Kitchener jazz musician plays in the spirit of Mingus
At the beginning of trombonist Robin Jessome’s whimsical freeform “Big Ugly Blues,” it sounds like all the instruments are frantically trying to get a note in edgewise. For a while the trombone triumphs, but not for long, as the rest of the quintet catches up to him with an aurally amusing vengeance.
“‘Big Ugly Blues’ has a lot of Charlie Mingus in it,” admits the Kitchener-based musician/composer, “where the written stuff ends and the improv begins, bridging that gap and blurring those lines, trusting the musicians to sometimes make things better on their own.”
The “Mingus” that Jessome is referring to is the double bass jazz icon who collaborated with some of the greatest players of all time, from Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie to Charlie Parker and Herbie Hancock.
“I can give a loose framework and some guidelines and let them know where I expect things to go. In the end I can write something, but I can trust the band to carry it through at that moment and play something that might be even better.”
Jessome says he appreciates artists with a dark sense of humour like the “looseness and weirdness” of Tom Waits, in addition to the avant-garde jazz of Mingus, trumpeter Kenny Wheeler, and especially composer/pianist Carla Bley.
“I cannot say that I am particularly witty fellow myself but humour from those types of sources is what I find really interesting. That’s why a lot of stuff I play now pays tribute and honours these artists that I grew up with. They helped me evolve as a musician,” he says.
“From an early age I was always listening,” recalls Jessome, who is originally from Bridgetown in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley.
“Dad definitely encouraged me to listen more and to explore new things. Grade 7 is where you start a band in school and I wanted to play the trumpet but I could not make a decent sound on it so they gave me a trombone instead,” he adds with a laugh.
“I had a really supportive music teacher who gave me ideas about different people to listen to and check out. My dad would find new records and it just evolved from there,” he says.
Jessome says J.J. Johnson was the king of making the trombone “a relevant instrument.” He grew up listening to early guys and trombone heroes like Johnson and Kid Ory.
“They had a human sound. There was something organic and earthy and that really drew me to it. Those are the kind of players that I tend toward now,”
he notes.
Jessome’s newest project is the Mingus Appreciation Society.
“Working on this Mingus thing I have been listening to (jazz trombonist) Jimmy Knepper who plays on a whole lot of Charles Mingus stuff. He is one of those guys that can bridge that early raw emotion with the bebop intricacies. That’s really interesting to me.”
Jessome wanted to bring his other band project — Blunt Object, an 11piece ensemble based in Toronto — to Waterloo, but with a smaller stage, the logistics of accommodating of a large ensemble might have proved tricky. He pared it down to a seven-piece collective with members hailing from Toronto, Hamilton and Kitchener.
“I could gone with a quartet and played some tunes and played it safe but I like to be a little adventurous so I am always looking for an excuse to play intriguing music that I don’t play very often, so I thought I may as well put this together,” says Jessome, adding this is the Mingus Appreciation Society’s debut.
Kitchener members include Jessome on trombone; Robin Habermehl, saxophones; Andriy Tykhonov, piano; and Mike Ranja on drums, in addition to Toronto’s Jesse Malone and Hamilton’s Tom Altobelli on bass.
“I met (second sax player) Francis Smith for the first time the other day on the recommendation of someone else,” says Jessome.
“The word got around and this brings an interesting dynamic to the group where everyone has some loose connection to each other but there’s also a bit of that nervousness and working without a net. You trust everybody but you don’t exactly know what anyone is going to do at any time. It’s exciting!”
Jessome says the group’s repertoire includes “fun stuff” like “Haitian Fight Song,” “Moanin’,” plus “Jelly Roll,” “Self Portrait in Three Colours,” and “Open Letter to Duke” from 1959’s “Mingus Ah Um.”
“It’s in the spirit of Mingus,” says Jessome. “You mould it, shape it and let it evolve on its own. Personalitywise my two saxophonists will be completely different players and I like the way those two things collide. You never know what’s quite going to happen sometimes.”
“There’s something about being uncomfortable that makes me comfortable!”