This week’s edition of Mondays with Morgan is an interview between jazz journalist Morgan Enos and Cory Weeds, a renowned saxophonist and composer who runs Cellar Music Group and books Frankie’s Jazz Club in downtown Vancouver.
Home Cookin’, his new album with his Little Big Band, features arrangements by Bill Coon and Jill Townsend as well as two original compositions.
Home Cookin’ was released on 10 November via Cellar Music Group. Links to purchase the music and to Cellar’s website can be found at the bottom of this article.
Jazz is rife with transcendent performances from artists that were, in one way or another, compromised.
Art Pepper recorded the epochal Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section in the throes of a drug problem, with a broken horn, on zero notice, et cetera. The late drummer Butch Miles remembered gigs with the Count Basie Orchestra where everyone was tired, hungry and irritable — yet, “We went on and played our asses off.” And then there’s Cory Weeds.
Not yet a subscriber of our Wednesday Breakfast Headlines?
Join the mailing list for a weekly roundup of Jazz News.
The saxophonist, composer, Cellar Music Group owner and overall jazz impresario made Home Cookin’ while sick as a dog, after a stranger ripped off his prized saxophone. Those factors, along with the disconnection of playing an unfamiliar, borrowed replacement, could have rendered the album a disaster.
Instead, it’s the opposite — despite what Weeds characterises as “significant duress.”
“It wasn’t my horn, it wasn’t my mouthpiece, they weren’t even my reeds,” he said in the press materials, describing a rehearsal days before, moments after learning his sax was gone. “But I had a job to do and a recording to make… What’s the saying? ‘A good carpenter doesn’t blame his tools.’”
Featuring two Horace Silvers, a Thad Jones, Michael Weiss, the standard ‘Lullaby of the Leaves,’ two originals, and a tune by Woods’ father, Home Cookin’ is a highlight of 2023 on its own merits. But that Weeds knocked these adversities to the canvas to make it renders it even sweeter.
Read on for an interview with Weeds about the wild story behind Home Cookin’, the album’s spiritual connection to previous Weeds album Explosion, and how he juggles his roles as a label owner and musician.
LondonJazz News: I love this record so much. I listened to it three times today.
Cory Weeds: Yeah, it’s a fun one. But it was also made under significant duress.
LJN: Do tell.
CW: First of all, I was sick. I had a very bad head cold. We had Friday and Saturday night at Frankie’s [Jazz Club in Vancouver], and then the recording was on Sunday.
On Thursday night, I had a gig with a singer. I would have called in sick; based on what I had coming up on the weekend, [the impetus was] to try to get better. But she really, really wanted and needed me on the gig, so I did it.
At the end of that gig on Thursday, I put my horn in the corner, in its case. The long and short of it: my horn got ripped off. The club got broken into that night.
I showed up on Friday; the rehearsal was to start at five, and I got there at about 10 to five. We were recording the live stuff at the club, because we only had six tunes; we were going to maybe use a track from the live stuff at Frankie’s to fill out the CD. There was recording stuff all over, the band was warming up — and I went over to get my horn, and it wasn’t there.
We called a friend who plays a Conn 10M, which is what I play. I hopped in my car, drove over there, got the horn, drove to the music store, got some reeds, pulled open the case, and played whatever mouthpiece was in the case. And I actually got back in time to rehearse the two tunes.
We did the gig on Friday. I slept all day Saturday, did the gig on Saturday night, and went into the studio on Sunday.
LJN: How did the horn work out?
CW: The best part about it is, I was kind of dreading listening to the playback. Because it wasn’t my horn; it wasn’t my mouthpiece. And when I got the first rough mixes, I was like, Wow, this actually sounds really good.
LJN: Can you talk about the initial conception of Home Cookin’?
CW: I did a record in 2017 with the Little Big Band, called Explosion. It was exactly the same concept. It gave me an opportunity to bring in some of my really good friends, really great musicians. People really liked that record, and it was a lot of fun. Jill Townsend and Bill Coon, who are the arrangers on the record, did such a wonderful job.
The impetus behind that band was two recordings. One is Gene Ammons’ Late Hour Special. The other one is [Trane Whistle by] the Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis Big Band. Both records are arranged by Oliver Nelson.
LJN: You’re speaking my language right now.
CW: Those happen to be my favourite records. And what I loved about them is that I had no idea it was a small group, or a smaller big band. Because the way Oliver wrote, it sounded like a big band.
I flipped around the vinyl, and it’s only three saxes, two bones, two horns and rhythm. So it’s 10 people — My god, how do they sound so big?
