Volume 21 Issue 8 - May 2016

Africa on a State Department tour
Ernie Watts
with Oliver Nelson’s band. He
settled in Los Angeles during the
1970s, playing tenor for 20 years
in The Tonight Show Band, while
doing a lot of film and TV work and
recording with such as Steely Dan,
Frank Zappa, Carole King and many
Motown artists, including Marvin
Gaye. He joined the Rolling Stones
on a 1981 tour, also appearing in
their 1982 film Let’s Spend the
Night Together.
In the mid-80s, Watts decided
to redirect his attention to jazz, his
original musical interest since he
was 14 and heard John Coltrane
on Kind of Blue, an experience
he describes as, “It was as though
someone put my hand into a light socket.” This was greatly
aided when bassist Charlie Haden invited Watts to join
his Quartet West band in 1986, along with pianist Alan
Broadbent and drummer Billy Higgins (later replaced by
Larence Marable.) Watts recorded eight celebrated albums
with the group between 1986 and 1999 and it is this association
that he’s best known for, locally and internationally.
This year his own Flying Dolphin Records label will release
Wheel of Time, dedicated to the recently departed and
greatly missed bassist.
Watts has a big, soulful sound and a powerhouse attack
– though he can also be remarkably lyrical – and his virtuosity
never seems to get in the way of his emotional directness.
This is because he’s a very committed, very sincere
player who means every note he plays regardless of what
genre or setting he finds himself in. This sincerity is what
makes his versatility successful and is to be expected from a longtime
colleague of a musician such as Charle Haden. Perhaps Watts
himself sums up his feelings about music best: he believes that it has
the power to connect all people, saying that “Music is God singing
through us.”
Trumpeter Brad Goode hails from Chicago and is a generation
younger than Watts, but shares the saxophonist’s diverse approach to
the jazz tradition. He began playing trumpet when he was ten, eventually
studying with the great Ellington lead-player, Cat Anderson, and
falling under the influence of Dizzy Gillespie and other bebop greats.
A neighbour who knew Gillespie took Goode to meet his hero who
took one look at Goode’s diminutive stature and red hair and immediately
dubbed him “Little Red Rodney.”
Rodney in fact became one of Goode’s musical mentors in Chicago,
along with such Windy City stalwarts as Jodie Christian, Eddie Harris,
Von Freeman, Ira Sullivan, Eddie DeHaas and others. Goode had the
opportunity to play in Chicago house bands, thrown into the front
line alongside headliners such as Lee Konitz, Pepper Adams, Jimmy
Heath, Joe Henderson and many more. Goode suffered a serious lip
injury in 2001 and as part of the arduous process of overcoming this
he decided to develop his lead trumpet skills as well as delving into
both free and traditional jazz; he now divides his work between lead
trumpet and jazz playing. He’s also a fine educator, with professorships
at the University of Cincinnati 1997 to 2003 and at the University
of Colorado in Boulder, from 2004 to the present.
Goode’s playing is marked by a lot of range and technique, a big,
lively sound, a wealth of ideas and stylistic openness. Essentially,
he’s a modern bebop player who sometimes finds that his musical
train of thought doesn’t always fit that style, so he steps outside of it –
I’ve heard solos by Goode that remind me of Lee Morgan and Kenny
Wheeler all at once. He’s been leading his own quartet since 2010 and
in his own words, he’s “attempting to combine my diverse influences
and experiences into a style that embraces them all.”
The connecting link between the American front line and the local
rhythm team of Neil Swainson and Terry Clarke will be Torontobased
pianist Adrean Farrugia, the only one in the quintet who
has played with all its members. His association with Goode dates
back to 2003, when the trumpeter was in Toronto to see a prominent
doctor about his lip injury and dropped around to sit in at a
Rex jam. They had an immediate connection, both musically and
personally, and resolved to stay in touch. Despite the geographical
distance, they’ve managed to do several dates a year together
in various places – Chicago, Toronto, Colorado, and they’ve played
together in vocalist Matt Dusk’s band since 2012. Farrugia’s connection
to Watts is more recent but no less deep – thanks to Goode,
they met and played a concert at the 67th Conference on World
Affairs held in Boulder during
April of 2015. In Farrugia’s
words, “My connection with
Ernie almost immediately felt
like Yoda/Luke Skywalker. He’s
a brilliant, wise and deeply
spiritual man.”
It’s fitting that Farrugia should
be the linchpin here, because not
only is he a scintillating pianist,
but also a very empathetic one;
his ears and mind are always
open. I discovered this the first
time I played with him many
years ago, on a Saturday afternoon
gig at The Pilot Tavern with
a quartet led by saxophonist
Bob Brough. For some reason
the drummer didn’t show up
Brad Goode
and there wasn’t time to call a
replacement, so we decided to
go ahead and just play as a trio.
Even on an electric keyboard,
Adrean’s playing was so rhythmically engaged and propulsive that
within a few bars of the first song I completely forgot we had no
drummer; the music felt very complete and easy.
Harry “Sweets” Edison once told me, “If I don’t have a good rhythm
section I don’t have nothin’ – I’m dead in the water.” Truer words
were seldom spoken. Earlier I wrote about the need for cohesion and
chemistry and, brilliant as the three principals here may be, they
won’t go very far without a good rhythm section. Fortunately, with
Neil Swainson playing bass and Terry Clarke on drums, this is not a
worry – together they’ve formed a powerful and flexible rhythmic
team many times. Neil has been my good friend and colleague since
moving to Toronto almost 40 years ago and as far as I’m concerned,
you could hardly do better than having him on bass, regardless of
the jazz context. The same goes for Clarke, who’s the best overall jazz
drummer Canada has produced and remains a dynamo of energy and
taste at 71. Enough said.
Rich Brown: In a nice programming touch, Rich Brown and The
Abeng will be opening the concert. Brown is one of the most musically
authoritative and interesting electric bassists working in jazz
today, combining a fat, warm sound, a lyrical and inquisitive approach
to soloing and rhythmic mastery. The band takes its name from the
African instrument made from a hollowed-out cow horn and plays
an exciting brand of groove-oriented jazz, blending African, Latin-
Caribbean and contemporary influences. The band consists of the brilliant
Kevin Turcotte on trumpet, Luis Deniz on alto saxophone, Stan
Fomin on piano and keyboards, Mark Kelso on drums and the leader
on electric bass.
This concert promises something of a musical feast which I certainly
plan to partake of and I urge others to do so as well. For more information,
visit jazz centre.ca
Steve Wallace is a veteran Toronto jazz bassist and writer. He writes
about jazz and other subjects on his blog “Steve Wallace: jazz,
baseball, life, and other ephemera” at wallacebass.com
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