, do you think it would be also like maybe an anxiety issue or, uh, like just the anxiety of being in the hot seat and plane first is something he didn’t even want to deal with.
BRIAN SHAW: Probably, I mean, I can’t get inside his head, but I
would think I for sure. I mean, because he would always say things like that
JOHN SNELL: Mm-hmm.
BRIAN SHAW: kind of never went away. I mean, even at font that we were talking about, which was at the very end of his career, you know, just like, what, three years before he passed away, you know, uh, he did this session at NYU, and uh, it was really great because they had a rhythm section there.
and, you know, people were just coming up [00:51:00] and playing tunes with Kenny and, and I had my horn with me and I was like, well, gosh, he’s, you know, he’s 81 years old. I may never get to play with him again. I just love to sit down and play a tune with him. Nick played a tune with him. I think Dave Douglas played a tune with him, lots of the New York trumpeters that were around some students, you know, so I sat down to play and he is like, well, I don’t wanna play with him.
He’s a professional player. I like, you have this backwards, man. This is like, this is totally reversed. You know, it’s like you’re catty freaking wheeler,
you know? so,
you he had that all the way through, but, but the stage, fright or the performance anxiety was a real thing and it really affected his career
throughout.
I mean, it, I think he learned how to deal with it for sure. So I wouldn’t say he was miserable, all the time, but certainly as a young, younger person, one of his friends, from Canada uh, told us. that, uh, you know, he would always, you know, be standing next to Kenny and I. He could see his knees shaking when they’d be doing
like a live [00:52:00] radio broadcast or something like that.
Just so nervous. And it was
NICK SMART: mm.
BRIAN SHAW: torturous for him in a lot of ways. So, You know, people around him knew that it was happening and, and felt a lot of empathy for him. and you know, he tried a lot of ways to learn to deal with it. one of the most beautiful quotes that we got from the great bassist and composer, Dave Holland, who’s was another person that we were so lucky that Nick had the connection with Dave and gave us so like, what, eight, nine hours of interviews.
I mean, so much of his time
uh, for an incredibly busy person, uh, so generous. And, one of the things he said was he, he always had this thought of St. George in the dragon with Kenny, that Kenny would get up on stage every night and face the dragon
again. And he was just thought what courage that took on his.
part. And and I’ve, uh, you know, always thought that was a beautiful remark and observation about someone
who’s
NICK SMART: is,
BRIAN SHAW: dealing with it, you know?
NICK SMART: don’t you think, especially on the trumpet too, where any sort of [00:53:00] nervousness or anxiety manifests in like your breathing and, and any, obviously any physical shaking then comes out in this so to, to suffer with that amount of, of un, I dunno if it was uncertainty or anxiety or what, but on the trumpet of all things and still be able to overcome it to the level he did.
It is pretty inspirational. I think that.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah, there’s nowhere to, no, nowhere to hide
NICK SMART: No there, I mean there’s some, there’s some videos on, uh, YouTube of this like Battle of the Bands thing and Kenny’s with, the Kenny Clark, Frezy Boland big band. There’s a young, Derek Watkins is in it, I think is Benny Bailey in
it
BRIAN SHAW: I think that’s Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
NICK SMART: And um, but it’s a battle of the bands with a European, German band, I think Kurt del Hogan.
It could have been, it might be Peter Herbal Simon. It’s one of those, [00:54:00] the Clark Bolen Band and then Thad Jones, Mel Lewis. And
they’re all playing o opposite each other. So you imagine how terrified Kenny would’ve been to step up and play. And he, and he just sounds incredible. You know,
just that control of, of, of the instrument.
BRIAN SHAW: That’s actually one of my favorite stories. Speaking of which, in a full circle way with what Nick was just talking about, Kenny actually got to sub in the Thad Jones, Mel Lewis Band, I think, what, 72 was it?
I think somewhere around there. And, uh, uh, you know, a very young lead trumpet player named John Fadi was in that band.
And, and Fatus also gave us a bunch of time and told us these great stories about, you know, Kenny sitting in the band and having a solo and Pepper Adams turning around and kind of yelling at him and encouraging him, you know. And they were in, what were they? They were Ronnie Scotts in London.
Right. And this was happening, so I think one of the trumpeters got sick and Kenny just had to step in at the last minute. So, you know, he was capable of [00:55:00] that, amongst all the other things he did. So he he found a way
to
battle those nerves and still come out with this incredible music.
JOHN SNELL: Still, Still, performed. Incredible. Did he, I mean, did, in your interviews with him, did you, did you ever talk to him about that directly or was it just kind of secondhand
NICK SMART: oh, totally. Yeah.
He was very open about it and would really be quite open about it in interviews and things like that. I mean, one of his famous sort of quotes that he used in a Mark Miller downbeat interview was, if I ever got to like my own playing, I think I’d give up. So he was like, pretty heavy and, and open in terms of his struggles with, with that, you know, he was, he was always okay with his composing. He’s like, I’m, I can, I can accept. My compositions are good, basically. But the playing, he, he [00:56:00] really, really struggled. It, it, it never listened to himself in the playback after recording sessions, it’s like, it’s done.
You
JOHN SNELL: One and done.
NICK SMART: Yeah.
BRIAN SHAW: Well, and, and also I think that, being able to accept his compositions, was sort of, because he would always say that he felt like they were kind of a gift from somewhere, you know, like
he had tapped into some source and that, so I guess he found a way to sort of separate his own
identity from that.