So I went to Jill, and said, “This is what I want. If I can’t do it, no problem. But I want you to write in a way that makes the band sound bigger than it is.”
Explosion turned out great, and it did really well. I went on to do other projects, and when it came time to make another record, I had been thinking a lot about the label — and about myself, as a producer and musician, and the arc of my career.
I approached Jill and said, “This is my concept: I want to do a record that is basically done for vinyl — six or seven tunes. And I want to feature all local musicians, hence the name Home Cookin’ — we play Horace Silver’s ‘Home Cookin’.’” So, that was the impetus behind the whole project.
LJN: You mentioned that you were contemplating these different sectors of your life and career. How would you describe the rapprochement between your roles as a musician and label owner?
CW: Everything that I do is always mixed together, inevitably, just because I’m involved in every aspect of it. Having said that, I’m able to sort of separate it.
As a label owner, I’m always looking at what or who’s going to be successful — what’s going to be the best thing for the label, and for me.
But at the end of the day — I tell this to people all the time — it’s a futile experiment to try to predict human behaviour: what people like and don’t like, what the press is going to like, what streaming is going to like. Make the record that you want to make, period. And the rest will fall into place, how it falls into place.
Having more than 350 titles on my label, I have countless stories of records that we thought were going to do well, that didn’t do well, and records we thought weren’t going to do well, that did really well. So, I don’t put a lot of thought into that aspect.
LJN: Home Cookin’ is tight and concise by design. How did you ascertain the selection and sequence of tunes?
CW: This was sort of a holdover from the first big band record. I’m not a big band arranger, but I listen, and something to me says, Oh, that would be cool. I hear that in a big band way.
For example, we do Thad Jones’ ‘Thedia’; it’s got that intro [mimics the melody] and then there’s a little piano break. I’m like, Oh my god — that’s like a big band intro. It’s written; all you’ve got to do is orchestrate it. I sent that to Jill, and the head. The melody of that tune is quite intricate and tricky, so I thought there was lots for Jill or Bill to grab onto there.
Right before the pandemic, we were doing this thing at Frankie’s, which is the club I run here in Vancouver, called Silver Sunday. We were picking out Horace Silver records, starting with my three favourite records, that were all done before 1960.
I was really into Horace Silver, and really getting into the intricacies of his music before the ‘60s. After the ‘60s, I think it was a little bit more simplified — whereas pre-’60s, it was really intricate, super swingin’, and still super funky.
We did ‘Metamorphosis’ and ‘Home Cookin’’; I love those tunes, and I thought Jill did a great job. Then, I wanted to do ‘Lullaby of the Leaves,’ because I just think it’s such a killing arrangement.
LJN: Nice. What of the other tunes?
CW: We needed a ballad; ‘Blossoms in May’ is a tune I wrote with Bill Coon — a ballad I wrote for my wife, which I actually recorded on my first record with Mike LeDonne, Joe Farnsworth, and Peter Bernstein. I think sometimes ballads lend themselves nicely to big-band arrangements.
‘Corner Kisses’ is the tune written by my father; I had the opportunity to record that with Joey DeFrancesco, which is very special to me, especially now that he’s gone. I had a really good relationship with Joey; he’s a wonderful guy. It’s just a burner, kind of an up blues.
You’d have to interview them to corroborate this, but I’m pretty sure ‘Corner Kisses’ was one where they were like, “OK, it’s cool, but there’s not a ton.” I said, “Well, that’s OK, because I want this to be a bit of a blowing tune.” Again, they did it brilliantly.
The last one I didn’t mention is ‘Power Station,’ which is a great tune by Michael Weiss. It was recorded on a [1997] record called Power Station with Eric Alexander. Again, it’s a different kind of blues.
Michael Weiss and I were doing a two-week tour at in the Pacific Northwest, and he asked me what I had coming up. I told him we were playing ‘Power Station’ on the tour. He said, “You know, I arranged that for the exact instrumentation that you’re recording with for Frank Wess.”
I said, “Would you be into selling that to me for the recording?” and he said, “Oh, yeah, of course I would.” So, that’s how that came about.
The ensemble includes pianist Chris Gestrin, bassist John Lee, drummer Jesse Cahill, lead alto saxophonist Steve Kaldestad, tenor saxophonist James Danderer, baritone saxophonist Dave Say, trombonists Brian Harding and Jim Hopson, and trumpeters Brad Turner and Chris Davis.
LINKS: Home Cookin‘ is available to purchase via Bandcamp.
Categories: Features/Interviews, Mondays with Morgan
Recent Comments