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After emphasizing standards throughout much of his career, Alan Broadbent spotlights his own compositions with Personal Standards (CCD-4757-2). A trio effort employing bassist Putter Smith and drummer Joe Labarbera, Personal Standards marks the first time the pianist/arranger--known for his work with everyone from Natalie Cole to Woody Herman to Charlie Haden--has recorded his own music exclusively.
"I chose these particular songs because most of them had not been recorded before," the 49-year old Broadbent explains. "The ones that sort of got stuck by the wayside, I decided to put on this CD. All of these songs had been in my repertoire, but I didn't get around to recording most of them until now."
But while this intimate CD is a departure for Broadbent in that it contains no popular standards at all, Personal Standards is state-of-the-art Broadbent in that his playing is characteristically lyri-cal, warm and melodic. Front the poignant "Every Time I Think Of You" to the moving "Song Of Home" (which he first recorded in 1984) to "Consolation" (a blues inspired by Johnny Carisi's "Israel"), Broadbent chooses meaningful lyricism Over exhibitionism. Although this music con-tains intellectual elements, Broadbent isn't one to beat listeners over the bead with abstraction. Influenced by such romantics of the piano as Nat "King" Cole, Wynton Kelly, Red Garland and Tommy Flanagan, the distinctive Broadbent is a storyteller first and foremost,
"To me, communication is what it's about--not pyrotechnics," Broadbent stresses. "I've always tried to really sing on the piano. I think that most of the great improvisers, from Charlie Parker to Red Garland, had the quality of the human voice. If I can bear an intelligent musical mind at work, so much the better, But I want to bear some heart to go with it. When the technical aspects and the heart are in the same place and on the same level, you have musical ecstasy. Perhaps the reason I've been successful accompanying singers and writing for orchestras is because I strive for that quality of the human voice.'
Broadbent was first given the opportunity to work with a major orchestra when Woody Herman hired him as a writer, arranger and soloist in 1969--only three years after he had moved to Boston from his native New Zealand to study at the prestigious Berklee College of Music. After spending three years touring and recording with Herman, he settled in Los Angeles in 1972 and went on to work as a sideman for trumpeter Chet Baker, tenor saxophonists Warne Marsh and Gary Foster and the late singer Irene Kral. The 1990s found him working with everyone from alto saxman Bud Shank to the great arranger Nelson Riddle.
Broadbent first recorded under his own name in 1981, when the small Revelation Records released Continuity, a duet with Putter Smith. As a leader and trio pianist, he recorded two albums for the New Zealand based Kiwi Pacific label--Song of Home in 1984 and Further Down The Road in 1986--before signing with Discovery Records and recording such trio albums as Everything I Love and Away From You.
The 1990s saw the beginning of Broadbent's associations with Natalie Cole and bassist Charlie Haden's Quartet West--a unique L.A. -based band uniting Haden and Broadbent with tenor saxo-phonist Ernie Watts and veteran drummer Larance Marable. In contrast to Haden's adventures in avant-garde jazz, the very "inside" and standards-oriented Quartet West has celebrated American pre-rock culture by including brief excerpts of music and films from 1930s and 40s films along-side its interpretations of standards. With Quartet West, one can bear excerpts from a Humphrey Bogart film or a Jo Stafford performance between either standards or Broadbent's own composi-tions.
"Quartet West was based on Charlie Haden's concept of film noir, which was right up my alley," Broadbent asserts. "As the group evolved, it was able to utilize more and more of my romanti-cism--which I think has helped to shape its sound." When Natalie Cole made the transition from R&B/pop music to jazz-influenced pre-rock pop with 1991's five million-selling Unforgettable With Love, Broadbent was among those employed as a sideman. The album's engineer, Al Schmidt, felt that Broadbent should play a greater role on Cole's albums, and he later did extensive arranging on her albums Take A Look, Holly And Ivy and most recently, Stardust.
Broadbent recalls: "Al knew me from my Woody Herman days, and he told Natalie and the pro-ducer Andre Fischer, If you like the way he plays, you should bear the way he writes.' So in 1992, Andre hired me to write some charts for a Diane Schuur album, In Tribute. Those were my first charts I'd done for a big band since I was with Woody."
"I never thought I'd be doing arrangements of standards again," he adds. "In the days of Nelson Riddle and Gordon Jenkins, it wasn't uncommon for singers to use orchestral arrangements all the time. But now, the opportunities aren't there--which is why the albums Natalie is doing are great for musicians."
The 1990s have also found Broadbent featured as a sidemen on albums by improvisers ranging from guitarist Lee Ritenour (Wes Bound) to harmonica player Toots Thielemans (East Coast, West Coast) to clarinetist/tenor saxman Eddie Daniels (The Five Seasons). Broadbent's association with Concord Jazz has so far resulted in his handling elaborate orchestral arrangements for singer Mel Torme (A Tribute To Bing Crosby in 1994), tenor saxophonist Scott Hamilton (Scott Hamilton With Strings in 1994) and most recently, fellow pianist Marian McPartland (Silent Pool). His own Concord albums have included the 1995 trio date Pacific Standard Time; a duo with Gary Foster (Concord Duo Series, Vol. 4: Alan BroadbentIGary Foster); a 1980 outing co-starring Bud Shank and Bill Mays (Crystal Comments) and an unaccompanied solo-piano offering for the label's extensive Live At Maybeck Recital Hall series.
"The thing I love about playing jazz is that it's a lifelong process," Broadbent comments. "It's a process of continued growth. To me, jazz is the art form that's dedicated to reaching people emo-tionally and making sense out of the chaos that surrounds us, and I feel fortunate to have been a part of it all this time."
Courtesy from
http://www.opendoormanagement.com
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