You know, it’s like, well, I’m just sort of a vessel through which this music is. He didn’t say it exactly that way, but I think that was the gist of it, you know, that he was a a pipeline through which this music
would come, and so he could accept that as like, you know, well, that’s not me, so it must be okay, but. you Can’t do that with the trumpet.
It’s literally attached to your body. So, you know, it’s, it’s hard to separate yourself. from the results of your trumpet playing.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah, I imagine living with that for decades. I mean, I mean, he lived up into his eighties and, but you [00:57:00] said he did at, you know, later in his career, you’d seem to have gotten better, or he was able to manage it better, you think?
NICK SMART: I think he just learned, learned to accept the fact that it was gonna happen, you know?
And but it, yeah, I mean, so many of the people we interviewed said, I think it was Anthony Braxton or someone who, who said, I never heard people play better and then apologized for having just played the most incredible stuff you’ve ever heard on the instrument.
And they go, oh, sorry. I, but always you guys sounded great though. You know? He didn’t want to be a downer, but he just couldn’t help it. You
JOHN SNELL: Just had that mindset. Uh, I’m curious, did you ever talk to him about like the nuts and bolts of trumpet playing? You know, like did he have a warmup routine? Did he, you know, did he have a practice routine? Anything like that?
NICK SMART: what, what did you do at bank with him, Brian?
BRIAN SHAW: Well, we did a, like, we did a lot of trumpet corrals, I guess you could say that [00:58:00] is a bit of a long tone study in a way. he definitely practiced, I mean, there’s the recordings. That was another gift that, uh, was it Norm Winston
gave us those, one of the singer that was most associated with him,
uh, one of his closest partners.
and she had recordings that Kenny had made of himself, you know, just like a lot of people do. You know, there’s Theor Brown, recording and others. what was, he was practicing some
music, I think for
Yeah, Which was a trio of, of Norma and John and Kenny. Uh, that was wonderful and under unfortunately underrated, but I think people are coming back to it.
Even Drake sampled, uh, uh,
a bit of, of azimuth actually, I think. Was it what, last year, two years
NICK SMART: yeah. Very, very recently.
BRIAN SHAW: yeah.
Like the whole first minute and a half is an azimuth, recording. it’s not really sampling,
but anyway,
JOHN SNELL: I have to check
BRIAN SHAW: get away from me.
JOHN SNELL: What a way, what a way to be relevant again.
Well, in mainstream, you know?
BRIAN SHAW: Kinda crazy. but he would record. Himself practicing. And, and so you can, you can hear that it’s mostly just working on, [00:59:00] on music that he had to play. I, I don’t dunno that he did a whole lot of, you know, mouthpiece buzzing or, uh, flexibility studies or articulation.
I it felt like
it was more like getting
NICK SMART: I went, when, when I lived near him, I’d, I’d go round the house and kind of play. Sometimes it’s not like we were doing it every other day, but a few times I did that. I remember taking the, Alan visited duets round and he just sounded like him, but playing these parts with that kind of weird articulation.
But the one thing he did take me through was his warmup and it was all to do with no tongue. It was all just getting the air moving. And I, I remember within about. Basically 20 seconds. He was playing double Cs, but like, oh, I just try and get the air moving. You know, I’m not, he, he didn’t [01:00:00] really, wasn’t going for the sound quality, but he, I think he didn’t use so much force that, that, that he was worried about causing any injury there.
You know, I’d be thinking if, if you play too high too early, you could overexert, but I think he was so much about the air that, that, that wasn’t a concern. So he, there were quite a lot of pedals and then just ping. Double Cs and then low notes. Again, it was, it was quite a weird and not very, uh, transferrable to me warmup, but it worked for him.
I mean, the only, the only other thing I would’ve said that’s quite interesting from a trumpet point of view, view, that’s absolutely no use at all for like a studio or or professional setting. But Kenny as a jazz player where you can kind of do this, he was [01:01:00] unbelievably egoless in sort of sound checks.
And, and Dave Douglas and me both separately had different experiences where. He was in the rehearsal in the afternoon in the sound check and was sound, but like pretty un rough. You’re thinking, oh gosh, is this gonna be okay? And basically he’s just letting himself find the instrument without any force and, and he is comfortable to go through a, a physical process to do so.
So for someone, again, that’s fascinating that if you are that self-deprecating and, and worried about not sounding good, but also completely willing to just give in to finding your voice for that day on the horn. And then inevitably by the evening, I mean, Dave’s story about it was hilarious. ’cause he’s like, oh my God, what am I gonna do?
You know, he, he kind of [01:02:00] reorganized the whole set, was worried about how much he should play. ’cause he’s like, I don’t want to kind of show him up, you know? And then Kenny comes out for the actual gig and he’s like, boom. Just completely killing, you know,
JOHN SNELL: Just smokes it.
NICK SMART: he just smokes it, you
know? But he, he,
BRIAN SHAW: that’s,
NICK SMART: he definitely, I think it was, was a big air guy of just finding the, the sound and the resonance and not forcing that.
JOHN SNELL: Hmm. Fascinating. Wow. and because this is a trumpet podcast, um, I want to dial up the geekiness one more level.
uh, was Kenny, was he like a gearhead, was he into mouthpieces and horns and things or what was, uh,
what was he like with the equipment?
