Telling a story is the name of the game in jazz, and few improvisers can spin a tale with as much feeling, wit and intelligence as Gary Bartz. Usually Bartz sings them through the alto saxophone, the instrument on which he’s earned his reputation. The main man of younger alto stars like Kenny Garrett and Antonio Hart, Bartz commands the top, the middle and the bottom of the horn, blending the languages of Charlie Parker and John Coltrane, inflecting notes with a bluesman’s range of emotion.
Coltrane’s the reason why Bartz, like many saxophonists of his generation, picked up the soprano saxophone during the 1960’s. “I was inspired by the success of ‘My Favorite Things,’ and I liked the sound of it,” he recalls. “The soprano isn’t a real power instrument like the alto or tenor. It’s not as heavy. I can play more melodic — more ballady things, prettier songs. When I’m playing the soprano I think of the trumpet — especially Miles— because of the range.”
Over the years, Bartz has developed an authoritative voice on the notoriously intractable B-flat horn, projecting an immediately identifiable sound — capacious and centered —through its entire range. Up to now, he’s showcased it more in live performance than on records, spotting occasional soprano features like “If This Isn’t Love” on Episode One: Children of Harlem (Challenge) or “Miss Otis Regrets” on The Blues Chronicles: Tales of Life (Atlantic). He says, “I’ve wanted to do a soprano record for many years, but the record companies weren’t interested because they know me as an alto player. I said, ‘That’s why I want to do a soprano album!’ This is for the people who come up when I perform and ask why I don’t play more soprano — and also because I like playing it.”
As the above-cited titles indicate, Bartz conceives albums as “a musician’s version of books,” an extended drama or narrative within music. Soprano Stories is a song-feast, a tribute to Bartz’s heroes, mirroring how the soprano saxophone connected him to the rich legacy of jazz. “Trane was looking back, and he encouraged me to look back,” he states. “I discovered Sidney Bechet and the things Johnny Hodges played on soprano, and through listening to them I found the other musicians of the different eras.”
Bartz was weaned on the song-form music he interprets so naturally. Born in Baltimore e soaked up Louis Jordan’s “Saturday Night Fish Fry” and “Beware” on Sunday afternoon visits to his grandmother and on expeditions with his father to the Royal Theater [wher lack acts played when they came through town] connecting to the saxophonist’s humor, theatricality and good-time virtuosity and swing. An uncle, Sharp Bartz (“he’d go to New York, shop and come back with the slickest stuff, the latest records and stories sicians”), was into Bebop, and introduced his nephew to Charlie Parker.
“I heard Bird when I was 6,” Bartz recalls. “I didn’t know what a saxophone was, but I liked the sound, and knew right then that I wanted to play, though I didn’t get a horn until I was 11.” The young aspirant practiced to Parker records, trying “to play him note for note — if possible”; in the middle of his 78 copy of Parker’s “In The Still Of The Night” is a spot worn thin from incessantly practicing a phrase. “Every time Bird came out with a recor I was the first one at the store. Though I had a teacher, Albert Holloway, who taught me teaching and reading, I learned mostly from records. The music was in my head. I knew the chords, I knew what I wanted to do. I’d play along with Charlie Parker, Earl Bostic, and Red Prysock in the Tiny Bradshaw band, which had a lot of hits, like ‘Heavy Juice.’ was trying to sound like a tenor. I always heard tenor, even though I loved Bird.
“I’m what I call a ‘real jazz musician’ in that I started out playing by ear. I’ve never lost it. One thing I like about the soprano is that I have to transpose everything, so I can learn songs in different keys. Once I’ve learned a tune in one key, I know it and can play it in I think the most important thing in improvised music is to rely on your ear. I know my ear has never failed me, but I have seen typographical errors in the music many times.”
Of course, Bartz has more going for him than just his ears; his intuitive spontaneity is informed with the harmonic sophistication of a conservatory-trained musician (Juilliard). Bartz arrived in New York in 1958, and plunged headlong into New York’s vigorous nightlife itious fellow students like Andrew Cyrille, Grachan Moncur, Freddie Hubbard, Addison Farmer and Roland Hanna. “I went to Juilliard with the intention of learning chords,” Bartz says, “but they didn’t know what I was talking about. So I ended up learning from the musicians I met there and from hanging out at night. I arrived in New York at the tail end of the Bebop era, but there were still many clubs open and places to play.” Bartz also played many weekends between 1960 and 1965 at Baltimore’s North End Lounge, a club his parents had opened as a supreme favor to their son, who commuted weekends from New York for gigs. That’s where the talented young altoist met Art Blakey and Max Roach, his first big-time employers, who launched him on his professional career.
Down the line, Bartz became hip to Lester Young. “I had always been aware of Prez, but because I was into Bird so much when I was younger, Prez was kind of old-time to me,” he confesses. “As I studied Bird more and more, I decided I had to go back and see where he came from, and that’s when I really got into Prez, though it wasn’t until after he died — I never saw Prez play live. I heard a story that Prez would hum or sing the whole first chorus before he went into a song. Art Blakey, Miles, Dizzy, Sonny Rollins and Coleman Hawkins all knew the lyrics. By learning the lyrics, I could sing the song. That’s very important, because we are actually singers in the purest sense of the word — we don’t even use a language. We use the language of music — pitch.
“For everything I do, I get the sheet music. A lot of times what you hear on the record is someone else’s interpretation. I want to see what the composer had in mind, what the real thing is.”
With that as background, let’s address the tunes on Soprano Stories, songs whose essence Bartz feels sopranoistically. “The overriding concept,” he explains, “is the many colors of the soprano. These are songs that I play primarily on the soprano, and I wanted to document them.”
