Nov 19, 2024 12:57 PM
In Memoriam: Roy Haynes, 1925–2024
Powerhouse jazz drummer and bandleader Roy Haynes died Tuesday in Nassau County, New York. He was 99. One of the few…
“I’m a composer who needs a deadline and a project — a recording or a gig — to really start actively writing,” says Ryan Keberle.
(Photo: Anna Tatskevich)The remarkably productive, restlessly creative trombonist, keyboardist, composer and educator Ryan Keberle recently dropped two separate releases (his 15th and 16th as a leader) on two different labels in the span of just a few weeks. And while there is some overlap between the 44-year-old’s superb octet project (Bright Moments on Posi-Tone Records) and his fifth outing with the indie-jazz quartet Ryan Keberle & Catharsis (Music Is Connection on Alternate Side Records), each showcases different aspects of his profound musicality.
“I feel like being a jazz composer is just as much about taking advantage of the bands and the projects and the individuals in your compositional process as it is putting notes on the page,” said Keberle. “For me, that’s one of the things that makes Duke and Mingus so unbelievably special. And I do think there is a segment of the jazz world that has kind of either lost sight of that or maybe just no longer cares for that tradition. But for me, a huge part of being a jazz composer is how to take advantage of the people that you’re lucky enough to play with. Notes on the page, that’s only half the equation.”
An accomplished arranger, Keberle has learned from a whole string of mentors who have helped shape his vocabulary, from Rufus Reid, Toshiko Akiyoshi and David Berger early on in his career to Maria Schneider, whose orchestra he has played in full-time for 18 years. He’s also been a longstanding member of Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society and Ryan Truesdell’s Gil Evans Centennial Project and learned invaluable lessons in each setting. “Darcy’s process couldn’t be more different from Maria’s and Ryan’s,” said Keberle, who grew up in Spokane, Washington, lived in New York City for 21 years and currently resides in the Catskills Mountains, about 130 miles north of Manhattan. “And that’s what’s fun about working with all of them. And of course, there’s really important things to learn from each of those genius composers and arrangers.”
Keberle is currently juggling four bands as a leader that tend to overlap at times. Aside from Catharsis and his brass octet, there’s his MPB-influenced Collectiv do Brasil and his chamber-jazz trio Reverso. Aspects of all those bands come together on his recent octet release, Bright Moments, which finds him repurposing past compositions for five wind instruments — trumpeter Alex Norris, saxophonist-flutist Patrick Cornelius, tenor saxophonist-flutist Diego Rivera, Keberle on trombone and fellow trombonist and college chum Michael Dease (both of whom shared top honors in DB’s 2024 Critics Poll) playing strictly baritone saxophone. Pianist Art Hirhara, bassist Boris Kozlov and drummer Rudy Royston comprise the flexible rhythm section.
The swinging opener, “Quintessence,” an Ivan Lins tribute originally written for Catharsis’ 2016 album, Azul Infinito, showcases the contrapuntal nature of Keberle’s writing and arranging style while also highlighting the leader’s golden tone and daring improvisational instincts as primary soloist. “Stillness Within” (from Reverso’s 2022 album, Harmonic Alchemy) is reimagined as a melancholy-tinged number with lots of group interplay before building to a swirling crescendo. The dirge-like fugue “All Ears” (from Reverso’s 2016 album, Suite Ravel) and the beautiful ballad “Sisters of Mine” (from Reverso’s 2018 outing, The Melodic Line) also get the richly-appointed brass band treatment here.
“Edu,” a Keberle original inspired by Brazilian composer Edu Lobo that appeared on Collectiv do Brasil’s 2022 album, Considerando, is also fleshed out here, as is an ambitious three-part suite of tunes based on Langston Hughes’ politically charged poem from 1935, “Let America Be America Again” (a 2018 Chamber Music America commission that originally appeared on the 2019 Catharsis album The Hope I Hold).
Another repurposed number, the melancholy “When I’m Away,” originally appeared on Keberle’s 2007 debut as a leader, Double Quartet, which included fellow trombonist (and Alternate Side Records label mate) Marshall Gilkes along with trumpeter Mike Rodriguez, a charter member of Catharsis. “That album also had tuba and French horn,” he recalled, “so I was already kind of hinting at my love for Gil Evans on that one.”
The lone Keberle composition on Bright Moments that hadn’t previously been recorded is “To Be and Not to Do,” a challenging piece that was originally commissioned by the Belgian trombone ensemble Crossbones. “They had reached out to me over the pandemic to write some original music,” he recalled, “and at the time I really wasn’t writing much. I’m a composer who needs a deadline and a project — a recording or a gig — to really start actively writing. And so I jumped at the opportunity. Listening to that song now, it’s probably one of the more frenetic and melodically active songs that I’ve ever written. I think it reflects a lot of pent-up musical and creative energy that I just hadn’t been able to tap into or let loose.”
For Keberle, juggling his compositions across four different bands is not a matter of compartmentalizing as much as it is about re-imagining each in a new suit of clothes. “I do compartmentalize the compositional and the arranging processes,” he said. “The compositional process is music born from some kind of creative state of flow, if you will. And then the arranging process is how do you take these musical ideas and adapt them to any specific band or personality. And I’ve been so lucky to get to work with incredible composers, but also incredible arrangers. For instance, just playing in the Gil Evans project for the last 15 years, where every single concert is like getting a lifetime worth of lessons on arranging and orchestration, is a gift. To me, that process is almost as rewarding as the compositional process. That’s another thing that I like about revisiting works is it allows me to flex my arranger’s muscles, as opposed to just always focusing on coming up with new original compositions.”
On Music Is Connection, Keberle and his Catharsis crew (Camila Meza on guitar and vocals, Jorge Roeder on acoustic bass, Eric Doob on drums) revisit “Key Adjustment,” a tune they had previous recorded on their 2013 debut album, Music Is Emotion. Like many of the tunes on the new album, it showcases Kerberle’s use of intricate unison and harmony lines between voice, guitar and trombone. “It’s an unexplored sound for me,” he said. “And even though I’ve been working with Camila for almost a decade, she did vocals only on her first two Catharsis albums (2014’s Into the Zone and 2016’s Azul Infinito), mainly because the band originally was chordless. That was the hallmark sound of the band in its early years. But Camila’s just such an incredible player that it made sense to involve her guitar on the next two recordings (2017’s Find the Common, Shine a Light and 2019’s The Hope I Hold). She has so much to say on the guitar that we started leaning more and more into it.”
Meza’s guitar presence is prominent throughout Music Is Connection, whether she’s comping and arpeggiating or providing some slightly distortion-laced solos on “Throwback Moves,” “Shine” and “Hammersparks.” It’s a different quality from the cleaner, almost Jim Hall-like sound of her own previous outings as a leader. The guitarist also delivers some moving vocal performances on “Lo Único Que Tango,” a tune by iconic Chilean singer-songwriter Victor Jara that she recorded on her 2013 album, Prisma, as well as on a soulful reading of Milton Nascimento’s “Vera Cruz.”
And though Keberle’s considerable trombone chops may be prominently featured, his keyboard comping (on Wurlitzer electric piano) throughout Music Is Connection is key. “I feel totally comfortable and at home playing keyboard but I would never call myself a jazz pianist, because that’s not something that I actively studied or practiced,” he said. “Jazz piano is mainly about the improvised solos on the instrument, and that’s not something that I would do. There’s thousands of people out there doing it at such a high level that I don’t feel like I have something to contribute there. But I do genuinely feel like I have something to contribute as an accompanist and as a comping device. That’s what this album’s all about. It’s about communicating. And as an accompanying is an idealistic form of communication.” DB
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