BRIAN SHAW: Nick will probably have a lot to add to this, but, but uh, in my experience, not really. I think he would just sort of play whatever was, was there and, you know, being a person of note, you know, there were always [01:03:00] manufacturers that were trying to get him to play this or play that. I remember one, one time in particular, I had been over, since it’s a trumpet podcast.
I, could say I’d been in France and I was just doing the Maurice Andre competition and uh, you know, I made it far but not far enough. And so I was, found myself a little time on my hands. And, uh, and I took the channel train over to London and, you know, hung out with Kenny. Stayed at his house overnight, which was just kind of surreal for me, at that point, you know, and slept on his couch and, and got up in the morning and he was off to a gig.
And it’s funny ’cause of the course of this book, this book, we discovered what gig that was. But anyway, he had had, a Yamaha Flugel horn shipped to him. And, you know, primarily he played flu. Of course he played, trumpet too. but uh, the Flugel was still in the box. I mean, it was literally in the cardboard box, you know, and, and he took it with him.
Out the door. He must have had a mouthpiece somewhere, [01:04:00] but that’s what he took on tour. So he was just like, well, I’m just gonna try this Ugal horn on this tour and check it out. so that’s how non tied to equipment
from my perspective. He was, uh, and that’s not to say anything about the Yama Hors of course, but, but it was just like, you know, oh, I’ll try this, you know, and see and, and see, see if it works.
You know? It was just that sort of open to it. You know? and
NICK SMART: Yeah, not even to check it. It wasn’t damaged in the shipping
or
BRIAN SHAW: no, it was literally still in the box.
I mean, I remember him walking out that door with the cardboard box under his arm, you know, it was, it was kind of crazy.
NICK SMART: And he, um, I, I remember him saying once, I just can’t remember what the mouthpiece was. I
think Henry Lauer would know, but he, he had a mouthpiece that he lost and he felt, I think that was trumpet and he felt like it was never the same again. He never founded one he liked as much as that, but [01:05:00] he, he didn’t play big or small equipment.
It was, I remember for sure anything I tried, it was pretty much bang in the middle. and he also was frankly negligent, uh, with his, with his equipment. You know, if the, if, if they were sentient beings, they’d have been taken away from him and placed into care. ’cause he, he’d just let them go, go to rot.
He’d slam it down if he got frustrated. And then if the mouthpiece got stuck, his strategy was to take like a hammer. Just bang at it. And, and so his, his mouthpiece at the end looked like, it looked like a kind of a work of art.
And I remember someone asking like, wow, where, how did you get that? And it was basically just by hammering it to, to try and get it out.
He never cleaned anything.
I remember John Barkley cleaning his mouthpiece [01:06:00] on the tour and it, he said, I couldn’t even see through it.
You know, it was like that. But he, anyway, he said to Kenny, Hey, good news, we’ve cloned you. Like we took all the gunk out the mouthpiece and we’ve cloned you.
JOHN SNELL: Got got some
DNA.
NICK SMART: but he really wasn’t, gear really wasn’t focused on, I mean, of course he was a, a great player, so he would’ve been aware of what felt good and bad, but he had like a cheap kind of Chinese trumpet later in life that he played for a bit and lots of different ugal. He loved Koons in the earlier years.
BRIAN SHAW: yeah. Well, and and he was also pretty Accident Pro too
with several stories in the book where one of ’em, where they were on tour in Korea, I think, was it with, uh,
what was it? United Rock
Globe
NICK SMART: Globe. Yeah.
BRIAN SHAW: and he’s going through, a revolving door and he makes it through the revolving door, [01:07:00] but this trumpet doesn’t.
And so it just gets crunched in the door somehow. And now he’s in Korea and he’s gotta figure out how to get his trumpet fixed. you know? And he wasn’t in Seoul. I think he was kind of in one of the outlying cities. and He had to get a, so a train or something and take it to soul. and it was like this whole thing, you know, uh, and trying to get his Trump fixed.
And, uh, part of the exhibition that Nick put together, one of the most charming things about it, I think was this stack of repair bills from Phil Parkers. Right.
NICK SMART: Yeah.
BRIAN SHAW: And, and you know, it was just this dent after this dent, after this stuck valve. After this, I, forget what all the things were, but he was constantly knocking his horn against things and knocking him over
NICK SMART: Then even, even after he, even after he died, ’cause that, that flugel behind me
for anyone watching on YouTube, but is is was Kenny’s last, flugel was his eclipse,
and I was like really struggling with the. It’s like the in tenacious, like a bit [01:08:00] weird. Couldn’t figure it out. And I eventually, I took it back to Eclipse and he had to take it apart and he found this like a plastic thing, like it looks like the top of a, a medical, like something you’d get eyedrops dispensed out of or something like that, that was in the
flugel.
JOHN SNELL: the flu.
NICK SMART: And uh, I’ve no idea how it got there. So yeah, he was, he was comical with it, with equipment, you know.
JOHN SNELL: But still managed to, uh, still managed to, to play well and, and, uh, and bring it. Um, so when we kinda left off in his career, we had, he had listened and had that epiphany with, Booker Little And was finding his own, uh, voice. was that kind of like, I don’t say the peak of his career, or was that like kind of the starting point of his, his progress in his being his own artist, not being necessarily a sideman or, you know, uh, a session player, that sort of thing.
