Jazz saxophonist finding ways to stretch
Sunday, February 18, 2007
By William R. Wood
Kalamazoo patrons will see jazz saxophonist Chris Potter focused and fully primed only a week after he records a live CD.
The 2000 Grammy nominee will perform much of the same material to be included on the CD on Wednesday at Kalamazoo Valley Community College. He was scheduled to record his performances at New York's Village Vanguard in New York City last week, he said by phone recently from his Manhattan home.
The music to be on the new CD will be a continuation of the material Potter recorded in his 2006 CD ``Underground.'' That music sets hip-hop rhythms within an interactive jazz aesthetic in which ideas form organically, Potter said.
The instrumentation of his band is also uncommon -- guitar, Fender Rhodes, drums and tenor sax. Such a combination of instruments usually includes a bass.
The band, with Wayne Krantz on guitar, Craig Taborn on Fender Rhodes and Nate Smith on drums, has been performing together for about three years.
``I'm trying to find ways to stretch using this language,'' said Potter about his band's playing format. ``I think that my conception of how to write for the band has grown.
There's only so much you can plan in advance. Once you do a bunch of gigs, things grow and you see what works better and what doesn't work as well, and I think the band has grown since that CD (`Underground'). The new CD will show where it has come since then.''
Potter is being brought to KVCC by the college's 20-year-old Artists Forum, which has brought such illustrious stars as Shirley Horn, Joshua Redman, Chucho Valdes and the Afro-Cuban All-stars.
Potter, 36, recently ended an 18-concert tour of Ireland, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Switzerland and the Netherlands. That might sound like an adventure to most, but Potter will be the first to admit the tour was about going where there was work.
Nothing is guaranteed to musicians, especially jazz musicians, since jazz is not very important to the majority of the public, he said.
Early in his career, Potter realized that if he wanted to play jazz, he had to be committed to the idea that he may never be successful at it. But he was determined to play for a living, and fortunately, a certain amount of fame flowed his way.
Potter graduated from high school in 1989, a big year for the saxophonist. He was named a Presidential Scholar for academic and musical excellence, received the Hennessy Jazz Search scholarship, was voted America's top high school jazz instrumentalist by Down Beat magazine, and received a Zoot Sims scholarship to study jazz at the New School for Social Research in New York City.
Now he admits that moving to New York from his native Columbia, Mo., establishing a career and finding his way in the business was harder than he thought it would be.
But that road led him to play with such top musicians as Dave Douglas, Dave Holland, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen of Steely Dan.
Potter performed on Steely Dan's Grammy-nominated, gold album ``Two Against Nature'' and toured with them in 1994. He got his own Grammy nomination in 2000 for Best Instrumental Jazz Solo for his work on ``In Vogue,'' on Joanne Brackeen's album ``Pink Elephant Magic.''
But Potter values most of all the four years he spent with bebop legend Red Rodney until shortly before Rodney's death in 1994. That was the first band he belonged to when he came to New York, and he feels lucky to have played with someone who played with Charlie Parker.
Potter fell in love with Parker's music when he was a boy and believes Parker's style forms the base of his style.
``To sit with someone who learned directly from Bird (Parker) helped me get to those things that were beautiful in Bird's music,'' Potter said.
Concert
Chris Potter -- 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Lake Auditorium, Kalamazoo Valley Community College, 6767 West O Ave. $15, or $10 students with ID. 488-4030.
http://www.mlive.com/entertainment/k...140.xml&coll=7
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