3 Days In Evansville was recorded in drummer Brian Kushmaul’s living room.  His house was ideal in that it had a large open space where the band could set up and hear each other, and the room sounded great?  It was also the central location between where the musicians lived: Evansville, Nashville, Indianapolis, and Henderson, KY. Over the course of several years, the band had been meeting to perform and practice for different engagements, so recording became the end result, not the impetus.  All too often, musicians are put in the studio to record, and then tour to support the recording.  Jazz should be recorded just the opposite way.  The tour should come first, giving the musicians a chance to become a true unified group, to learn the music and explore it to its fullest, and THEN document the end result when the music is at its creative height.  Central Standard Time recorded 25-30 songs over three days, and most of the record comes from the final day of recording.

Jeffrey Scot Wills - Tenor Saxophone

Pat McCormick - Piano

John Huber - Bass

Brian Kushmaul - Drums

(continued from notes on  CST page)

Most standard tunes are popular songs from long ago. The really early ones, like “When the Saints Go Marching In,” come from the 19th century. Others come from Broadway musicals and Hollywood movies, starting in the 1920s and going through the 1940s or even a little later. Composers like George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and Richard Rogers wrote a lot of them.

Jazz musicians started playing standards because audiences recognized them from the radio, and everybody liked to hear their favorite tunes performed live. For live performances, jazz musicians would arrange the tunes differently, and they’d also improvise. They’d start with the melody of the piece, and then they’d use the harmonies (chords) to invent their own melodies right there on stage. Pretty soon, people would be listening to their favorite tunes just to hear what a creative soloist would do. Jazz musicians also wrote their own music, and some of these tunes (like “Groove Merchant” and “This I Dig of You” on this CD) became standards too.

Creative musicians playing familiar tunes: that’s the tradition that Central Standard Time is part of. The tradition is so powerful that these four musicians, who know it well, can make a CD even though they’d never all played together before. It worked because they’ve all listened to a lot of jazz, and when they got together they played songs they knew, listened to each other, and made it all fit.

Even if you’ve never heard the tunes before, you can learn some of them on this CD. On each track, the tenor sax plays the melody at the beginning, and then the four musicians trade solos — usually sax and piano, and sometimes bass and drums.

To find the beat, listen to John Huber playing bass. A lot of the time, he’s walking — playing straight quarter notes, thloom thloom thloom thloom — but sometimes he switches things around, like adding grace notes or taking a rest, or changing the rhythm a little. Each time he changes, the mood of the tune changes a little. A good tune to hear this is “Stella by Starlight,” where John and Jeffrey play the sound of a late night with something mysterious happening. John has a short solo, which he starts by repeating the melody before launching into his own ideas.

On drums, Brian Kushmaul adds color and flavor to each tune. Listen to him on “Autumn Leaves” and “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” where he uses brushes instead of sticks. It’s easy to hear him answering the ideas of the other players, like he’s having a conversation. He does that with sticks too, adding accents where they sound good, and helping the bass drive the beat along. On “This I Dig of You,” Brian “trades fours” (alternating solos of four bars each) with Jeffrey — in jazz, this is a popular way of letting the drummer show off a little. Enjoy the fireworks…and don’t forget to listen to the little hi-hat cymbal tapping the off-beat (2 and 4 in every measure).

Pat McCormick plays piano, and he and Jeffrey complement each other. Jeffrey has a full, rich, aggressive sound; Pat has a lighter touch, but he’s playing just as hard. He excels at the two-handed swing style of piano playing, but he can also play the fast, one-handed bop style, and he mixes the two styles beautifully. If you listen to his solo on “Just Squeeze Me,” you’ll hear what I mean. I love his solo on “It’s You or No One” too; he swings incredibly. To hear piano and tenor sax really chase each other around, listen to “Blues Up and Down.” It’s an example of the cutting contest, another jazz tradition, where musicians compete with each other (even though they’re cooperating too).

Jeffrey Scot Wills plays a lot of great solos on this CD, but my favorite is on “This I Dig of You” — he covers so much of the instrument’s range, and there’s always something happening. It sounds like there’s a lot of freedom in his playing, and that’s important in jazz. He plays a more precise, technically polished kind of solo on “Speak Low.” Which kind of solo is better? Who cares? If it fits the music and it sounds good, it is good.

