Kaeshammer’s Valentine special
It’s no surprise a young Michael Kaeshammer grew up in a German house full of jazz records. What’s surprising is how little he listened to them.
His dad was a ragtime piano player and had a robust record collection, but the 10-year-old Kaeshammer was more interested in classical music.
Until he laid ears on some boogie-woogie piano albums from the ’30s and ’40s and something clicked. They had oomph. They grabbed him and didn’t let go.
“I mean, the jazz stuff was cool, but it was always my dad’s music,” says the now 41-year-old Kaeshammer, who moved to Canada’s west coast in the mid-’90s. “Then he had this boogie-woogie solo piano record, and that was the first time I heard someone just wail away on the piano like that and create that kind of energy.
“For me that was the switch to liking jazz. All of a sudden, all the other jazz records made sense to me and I liked them as well.”
Shortly after moving to Canada, Kaeshammer was grabbing attention at jazz festivals behind his debut album, Blue Keys.
It’s a record almost unrecognizable from how the piano virtuoso sounds now, free of commercial expectations. On the cusp of his 12th album, the April release of Something New, Kaeshammer finds himself in a unique place: The less commercial he sounds, the more successful he becomes.
“It comes a bit from having bad management experiences in the past,” he says. “Having to sometimes do things where my gut feeling goes ‘I don’t know if that’s the right decision.’ Then finding out afterwards it wasn’t the right decision.
“I got to the point where I don’t have to do that any more. For this (new) record … I did everything because I wanted it. I made the record I wanted to make. It’s such a fantastic feeling, and when you do that kind of stuff, your (creativity) is just flowing.”
Something New has Kaeshammer playing with Cyril Neville of the Neville Brothers, Mike Dillon of Primus, and Canadian rock icon Randy Bachman. If they seem like odd pairings for a jazz artist, that’s the point.
“I just followed the path of the music, it was not planned like that at all,” he says. “It’s really just friendships that turned into ‘Let’s make music together,’ because that’s the way you should do it.
“I actually like it when, on paper, it looks like it shouldn’t work. That’s when you get the best out of people, when someone can feel comfortable (not doing) what they usually do.”
But there’s a dilemma with his increasing popularity: Kaeshammer wants to tour less even as demand for his concerts goes up.
It’s not the playing itself which
burdens him, it’s the constant flying: Since watching a National Geographic special on air crash investigations, he hasn’t looked at planes the same way.
“I sit in there and all I see is a tube,” he says. “People say it’s less likely something happens (in a plane) than if you drive a car, but if something happens, the chances of surviving are pretty slim.”
It forced Kaeshammer to be more diligent about where he plays. He comes to FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre in St. Catharines on Wednesday.
“There’s bigger chunks of time in my year that I’m staying home,” he says. “You become more selective. I already feel like I have more control over that.”
Which makes his shows even more unique. As opposed to just a guy in front of a piano all night, Kaeshammer turns his concerts into close-knit, unpredictable affairs.
“You don’t really have to like jazz to like this show,” he says. “I don’t even see myself as a jazz piano player because there’s so many styles I love.”
As for playing Valentine’s Day in Niagara, he’ll be keeping romance in the air.
“If a couple is out for a nice dinner and comes to see the show … I think they’ll have a really good time and leave in a happy mood. Even if they were fighting before.”