NICK SMART: Yeah, I would’ve said what it represents is this sort of [01:09:00] like coalescing where you, you suddenly feel this incredible ownership over his own style. Some of the earlier things are, are beautiful and they’re interesting and they’re individual, but they’re, they’re occasionally almost a little apologetic like it. They’re on the back foot a bit. Literally rhythmic li but also kind of emotionally a bit. But he’s sort of leaning in once he’s had this moment of, of basically giving himself permission to just be who he is, you really get this sort of firepower beginning to emerge. But remember he is like nearly 40 years old at that point.
So from there through to his sixties and then inevitable sort of latter stages of his, of his playing career as e everybody begins to change,
[01:10:00] you know, with very, very few exceptions anyway. And, uh, but yeah, that, that point onwards, you get this sort of fully formed Kenny Wheeler, you know.
BRIAN SHAW: Yeah. And, and he, he really was, I think, one of the all time great late bloomers, you know, uh, because, you know, again, we’ve talked about Clifford Brown, you know, and, and everything we have of Clifford Brown is from the age of 25 and younger, because his life was cut So, short. so I can’t imagine dealing with that at the same time as, as you know, you’re trying to find your own voice, you know, like, well, this guy’s gone and he’s already, you know, a legend.
and he’s 25, you know, and I’m 45 and just really finding myself, you know, but that, that album, new High, which I mentioned earlier with Keith and Dave and Jack. Jeanette, um, his first ECM album and I think the first time on a global scale where he’s getting the distribution and he’s, he’s on with this All-Star band that everybody wants, whether they know Kenny Wheeler or not, they know they want [01:11:00] all the other players
on that record. And, and that’s sort of an entry for so many folks. Um, you know, people like, you know, what, Ralph Towner and, uh, and all the folks that were around Berkeley at that time,
uh, Mike Gibbs and, uh, bill Fra, those kinds of folks, they discovered Kenny through New High. And I
think that was, you know, after Windmill Tilter, that was really the, you know, one of the early peaks of his career, which at that point, he really is I think, full formed,
NICK SMART: Yeah. Bill Frizzell told us that, that that was a big deal at Berkeley in the, in the mid seventies, like everyone was trying to play those tunes. And, you know, he, even Vince Mendoza, the great writer, said that, that, you know, he was a huge, when he was still playing trumpet was like a, a huge kind of, uh, admirer of Kenny’s.
And he, he said, when I’d play, people would say, what are you doing? And he’d say, I’m trying to play like Kenny Wheeler, you know, he’d, uh, he’d really left a mark, you know.
JOHN SNELL: Uh, [01:12:00] was there ever a point where he stopped doing kind of the other two, um, aspects of his playing that we talk about? The session playing, the freelancing, and also, you know, playing on other people’s, stuff that wasn’t, you know, uh, I was gonna say like, doing the old style or the bebop or the swing stuff.
I mean, he just devoted himself to his music and his circle of, you know, avant, gar and modern free jazz.
NICK SMART: Yeah, mostly it was his, uh, that was what he wanted to do, but he
kept up a good side person career playing, you know, playing for other people. But the, the session work proper had, he had slowed down to the point of, of not doing much at all by the eighties, say,
but at which point he’s in his fifties,
so it’s.
JOHN SNELL: he still, yeah.
NICK SMART: It’s, it’s hardly an early bath, you know, it’s a good long run at, at, at the studio playing. And he still [01:13:00] was on like one of the James Bond soundtracks in the nineties on Golden Eye for one of the kind of separate sessions. And so he, he would still occasionally do bits and bobs, but yeah, he, he really was focusing on his own thing and, and then side person work as a jazz player.
JOHN SNELL: Mm-hmm.
BRIAN SHAW: Yeah, and, and still very active in the free scene of course too,
like all the way through, especially with those close associates, like,
Evan Parker,
NICK SMART: Mm-hmm.
BRIAN SHAW: he had since the very. very.
be.
JOHN SNELL: you think he was at a point when he, like he was asked to be a side, side person, um, you know, where he didn’t, he could be his own player at this point. Like he was an artist as opposed to, you need to, you need to sound like this kind of trumpet player kind of thing.
NICK SMART: Yeah, definitely. And he
couldn’t have done that if you tried. I think he, he was completely his own person and, and by that point, quite well known. And people would’ve certainly been asking for him because he [01:14:00] was him, you know, not just a, a session hired, anonymous kind of gun. You know, it would’ve definitely been for his own voice.
JOHN SNELL: Mm-hmm.
BRIAN SHAW: Yeah. And later on in his career when, you know, people would ask him to play on their records and things, you know, it became a bit of an issue. That’s one of the reasons he sought management later in life is because, you know, he was constantly doing these sessions with other players, playing their music, when what he really wanted to do was be you know, recording and performing his own music.
And so the management really helped kind of shift him into that. that.
place, you know,
being able to do his own projects and feature himself, both an earlier sort of defacto manager named Nick Pernell, who did so much for him, uh, during the real, what I would consider the real peak of his career. which was, He was in his late fifties and early sixties actually, uh, around, you know, the eighties and into the early nineties. when Big band album music for Lars and Small ensemble. [01:15:00] and Window is One of his great small group albums too. But I think that’s kind of peak, period for him. And Nick Purnell had a ton to do with with making those, tours happen and getting him top, billing on at festivals,
and, you know, uh, larger projects like that, getting things funded through the arts Councils of Great Britain and, a lot of those Bigger things that he, Kenny would’ve loved to have done, but he, I don’t think
he had the, had the ability to sort of follow through on grant proposals and things like that, you know, that require a different. Set of skills than what
he possessed.