The point of Central Standard Time is to introduce people to jazz. If you like what you hear, go to the jazz section of a library or record store, and just listen. Some of the music will sound like this CD. Other CDs will sound old-fashioned at first; some will sound just weird. But if you’re open to it, most jazz has something to give you. Just listen. A lot. Before long, jazz will start to tell you its secrets.

Erik Schwab

****

What’s Blue Note?

“The whole idea behind this recording,” Jeffrey says, “was to get something like a Blue Note record from that classic period.” He’s talking about the record label Blue Note (www.bluenote.com), which released a lot of great jazz recordings between the late 1950s and late 1960s, by great musicians on different instruments:

trumpet: Lee Morgan, Kenny Dorham, Freddie Hubbard

trombone: J. J. Johnson, Curtis Fuller

tenor sax: Dexter Gordon, John Coltrane, Hank Mobley, Wayne Shorter

alto sax: Cannonball Adderley, Jackie McLean

piano: Bud Powell, Horace Silver, Herbie Hancock

drums: Art Blakey

guitar: Grant Green

(I didn’t forget bass! You can hear great bass playing on any Blue Note recording.)

****

About the tunes

All of the songs on this CD except one have been recorded many times before, by some of the greatest jazz musicians ever. If you want to hear more jazz, you could start by listening to some of the recordings that have inspired Central Standard Time. (Names of recordings are in italics.)

Blues Up and Down: Normally a “tenor battle,” with two tenor saxophones trading solos. The tune was made famous by the great tenor team of Sonny Stitt and Gene Ammons (Boss Tenors), and later played by Dexter Gordon and Johnny Griffin (Live at Carnegie Hall).

Autumn Leaves: Many people have recorded this song. Jeffrey prefers the version by Cannonball Adderley (Somethin’ Else).

I Love You: Written by Cole Porter, one of the greatest composers of tunes that became standards. Jeffrey plays the tenor sax part the way John Coltrane did (on his album Lush Life, reissued as part of The Prestige Recordings), playing the B section an octave lower than the A section.

Stella by Starlight: Miles Davis played a classic version on The Complete Concert 1964.

Just Squeeze Me: If you like piano, listen to Earl Hines play this song (The Indispensable Earl Hines vol. 5/6).

On Green Dolphin Street: Jeffrey arranged this tune, explaining “we tried to modernize it somewhat by letting it be over a vamp, then going into the swinging section playing through the changes. We chose to do it in C rather than E-flat, because I like how it sounds in C. It has a better resonance.” You can also hear it performed by Sonny Rollins (On Impulse).

Groove Merchant: A more modern standard. There’s a great version of it by the Thad Jones–Mel Lewis Orchestra (Swiss Radio Days Jazz Series Vol. 4).

How High the Moon: “Everybody plays this, but they often just play a contrafact on it,” explains Jeffrey. A contrafact is a new song that uses the chord changes of an old song; a lot of songs use the same changes as “How High the Moon.” The guys in Central Standard Time decided to just play the original. You can also hear Charlie Parker and the Modern Jazz Quartet play it on Cool & Blue.

This I Dig of You: Written by tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley (Soul Station). “I dig tunes that vamp or have pedal point in them (a single note repeated by the bass while chords are changing). “There’s a lot of that on this CD.” Other examples are “I Love You” and “On Green Dolphin Street.”

Speak Low: Written by Kurt Weill (who also wrote “Mack the Knife”), this song is also performed by pianist McCoy Tyner (Inception).

It’s Only a Paper Moon: Another very popular song, “Paper Moon” was recorded in 1951 by Miles Davis (Dig). There’s also an excellent modern version by pianist Geoff Keezer (World Music).

Who’s Talking Now?: Jeffrey wrote this tune, so you won’t find it on another recording. He says he was inspired by the Adderley Brothers (saxophonist Cannonball and trumpeter/cornetist Nat), who recorded “Still Talkin’ To Ya” on their recording Presenting Cannonball (sometimes called Bohemia After Dark).

It’s You Or No One: If you ever watch an old musical film called Romance on the High Seas, you’ll hear this song. Or you could listen to Dexter Gordon playing it (Doin’ Allright).

3 Days In Evansville is dedicated to the late Pat McCormick.  A brilliant musician, an incredible pianist, and most of all a beautiful person.

RETURN TO THE MUSIC PAGE TO ORDER CD’s

3 Days In Evansville