Hank Mobley wrote and recorded “Coming Back” in the ‘60s, though it was only recently released. “It’s a funk tune, and a classic for me,” Bartz enthuses. “Hank Mobley is one of our classic composers and improvisers, and I always try to include some Hank obley somewhere because he’s so important. Hank heard a song I wrote called “Blue,” and wrote a song based on it that he dedicated it to me. I never got a chance to hear it, and I haven’t found it since.”
Bartz heard Sonny Rollins’ Coleman Hawkins-inspired version of “When Your Lover Is Gone” on the 1956 classic, Tenor Madness. “You’ll notice that we played the verse,” Bartz says. “I’m very interested in verses, and collect them. This one goes, ‘For ages and ages, the poets and sages speak of love’s lost love affairs.’ Sonny was one of my earliest heroes; I used to say Sonny was the man, and then came Trane — there was such a heavy link between Bird and Sonny. When I was a teenager people said I resembled him, and I started wearing a goatee and trying to look like him for a while. Once he played two weeks at the Vanguard, and I was there every night. One night he might play all songs associated with Lester Young — ‘Three Little Words,’ ‘Tickletoe,’ ‘There Will Never Be Another You.’ Sometimes before going into his solo he’d play note-for-note Prez’ solos, a lot of which I didn’t know — hearing him play them made me want to listen to Prez even more. Another night he’d play all songs associated with Coleman Hawkins — ‘Stuffy,’ ‘Cottontail,’ ‘Body and Soul’ — and play a chorus or two of those famous recorded solos note-for-note before his own solo. Another night he’d be Sonny. Another night he’d be in a Calypso bag. He wasn’t limited. You don’t come in and play the same thing every night, or even the same way every night.”
Bartz discovered “I Wish I Knew” (“I wish I knew someone like you could love me”) from John Coltrane’s tenor version on Ballads. “I met John when I was about 14 in Baltimore, when he came through with Benny Golson in “Bull Moose” Jackson’s R&B band, and followed him ever since,” he remembers. “John’s need to learn and his will to get music out impressed me. I wanted to be a hard worker like that. John showed me that you have to put in the time. He did so much work, was such a musical scientist, left us so much information that we haven’t even tapped into one sip of it yet. I’m constantly studying what he left us. He is always with me.”
Bartz gives a nod to Miles Davis and Gil Evans with “Concierto de Arenjuez” (Sketches of Spain) and “My Ship” (Miles Ahead). Kurt Weill’s verse goes: “My ship has sails that are made of silk, the decks are paved with gold.” “Miles was my friend,” Bartz states. “I was closer to him than the rest. He was so silly, one of the funniest men I’ve ever known in my life. We used to hang out at the fights and do all kinds of stuff together. He’s my inspiration to this day, and I miss him. When I worked with him, he was as strong as he ever was, playing as well as he ever played in his life.”
Charlie Chaplin wrote “Smile” for his 1950 swan song, Limelight. “I love comedy and acting, and Charlie Chaplin was a hero,” Bartz says. “I liked Jackie McLean’s version with Kenny Dorham. I met Jackie through Grachan Moncur, and he kind of took me under his wing when I moved to New York, as did Max Roach. He was and still is a big inspiration.
“I’ve been playing ‘The Touch Of Your Lips’ since I worked at my father’s club in Baltimore. Actually, I got interested in this because Ray Noble had written Cherokee, a ng I’d learned on, so I wanted to see what it was like. I love the song, and I’ve been playing it ever since.”
Bartz took “Nobody Else But Me” from Showboat. “It changes keys about a third of the way through, and goes into an entirely different tonal area, which most songs don’t do. It was the last song Jerome Kern wrote, and he never heard it performed. Stan Getz did probably the most popular version of it.”
“I Get Along Without You Very Well” is from Billie Holiday, Lady In Satin. “I get along without you very well. Of course I do, except when soft rains fall and trickle down the pane. I get along without you very well...,” reads the verse. “You’ve got to have Lady In Satin,” Bartz remarks. “It’s like having water.”
Soprano Stories concludes with a debut performance of the title track, which Bartz wrote at the beginning of the ‘90s. He says: “It’s a loose kind of tune that can be played two different ways — the chords or the mode. It reminds me of a soprano song.”
Bartz and his band of proactive veterans impart to the music a flow that you might expect to hear during a late set, say, at Bradley’s, the now-defunct New York City musicians’ hang where Bartz held forth on many an evening. He shared the bandstand there with pianists George Cables and John Hicks, both friends since the 1960’s, of whom he comments: “George and John both started out by ear, so they’re very free harmonically. John used to work at my father’s club with me, even before we were in the Jazz Messengers together. George and I played with Woody Shaw and many other situations.”
He continues: “Greg Bandy and I go back to the NTU Troop days, and we’ve worked together over the years. Greg’s worked with Arthur Prysock, Betty Carter and Pharaoh Sanders, so he’s well versed in many different types of music. He swings his ass off, and this music is first and foremost about swinging, just as with the bass it’s about laying down that foundation, that base, which James King, who’s been with me now about four years, does as well as anyone.”
Not only is Soprano Stories Bartz’s debut as a soprano sax recitalist; it inaugurates a new label. “OYO means Own Your Own,” Bartz explains, “and it’s also the name of a Nigerian tribe. This is something that I’ve always desired and planned on doing. The record labels have let down this music and us musicians so much, it’s forced a lot of us to do this. That’s good, because we own our own music. Therefore, we will be responsible for whatever comes out, whatever gets sold. It’s all on us now. We can’t complain.”
If Gary Bartz keeps cooking up sessions as strong as Soprano Stories, his many fans oughtn’t complain either.
TED PANKEN