JOHN SNELL: The, the paperwork.
Um, and, and, uh, talking about his compositions, I mean, he wrote obviously a lot for his own groups, but he, he also wrote for other artists as well. Right. Other big mans and other, albums, jazz albums and things.
NICK SMART: Yeah, some he did, he mostly, he’d write for settings in which he was going to be present himself. But like for John Dankworth orchestra, he wrote lots. But the, the one [01:16:00] really notable and trumpet specific exception to that are the charts for Maynard Ferguson, you know, for, for the, uh, them MF horn period in the, in the seventies where Kenny was not in that band, but he wrote quite a few things for, for Maynard and, and their really fantastic, and it was at Wayne Bergeron who said, told you Brian, like he, that he always thought Kenny’s were the best of those charts.
Like he understood how to frame Maynard in the best way or.
BRIAN SHAW: Yeah, and, and, tunes that people would probably know, like Free Wheeler, obviously that comes from, from Kenny, but also Ballad from Max from that album. Uh, the theme, uh, from summer 42, Kenny
arranged that one. Uh, gosh, what else?
Oh,
fire and rain.
Fire and Rain, the Country Road. Uh, you know, those some of those
NICK SMART: Your song Elton John’s. Your song is one as well, isn’t
it?
BRIAN SHAW: Yeah, Yeah, so [01:17:00] lots of those. And then there was some strange commercial things that we found that neither Nick nor I knew he did, I think. Right. Until we found those,
you know what? What would you call those? Those library recordings? How would you
NICK SMART: Yeah. Li Library music, you know where you are, you are,
writing for something that then goes into a library where people can choose like car chase or you know, sunny Day or something. And they, and
Kenny had some of Yeah. Background music if basically, but, but all very well written,
you know.
BRIAN SHAW: Beautifully written, but I don’t think it was ever very successful for what it was meant to do. ’cause it had so much of his personality in it,
NICK SMART: Yeah,
BRIAN SHAW: he couldn’t really use it because the music was too good, you know?
JOHN SNELL: That’s funny. Some, somewhere out there as a car chase. And we’ll be, we’ll be watching it. It’s like, wait, that sounds like Kenny Wheeler. And it may be, um, do you know how, how, uh, that connection with Maynard came, came about?
NICK SMART: Well,
the, the,
all of the writers for, for that band [01:18:00] were in Britain, right? Alan Downey and Keith Mansfield. And
BRIAN SHAW: Yeah, that
was his
NICK SMART: were. It was his English band,
and they’re both Canadian, and they’d met during Dan’s, uh, band. There’s a couple of broadcasts with Dankworth. And you know, John Dankworth was a very, very famous, successful band leader, and Maynard was a guest. Uh, and sometimes when Kenny’s, there’s one, isn’t there, Brian? We Kenny’s soloing. And you can hear Maynard like he Yeah. Like he is, it is clearly his voice, you know?
Uh, so yeah, they would’ve known each other, but I think the writing would’ve come from that pool of people
like Keith, Keith Mansfield
and and
BRIAN SHAW: Alan Downey,
who wrote Give It One,
was also in Kenny’s big band. And so there probably, I for sure, connection there. And I know Derrick played in Maynard’s band for a while too. I
NICK SMART: Yeah.
BRIAN SHAW: fired, [01:19:00] didn’t he?
NICK SMART: He, that was the store of a legend was he got fired for playing higher than Maynard on a last note or something. But he, Derek, there’s so much folklore around Derek. It’s hard to know, you know?
JOHN SNELL: So it seems like there’s a lot of connections there. Uh, would make sense. But, uh, I mean that’s one of Maynard’s seminal albums, you
know, that MF four and one and two and Yeah, I agree. Kenny’s charts on that showcase Maynard in a way that I think very few others did.
Um, so, getting kind of towards now the end of, of Kenny’s uh, life.
Well, Nick, uh, you joined in the big band, uh, how long did he have the big band for? Was that something he had started, you know, early on, or was that later in his career?
NICK SMART: no, from the, like the. 19 70, 19 69, 70 onwards, he had had his own group, but he was as, as Brian was saying, such a, a kind of terrible, frankly, self-promoter and Booker, that it was always very hard for him to [01:20:00] get gigs. So he became one of these people that settled into a routine of, of basically having birthday tours, you know, so the, the first famous one being, his 60th birthday in 1990, which they recorded and it became music for large and small ensembles.
But then there was a 65th tour, a 70th, the 75th and the 80th. so yeah, the big band didn’t do much, but some incredible trumpet players like he, Derek Watkins, of course, and they adored each other and such a lot of respect and, and mutual just absolute admiration. But Greg Bowen as well. Do you know who that is?
JOHN SNELL: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Know the name. Yeah.
