85th Anniversary Blue Note Records Jazz Tour: Being Present through Improv Jazz
Kendrick Scott plays drums for the Blue Notes Anniversary jazz group that played in Madison January 26th.
by Jonathan Gramling
Blue Note Records was the vehicle, in many ways, that gave birth to the modern jazz movement back in the 1930s. While it was the musicians like Thelonious Monk who were the creators of the music, their music would have remained in the confines of New York jazz clubs if it weren’t for Blue Note Records that served as the creative home for many of the musicians.
“I still feel that Blue Note has that unique niche,” said Kendrick Scott, the drummer of the group of jazz musicians touring the country to commemorate Blue Note’s 85th anniversary. “It’s a label that found who the vanguard were of the times. And they put them all together, which I think is one of the beautiful things about the label. It’s not just 1-2 artists. It’s about all those artists who not only did their records and played on all of the other cats’ records. I think Blue Note has this kind of beautiful assembly line. It’s almost like Motown if you think about Rudy Van Gelder recording all of the sound and Francis Wolff taking all of the pictures. And Reid Miles did all of the art work. It was so beautiful. And of course there were the artists making all of that beautiful music. It’s a special thing. And I feel that actually here as I am touring with the younger musicians, I feel the kinship and the continuum. We are downstream from that beauty.”
In many ways, Blue Note was the pot within which a gumbo of modern jazz stewed and then came alive.
“Blue Note helped jazz evolve, absolutely,” Scott said. “Those records are time capsules of jazz’s evolution. In so many ways, people were trying out so many different things. The fact is that the label has created an environment for that to happen. They also trusted that the musicians would make the good decisions and not try to sway them to do one way or the other. The label wasn’t meant to be a mainstream label. They just wanted to capture the beautiful art that was going on that they heard.”
Scott’s musical journey is reflective of the journey of so many jazz musicians who at some point are drawn to the mecca of jazz, New York City. Scott’s began in Houston, Texas.
“My mother played piano,” Scott recalled. “My brother played piano and organ. My mother was in the sound booth at church. That was my first entrée into music. After the church service, I would always walk up to the drums and tried to play. My parents finally got me a drum pad at the age of six. They got me a drum set at the age of eight. And I started playing gospel music and then I started playing marching band music in middle school. And when it was time to go to high school, I wanted to go to a high school that had a great marching band. My mom said, ‘Marching bands are cool, but do you see any professional marching bands? Go to the performing arts high school.’ That’s probably the best advice I got. People say, ‘Listen to your mother.’ That was a great decision.”
Scott went to the Houston School for the Performing and Visual Arts that counted Robert Glasper and Beyoncé among its student body.
“I always say at our high school, the extraordinary was ordinary,” Scott said. “Once you are around that type of talent, you just know you are supposed to be practicing and you’re supposed to be amazing. That took me up at such a young age to be what at what level I wanted to be at. Since then, I’ve been naive enough to believe that you can just be out here making music.”
Scott headed east to the Berklee College of Music where he rubbed shoulders with the like of Esperanza Spaulding and John Mayer. Scott didn’t go the starving artist route. He has pretty much been a part of the New York jazz scene since his Berklee days.
“When I was in my cap and gown, Terrance Blanchard called me,” Scott said about his graduation. “I was very happy that I had a gig and I had a gig with the Jazz Crusaders at the same time. Right out of school, I played with Joe Sample and the Crusaders and also with Terrance Blanchard. I ended up staying with Terrance for 11 years and got so much great experience and everything. I played with so many amazing people through him. He pretty much changed my life and made sure that I was not only playing in his band, but that I was also preparing myself to lead my own groups. Through that relationship with Terrance — because Terrance is from Blue Note — I was fortunate enough just to be around Bruce Lundvall and everyone and then Don Was. I was writing and creating music. Eventually Don asked me to be on the label. It’s just been a whirlwind looking at it now.”
Scott is the “old man” of the tour at 43-years-old. Playing with him are some of the young geniuses of modern jazz.
“Each one of my band mates is really accomplished,” Scott emphasized. “Even the youngest is super accomplished. Immanuel has his sounds and what he brings as far as composition and his thought processes. That’s what I am saying. When I was looking atg him, I’m going, ‘You’re 23-24-years-old? Wow, what if I had that at that age. I’d be really good at this point.’ He’s from Philadelphia and has been playing with everyone in the music. If I choose paths, that would be a good one. And it’s the same thing with Joel Ross. He’s from Chicago. He’s been playing with all of the greats and under the tutelage of many of the greats from Chicago. And now in New York, he’s playing with everyone. And his concepts on the instrument and his compositions are really forward thinking. He’s got a new one coming out very soon. Matt Brewer is an incredible bass player. We’ve played together with so many different bands. We’re in the SFJAZZ Collective. As a composer and a bass player, Matt Brewer is one of the best in the world. And our fearless leader Gerald Clayton — coming from the lineage of his father John Clayton and his godfather Quincy Jones — comes from a lineage and has a facade of him as a person and individual and the way he creates music and thinks about what the music is about and how we are presenting the music. He goes very deep into the life of the music and not just the notes. Gerald is our fearless leader. He is one of my favorite musicians to play with over a long time. We played together in Charles Boyd’s band and many other groups and his trio. We just recorded a new record for Gerald that will be out next year.”
The band had about three hours to practice together before they started the tour. The Wisconsin Union’s Shannon Hall was one of the first stops on the tour. But by the very nature of jazz, three hours was plenty of rehearsal time.
“The real practice is coming up on stage and really getting into it,” Scott said. “That’s being present. You can’t practice the unknown. By the time we get up on stage, it’s about having that conversation in front of people and saying, ‘Okay. Are we all read up on the subject?’ That’s what music is about.”
The performance is in being present and not in having memorized a scale of notes.
“For us, presence is the main thing,” Scott said. “We will be present for all of you and you all will get a show that no one else will get. We will take what we’ve learned from the masters and use it as our own. It’s not going to be a show of rehashing old Blue Note hits just to play them. People can just go to Spotify and listen to those records. We want to give our perspective on the Blue Note heritage through playing our music and some of the music from the masters as well.”
Jazz is the musicians speaking to each other through their instruments.
“The people are the instruments,” Kendrick said. “The so-called instrument is just the vehicle for our thoughts. I teach at the Manhattan School of Music. I always try to tell my students, ‘When you are sitting at a drum set, it’s just a car. It’s going to take you where you need to go. But you need to know where you need to go. You need to know the direction. You need all of those different things and it will take you. But really, your heart is what is leading it. All of your knowledge of where you want to go is behind you and your wisdom is in front of you. If we know that, then all of the knowledge that we’ve learned from listening to Blue Note records our whole lives is the wisdom that we need to create more great music on the label.”
Blue Note has been — and will continue to be — the vehicle for great jazz musicians and the musical expression of America’s contribution to world music.