David Kraus: The Listening Room
Basically Blues
David Kraus ~ electric blues guitar solo with theReturn to Tunes
Vermont Jazz Ensemble, Vermont's premier 17
piece big band(from VJE LP "All of Us" ~ Nov. 1987)
Phil Wilson, the composer of this big band tune was born January 19, 1937 in Belmont, Massachusetts, and is a jazz trombonist, arranger, and teacher. He might be best known as an instructor at the Berklee College of Music and a former chairman at the jazz division of the New England Conservatory of Music. He began on piano, but was advised to switch to trombone due to his having a mild form of dyslexia. This condition did not hamper his music and by fifteen he had turned professional. He played for Herb Pomeroy's band from 1955 to 1957 and after that toured with the Dorsey brothers. He would also work with Woody Herman's band and in the 1960s wrote music for Buddy Rich. By the mid-1960s he had made a name for himself as an educator. He had joined the faculty at Berklee in 1965. He formed an ensemble there that became one of the most well-regarded college jazz bands.
This arrangement was a piece recorded with The Vermont Jazz Ensemble during my two and a half year tenure with this premier big band on their first LP release in 1987 entitled "All of Us." As the title suggests, the music has a full powered Kansas City swing groove right out of the great Count Basie big band sound. Nothing swings like Kansas City swing and no one swings like The Count Basie Orchestra. This piece is intense in its use of blues as its musical foundation, as so much Kansas City music does. Having been born and raised in Philadelphia, it was actually the blues which I first heard and played as a youngster. Classical guitar and all of the other forms of music that are now a part of my musical vocabulary came along over the years as my art kept growing. But to this day I can pick up an electric guitar and rip into the blues as if I still play it every day. It was and in a way is still my first and most natural musical language. So I loved it when the the VJE conductor and lead alto player Rich Dividian asked me if I would open the tune with a blues guitar solo...not so much jazz..but Kansas City blues. I loved it and the solid rhythm section of Jeff Salisbury on drums, Jerry Nahmias on bass, and Andy Shapiro on piano made it so easy to play. I could've played like this all day as we worked in the studio. But alas...the horns had to join in. I really miss playing the blues.
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