NICK SMART: Incredible trumpet player that, that Kenny absolutely loved. And he, he moved to Berlin to join, one of the German radio bands when Berlin still had a, a radio band
called the S Band. So Greg left the uk but an exciting, like [01:21:00] quite intuitive, lead player, you know, he, he was absolutely killing. So yeah, huge amount of, of just brass culture around Kenny and the older generation, you know, Derek Healy, Kenny Baker, people who were, seriously world class trumpet players, you know?
JOHN SNELL: What,
BRIAN SHAW: And also, uh, speaking of the writing, you know, one of the things Nick did, throughout this, was incorporating all the writing that Kenny did for the BBC during this time too. And so every year and sometimes more than once a year from what? Late sixties. All the way
up. I’ll let talk about this before. Yeah. 69.
up the 90.
He was writing some large scale performance for the BBC that would be, you know, either recorded or broadcast live on the radio, and he would get, you know, money to hire a band. And so he would write new things. And it wasn’t always like a big band traditionally. It was all sorts of different [01:22:00] setups, you know, and, and the instrumentation would change sometimes it’d be smaller groups, There’s some that were like massive with the two pianos.
Right. And,
you know, uh, he never had the to not say he wanted this person or that person on album. And so sometimes he would have both of them. You know,
JOHN SNELL: So let’s add a second piano part.
BRIAN SHAW: why why not? You know?
Yeah.
And, and, and so there’s tons of music that, that Nick has, has discovered. And actually, I, he won’t, again, he won’t brag on this, so I’ll just say, you know, the album that he, uh, did with the Royal Academy, in collaboration with Frost School, Miami, their, big band with John ersa leading.
Was nominated for a Grammy this past year.
The, the
album. Uh, Yeah.
But a lot of That, music comes from the B, B, C.
NICK SMART: yeah, that we called it the lost scores, but it was exactly as Brian said, all, all, all his earlier music that had never really been heard because it was broadcast once and then not really performed live. I mean, his own [01:23:00] big band performed live three times in the seventies, three times. Dave, uh, you know, duke Ellington would do three gigs in a day.
Kenny did three gigs in a decade, and then the broadcast, as well. So to hear it live was very, very rare, you know? But yeah, we’ve recorded some of that on Dave Douglas’s record, uh, Greenleaf on his record label.
It’s called Kenny Wheeler Legacy.
JOHN SNELL: interesting question. Did, Kenny ever have any students, any trumpet students or composition students or proteges or anything like that, that you would consider?
BRIAN SHAW: Well, I mean, I, he just, I don’t think he had the personality to be a, regular teacher. I think a lot of people sought advice from him and sought feedback on their music.
he had the ability to, to encourage, I think he was a very encouraging mentoring kind of person. and so he would make you feel good about your playing.
I remember he
said nice things to me. I’m sure he [01:24:00] said nice things to Nick about his playing too, and, and all the other players that he was with. and so to have somebody like that say, give you any sort of compliment, just you know, just puts a fire under you just aren’t,
NICK SMART: Yeah.
BRIAN SHAW: but, but, regularly, I, I’m not aware of anyone, uh, Nick, do you know of, of
NICK SMART: No, I, I think I would say no is the answer to that question
from his perspective. I, I think that there’s plenty of people, and I’d be one of them who would consider were, not only was he a great influence on me, but I. I suppose in my case, maybe more than others, but particularly knew him well and spent time with him and was, but there’s no way he was thinking of that as being in any sort of mentorship.
It was just his kindness as a person that one could maybe think that that’s what’s going on. But I don’t
think it was [01:25:00]
JOHN SNELL: Yeah,
NICK SMART: from his, from his point of view, but he’s
been a massive influence on people like Ingrid Jensen is always very, very quick to, to give a huge, huge amount of, uh, of credit to, to Kenny and
what he represents, you know?
But
JOHN SNELL: Mm-hmm. And as, like Brian was talking about earlier, you know, handing charts out, he seemed like a very
giving, uh, you know, uh, free with information, free with his charts, et cetera, to inspire the next generation or another artist. to wrap up here for, some listeners that may have never been introduced to Kenny, uh, before. do you guys have some suggested listening? I know you’ve mentioned some albums. where would you start listening to some Kenny Wheeler to, to get, uh, dug in, so to speak?
BRIAN SHAW: Well, I would probably start where I started. Nick will probably disagree with this, but we, we’ve always had this conversation,
JOHN SNELL: You can have your own list. It’s okay.
BRIAN SHAW: Okay, good guy. Uh, I’d say new high for me, GNU High, because he loved, there was a lot of word play in his titles of things.
Uh, [01:26:00] Some of somewhat silly, but you know, I think that reflected part of his personality.
So New High, that’s the one with, you know, Jack De Jeanette and Dave Holland and Keith Jarret. it was actually Jarret’s last album as a sideman, so it has sort of a historical.
importance too. And then his uh, music for large and small ensembles where you can hear. I think some of the best of his big. band writing, And frankly, that’s one of my, that’s a desert island.
recording for me.
Uh, So, because you hear his big band writing and he’s soloing all over top of it. And the band is so good. It had been on tour, you know, you can just hear all these personalities, from the free world and from studio scene, and from, you know, the more.
contemporary jazz scene that he puts together. All these people that never would’ve really gone together without him.
JOHN SNELL: Mm-hmm.
NICK SMART: I would agree with both of those for sure, but if to hear some like really astonishing trumpet playing some of his best trumpet playing it is quite important maybe to know that that only two things that [01:27:00] he ever spoke positively about himself. and there’s A-A-E-C-M record called Dear One, and again, it’s a word play thing.
