Ralph Peterson 35th Annual Student Music Awards - Downbeat

Players �
tom Kennedy
It’s All Swing
Tom Kennedy opens his third album as a
leader, Just For The Record, by running his
electric bass in dizzying circles around Dave
Weckl’s bouncy drums. “Breakneck” is a short,
bubbly exercise in speed, the musicians playfully
sparring with their instruments. It showcases
Kennedy’s prodigious abilities, but also
highlights the friendships and strong musical
relationships that have defined his career.
Weckl and Kennedy first met at a summer
camp in 1975 when they were both high-school
freshmen. Another childhood friend, Jay Oliver,
splits keyboard duties on the album with Charles
Blenzig. The session’s guitarist, the iconic Mike
Stern, is a newer acquaintance who has nonetheless
counted Kennedy as a musical ally for years.
These associations, both new and old, are an
inexorable part of music-making that Kennedy
views counterintuitively as a way to keep his
music sounding new. The musicians on his latest
disc have performed in varied configurations
countless times, but they don’t find themselves
navigating the same ideas or re-treading
tired territory.
“It’s fresh, and I can count on it at the same
time,” Kennedy says, his demeanor echoing
the unbridled energy in his bass playing. “It’s
not about being old or stale. I base my favorite
musical relationships with people who keep it
new—that are always advancing, trying different
things.”
Weckl counts the relative easy of recording
as one of the benefits of musical kinship with
Kennedy. When laying down tracks on Just
For The Record, the two didn’t have to navigate
through a belabored setup of the music and
instead simply started playing. “When you’ve
spent so much time listening, talking and playing
together, it all just happens so much quicker,”
Weckl says. “[Friendship] generally adds to
the overall vibe—unless there’s a spat going on!”
As a bassist, Kennedy has spent a lot of time
playing for other people. He spent three years
backing up guitarist Al Di Meola, and lately he’s
been working with Stern and Lee Ritenour’s
bands. Kennedy is so busy, in fact, that it’s hard to
catch him at a hometown gig in New York City.
This frenzied work schedule was developed by
expanding his circle of friends and never burning
a bridge. “So much of it in this business is
about networking—just knowing as many players
as you can in as many parts of the world as
you can,” he says.
Kennedy plays electric bass on his latest
recording, but in his mind, electric and acoustic
are almost interchangeable. During a hectic
week spent backing numerous all-star groups
22 DoWNBEAt JUNE 2012
and serving in the house rhythm section on the
2012 Jazz Cruise in early February, Kennedy
never played staid walking patterns on his acoustic
bass. He injected his own carefree style into
each accompaniment, creating musical lines that
bounded up and down the neck.
Playing both electric and acoustic has helped
inform his approach to jazz, he says. This manifests
itself in his walking bass playing on electric,
which is derived directly from his experience
on the acoustic instrument. As he was
playing acoustic on the cruise, many of his solos
sounded as if they were first mapped out on an
electric fretboard. The bassist has no preference
as to which instrument he’d rather use on any
given day; it simply depends on his mood and the
demands of the individual session.
“Usually when I’m playing one type of
thing, I long for the other, which is normal. I
love the feeling of an acoustic hard swing when
you’re playing a straightahead kind of thing, as
well as a real intense fusion groove or a funky
kind of thing [on the electric],” he says. “It’s all
swing to me.”
Kennedy first glimpsed the acoustic bass at
age 8, when his older brother lugged the instrument
home from school band practice. His
attraction to the bass’s resonance was immediate
and unrelenting. A decade later, Kennedy
became just as fascinated by the electric when
a patron tested out an instrument at his father’s
music shop. Ever since, he’s been performing
double duty in a range of musical contexts.
His next project, in fact, will be on the
upright, he says. Since Just For The Record is an
electric album, he wants to balance out his catalog
with a collection of swing tunes on acoustic
bass. Additionally, Kennedy is considering putting
a touring band together.
Kennedy’s childhood connections, mixed
with newer professional allegiances, mean that
the bassist is busier than ever. In fact, even in this
down economy, he thinks there’s more demand
for musicians in general, and he’s found himself
working more often. And when the next gig
comes, chances are Kennedy will have a solid
relationship with at least one of the members of
the band. —Jon Ross