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or his 18th leader date since 1987, the 56-year-old
trumpeter assembled a sextet consisting of four
over-60 masters—Gary Bartz on alto and soprano
saxophone, Patrice Rushen on piano, Buster
Williams on bass and Lenny White on drums—and
wunderkind Ben Solomon on tenor and soprano saxophone.
Over the course of nine tunes, Roney and company
improvise fluently and passionately on vocabulary
and syntax postulated in the trailblazing 1960s recordings
of John Coltrane, Miles Davis and such Davis
alumni as Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock and Tony
Williams, generating the go-for-broke attitude that
defined the era. Roney’s intensely melodic solos have an
architectural, inevitable quality, but close listening
reveals the instant decisions he makes in mapping out
his well-designed routes.
“They were my band from 1998 to 2001, but we
never recorded,” Roney said, referring to Bartz, Rushen,
Williams and White. “That’s why we did this. We got
together for two days, pulled out some tunes, reacted
and responded to each other, and goaded each other to
play better.”
Roney reflected on the sessions for A Place In Time
while seated in the dressing room of New York’s Blue
Note on Oct. 26, before a soundcheck for night one of
Chick Corea’s “For Miles” engagement with saxophonist
Kenny Garrett, guitarist Mike Stern, bassist Marcus
Miller and drummer Brian Blade.
Regarding the title of the new album, Roney said, “It
could mean a place in time when only innovation mattered
and what was being said was more important than
the instruments involved. All of them lived it. They play
this thing nobody else can play, and can’t express it
with anyone else because no one understands it. They
are innovative musicians. Everybody brings something
to the table, and we all shape everybody’s music. That’s
what Miles did.”
A Place In Time marks a point of departure from the
last three of Roney’s six prior dates for HighNote, his
label since 2004. On those albums, he emulated Art
Blakey, his frequent ’80s employer, by hiring less experienced
aspirants.
“Sometimes younger guys aren’t as up on things as
you’d like,” Roney said, without naming names. “You
teach them, they play with other people, and when they
come back, they forget instead of utilizing it when you
start to go for it. You want the time to be more elastic.
They’re playing licks they heard but don’t understand
how to expand on. They don’t know different ways to
play a chord, or reinvent or substitute that chord, or how
to make something go a certain way melodically.”
Despite such frustrations, Roney remains open to
collaborating with younger players who have a strong
work eithic and an open mind.
“Sometimes you wish the music would go forward,
not backward,” he said. “I want them to understand
that music didn’t stop in 1960, and it isn’t beginning in
2016. Kamasi Washington is not Coltrane. Coltrane is
50 years ago. Who’s more advanced? You’ve got to learn
the most innovative things. If you can’t do them, you’re
not in the ballpark. Learn why Trane and Wayne were
able to do what they did, and be able to do it. Understand
what Ornette [Coleman] was playing, or Herbie and
John McLaughlin and Tony and Elvin [Jones]. Those
are the high-water marks. Then use your creativity, and
see if you can add to it. Not just some pentatonics or
false fingers, but the idea of that type of virtuosity and
spirituality, the merging of mind and spirit, time and
universe. This music is hard. People who want to play it
on that level of communication and telepathy have to do
a lot of studying. It’s a never-ending process.”
Roney has practiced what he preaches. As a child in
north Philadelphia during the ’60s, he associated jazz
with his father’s social circle, who “were into social rights
and civil rights and Nation of Islam—trying to enlighten
and lift themselves. … Jazz was a music of intelligence.”
He was already playing trumpet and listening to his
father’s records at age 5 or 6 when Davis entered his
consciousness. “I could hear Miles was reaching for
something,” Roney said. “He was my idol.” He heard,
dug and assimilated Lee Morgan, Blue Mitchell, Kenny
Dorham and Clifford Brown. “My father would tell me
he thought Clifford was better than Miles, and we’d
argue. Matter of fact, I was so mad, I asked Clark Terry
about it. Clark gave me the best answer. ‘It’s like apples
and oranges: They’re both good.’”
Roney had moved with his father to Washington,
D.C., when he introduced himself to Terry after a set at
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