Deer is like the animal and one is WAN. Um, but that he plays absolutely incredibly on. And, and he would say that of like, yeah, I can, I can tolerate to hear myself on that record, you know?
Um, what, what’s the Sweet Brian with all that ridiculous playing on it,
BRIAN SHAW: Oh, it’s called Peace for Five. It’s the
first track on the album.
Yeah. and and at the end, you know, it’s just got Jack Deja just absolutely going crazy on the drums with all this free rhythmic stuff. And, and you know, Kenny is plan and he’s overdubbed this too, which was kind of a cool little thing that ECM was doing.
So it’s Kenny and Jan Garber playing, uh, Tanner on it. And at the end of the suite, it’s just kind of high notes, you know, [01:28:00] galore. It’s, you know, he’s topping out on high Gs, you know, and just. And he’s playing in use with himself and it’s in tune somehow, and it’s, it’s just
this
kind of,
NICK SMART: but the,
BRIAN SHAW: amazing trumpet wise, you know,
NICK SMART: there’s another one just very quickly to listeners get a go and get a pen. ’cause uh, these are gold
is, there’s a, an album called, around six.
And there’s a, like an improvised solo. He, he plays, the track is called Solo One, and that is absolutely extraordinary trumpet playing. And I think that there’s a Ralph Towner album called Old Friends, new Friends, and he’s having to play these outrageous lines in unison with guitar. There’s no horn section, it’s just solo trumpet in like a chamber music setting. And honest to God, I, I think some of the things he did, you’d have to ask seriously who, who [01:29:00] else could have done that 1978?
You’d, you’d honestly be having to call like Jerry Hay or, or Doc Severson, or it like, it’s not conventional jazz. Playing at all. I, I honestly don’t think Freddie Hubbard or someone would’ve agreed to to do it. You know, it’s, it’s completely extraordinary trumpet playing. And the same with the Anthony Brexton things.
If you can find that album, New York Fall, 1974
and some of the playing on that again is, is just astonishing what he does, you know?
JOHN SNELL: Wow. Yeah. So what we, what what we’ll do is, we’ll, we’ll make a list here and we’ll, we’ll post it down in the, uh, in the description so folks can click over to
them. Uh, make it easy. Yeah.
And, or you can take notes as well.
Paper, pe, pen, pence, and paper is still good. Um, well, well, gentlemen, it’s what an honor it’s been having you on.
and thank [01:30:00] you for keeping Kenny’s name alive and his legacy alive, with your stories and certainly with the book. how can folks, uh, get the book if, uh, they’re interested in it?
NICK SMART: Equinox Publishing, it’s, uh, you can buy direct from them or any of your rainforest themed online stores. But yeah, Equinox Publishing is, uh, would be the best place to buy direct from, uh, from the publisher.
JOHN SNELL: Okay. And we will, we’ll get the link from you guys and we’ll have that down below too. Make it as easy as possible for folks to pick it up. Song for someone. The musical life of Kenny Wheeler. And since this is kind of outside of our normal podcast, uh, normally I have a special question, uh, that I end with, and you guys have both signed up for doing a future episode.
So I’m gonna save that question for each of your episodes. so if, let’s, let’s have a little bit fun here. ’cause you’ve talked about some of the surprises, since you’ve both knew Kenny for quite a long time, uh, in researching this book. If each of each of you could kind of give a, either a [01:31:00] surprise or something you didn’t know about Kenny or kind of like a fun story in the research, uh, in the development of this book that you, uh, came across. and share that with us. So, who wants to go first?
BRIAN SHAW: Uh, I, I’ve got one and I hope I don’t take nick’s. Uh, there are so many though that if I do, I he’ll have, he’ll have a thousand more. But, um, my favorite one was from when he was teaching at Banff, and, all the different jazz faculty would go around and work with a different chamber group every day.
and so unfortunately there was, I won’t name who this was, I don’t know who it is actually, but there was a bassist that was there who was apparently, uh, maybe not the ideal choice to have been there amongst the other students. And So this was Kenny’s day with the bass player in his small group. And there at Banff there was this lovely little pub that they had, you know, that was really close to where, you’d study.
So of course at the end of the day, everyone ends up in the pub and everybody’s having a beer, you know, standing around kind of in a little [01:32:00] circle talking.
And all the other faculty were like, so Kenny, I hear you had the bass player today. How, how did that go? And he’s standing there and, and keep in mind, I hope everything we’ve said so far, Kenny was incredibly nice and kind person, but I think he was so frustrated this day that he was just like, oh God, he was terrible.
You know, he had no time, couldn’t play changes, he couldn’t read, had no sound on the bass. Terrible intonation. You know, and he is just going on and on and on. Meanwhile, this bass player is walking in to the pub and ends up standing right next to Kenny. because you can see all the other guys that are going, knock it off, you know, Kenny over and says, great though.
JOHN SNELL: Sounds great though. Uh, I love it. Uh, great story. Great story. Nick, do you have one or is that the one you wanted to share?
NICK SMART: No, that is a great, but I, there was another one that Norma Winston told us that was, that’s so [01:33:00] indicative of what a lovely guy he was and, and how unable he was to sort of speak up for himself. So it’s quite symbolic of, of how he sort of managed or didn’t manage his career. But he, he wore glasses, you know, and he was always breaking them.
