NEW album release: NY 10027

VOLKER GOETZE ORCHESTRA
NY 10027

History can be perplexing for modern bandleaders. Breaking new ground while retaining traditional beauty isn’t exactly easy. But on NY 10027 Volker Goetze has come up with a win-win approach that does exactly that. The trumpeter-composer has lots of skills when it comes to balancing craft and experimentation, and they give his orchestra debut a sturdy feel that boasts plenty of personal perspective.

A German native who has been living in New York for the past several years, Goetze is an award-winning arranger and forward-thinking improviser. His broad global perspective earned him critical kudos for 2008’s Sira, a collaboration with Senegalese kora master Ablaye Cissoko. The rich big band charts Goetze wrote for his NY 10027 group are almost the opposite of the spare interactions found on Sira, but they do share one trait. These elaborate new tracks have an unmistakable brio driving their every move.

You can hear it on “Tree,” a swirling piece that was nominated for a BMI Charlie Parker Composition Award. Its heady patterns shift from intricate and challenging to lush and pleasurable. And you can hear it on “Snow Crystal,” a luminous excursion that moves quickly but offers the beauty of a ballad. “I want the pieces to be full of vitality,” explains the 39-year-old Goetze, “and I also want them to avoid set formulas. My goal is to stress the essence of the individual songs. I use my experience to find something new each time out.”

On the gorgeous opening number, that meant making space for Lenny Pickett’s unique clarinet approach. The Saturday Night Live bandleader is known for his wailing tenor sax. “Solace,” which was presented at the 2008 Jazz Composer’s Symposium (directed by Chuck Owen) lets Pickett showcase another side. Tonguing the instrument, and soloing in a lower register, he brings an idiosyncratic sound to the proceedings. “He’s unbelievable,” says Goetze. “I love his Tower of Power playing, but people should know he has much more to offer, especially as a clarinet virtuoso. I heard him using a small clarinet to render an unusual approach, and I wanted to find a spot for it. Most composers write up high for the E-flat clarinet. But when you play in a lower range, it sounds even more beautiful.”

Another unusual instrumental deployment comes on “Cissokos Kora.” The radiant plinks of the African strings are the prelude to full band’s entry. The piece perpetually morphs, developing its percussive melody lines through a trombone excursion and then back to more strings – only this time it’s a fuzzed guitar romp by Sebastian Noelle. Somewhere along the way it becomes a seductive examination of textures driven by a deep rhythmic undertow. “I like to find uses for different cultures,” says Goetze. “We also incorporate some Afro-Cuban bata playing in there. It’s smart to learn from a variety of places.”
That sounds like a description of the changes taking place on “Inside the Outside World.” While working on a trio album together, Brazilian percussionist Nana Vasconcelos told Goetze that walking from the east side to the west side of Manhattan, you could come across all the cultures in the world. For this track thetrumpeter recorded the sidewalk and subway sounds on a trip from Queens College to his Harlem home. The snippets of urban ambiance enhance the flavor of the chart, acting as cues for certain motifs.

“A rapper, a ghetto blaster, the voices on the train – it’s all part of New York’s beauty. I saw [my teacher] Markus Stockhausen doing a solo piece with a tape playing behind him. It’s an interesting approach, and I’d like to explore it more. But players need to be open to it. An ensemble is a like a city that a soloist cuts through.” John Beaty’s careening alto sax maneuvers develop quite a trajectory as they spill forward.
Goetze’s own path has been a bit more direct. He says he’s always known he wanted to be a musician, and he always had a dream to come to the United States. As a teen in his rural hometown, he played in a church brass choir. A mentor told him he needed a wider perspective and voila, they were in Cologne seeing Ornette Coleman’s Prime Time. From there he investigated Don Cherry’s work. The floodgates soon opened. We Want Miles, Dizzy Gillespie albums, the Gil Evans Big Band – he absorbed it all. He came to Vermont to study in 1988, and while visiting a New York-based aunt, he discovered Cherry was a friend of her. They hung out a bit together in the East Village. “It took a long time to become confident enough to convince my family to let me study music here,” he says, “but I ultimately got a grant, and stayed.”

He found that he had talent for arranging, and after writing horn charts for a Brazilian musician, others asked him for advice as well. “They encouraged me! At my graduation concert I wrote pieces for big band. I was fast. I remember writing an arrangement for ‘Well, You Needn’t’ in a day. Of course, these days I take much more time with things like that.”

His interests in African music go beyond playing. Goetze is currently producing a documentary on the griot storytelling traditions. He’s also at work on an interactive multimedia presentation recounting the mythical creation story of the kora – the African harp – with visualist Joshue Ott, creator of Superdraw. It features musicians from Senegal and New York. But it’s the large ensemble that he’s focusing on at the moment. He wants to make sure that his music is always conveying passion.

“You know, bringing character out of the music, like the elders did,” he says. “Randy Weston can play a blues, and it seems simple, yet it’s so colorful, full of surprise and complexity. Johnny Hodges plays a melody and it’s beyond beautiful. Yes, this is a time when anything can be incorporated into a chart, but I don’t want to lose that essence they had. I try to write from the heart.”