So this one time one of the arms was breaking and they said, for crying out loud, Kenny, go and get, go and get them fixed, you know? So he went to the opticians, to get the glasses fixed on, tour. And when he showed up at the gig, he, rather than having repaired glasses, he had no glasses. And they’re like, what happened? And he, and he, uh, basically the opticians were running a scheme where you could. Donate your broken glasses to be fixed and sent to Ethiopia as a, as a charity. And so when he took in his broken glasses, they [01:34:00] just assumed that they were to go off and he didn’t have the sort of conviction to go, no, no, they’re mine.
I want ’em repaired. So he just kind of went along with it and had his glasses merely shipped off to the other side of the world. But it says so much about that kind of utterly. You know, self-deprecating, not wanting to put his foot down or, or
anything. But there were so many brilliant, witty kind of quick turns of, of phrase as one other very quickly, which is just a genius bit of word play where again, a tennis student, there’s such rare examples of him ever saying anything slightly negative about people.
But a tennis solo, a tennis XPhone player taking really long solos at Banff. And he said to one of the others, geez, he takes chorus after chorus. Each one better than the next is isn’t. Isn’t that incredible? What a brilliant, [01:35:00] like the
penny
drops
JOHN SNELL: it’s like, it’s like the Yogi Berra of jazz,
NICK SMART: e.
JOHN SNELL: know? Yeah. Oh man. I love it. Well, I thank you for sharing the stories. Thank you again for the book. Uh, we’ll have all the links and what a, what a fun conversation. again, my honor, having both of you guys on
NICK SMART: Well, a huge thanks to you, John, and, and the whole team and all you are doing for our trumpet community with this fantastic podcast. So it’s a great honor for us. So many thanks.
BRIAN SHAW: Absolutely. Thank you so much, John. It’s been a lot of fun.
JOHN SNELL: my pleasure and I can’t wait to talk to each of you individually coming in a, a future episode.
NICK SMART: looking
forward to that.
JOHN SNELL: What an incredible conversation, uh, and a huge thank you to Brian and Nick for their time and energy and hilarious stories, and for leading the conversation on, Kenny’s life and their fabulous book. I hope if you, you’re interested by some of those stories, uh, you’ll, click the links below in the description or the show notes, [01:36:00] or Google, the book.
Um. The, uh, song for someone cause there’s tons of more stories in history. As, as you could hear in the conversation, the amount of research and interviews that, they went through to distill down into their book, uh, is absolutely fabulous. And, uh, again, the huge honor that they would, uh, carry on, Kenny’s legacy.
and the bonus is they’re gonna do their own interviews ’cause, uh, both, Nick and Brian are fabulous musicians with fascinating careers in their own right, and so I’m looking forward to talking to them each individually here in the near future. So you can look for that, coming up. Another reason to hit that subscribe button so you don’t miss their conversations.
Um. And also in the show notes, uh, below, we’ll have the links. I know we talked about a lot of recordings. we will, uh, try to condense those down so you can click right through and hear some of those albums, especially at the end, that they were, uh, referencing. So, it’s, it’s funny, uh, you know, I, I listened to Kenny back when I was, uh, huge jazz head, in high school and college, and he was [01:37:00] in regular rotation, but I didn’t know much about him.
I just had a few albums in my collection and, uh, You know, long story short, I’ve been listening to a lot more jazz recently, and, uh, when I knew I was gonna do this interview, unfortunately I didn’t have time to read the book. I would’ve loved to had that kind of breadth and research, uh, behind my interview.
But, uh, you know, honestly, I wasn’t able to, uh, get that done. Uh, nonetheless. Again, thank you to Brian and Nick for, uh, uh, leading me through the interview, so to speak. But I am, uh, I have ordered the book and I will be an expert on Kenny Wheeler for the next, uh, volume two. Um, but besides the point, I’ve been doing a lot of listening to Kenny, though, especially the last week, uh, since then, I knew I was gonna do this interview and holy cow, I mean, I’ve, I’ve been missing a lot.
First of all, going into some of his other albums that weren’t the. More seminal ones, but just the breadth of playing and the composition and the musicality. Um, so, uh, have fun. I may be preaching to the choir. Maybe you guys, everyone listening [01:38:00] might say, oh yeah, we know Kenny. We listen to him all the time.
Um, but you know, there’s so many great trumpet players out there, and especially jazz trumpet players. Uh, sometimes people like Kenny get overlooked. So do yourself a favor. Click on those links. Have some fun listening, and, uh, there’s a lot of gems in his, uh, discography. So, uh, that’s all I have for today.
We have some great interviews coming up. As matter of fact, I’m gonna be, uh, doing a follow up interview with Dan Rosenbaum. Uh, I think that’ll be the next interview here. you know, we’ll be talking about more about his, uh, commissioned work, uh, that will be premiering in May. And, uh, we have some other fun, fun surprises.
So, our comments and our likes and subscribe have gone up. So me, uh, hounding on you guys, listeners, uh, has been working. So keep it going. Add a comment, what did you like about the interview? Uh, what didn’t you like, but be kind. and, uh, what are your suggestions? What are your thoughts? And, uh, add them into the comments, especially on YouTube, feed, that algorithm.
And until next [01:39:00] time. Let’s go out and make some music.
