Charlie Watts |
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Thu. May 25.2000 8:46 AM EDT |
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Stones' Watts Tips High Hat To Jazz Drumming GreatsCharlie Watts/Jim Keltner Project a unique effort that transcends jazz and rock. by Correspondent Bill Milkowski |
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Charlie Watts (right) and Jim Keltner teamed up to make a tribute to jazz drummers. (Nicholas Zurcher) |
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During the past 15 years, Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts has been able to pursue his passion for jazz, playing in a variety of settings whenever he wasn't otherwise engaged
Joining forces with fellow drummer Jim Keltner, a studio session ace who has played with everyone from Bob Dylan to the Stones to Elvis Costello, Watts, 58, has created a tribute to jazz drumming royalty that transcends genre. The song titles, each named for a different jazz drumming legend, tell the stories. The bold burundi beats on "Art Blakey" (RealAudio excerpt), for instance, convey the sheer power that piloted the Jazz Messengers for so many years. The jaunty energy of "Roy Haynes" (RealAudio excerpt) captures the ebullient spirit of that ageless hipster. The majestic "Elvin Suite" (RealAudio excerpt) is a fitting tribute to Elvin Jones, one of jazz's most regal drummers and the rolling thunder behind John Coltrane's quartet from the '60s. But Watts makes no attempt to imitate his heroes by aping their signature licks or trademark fills. The music is like no jazz ever heard before, nor is it rock 'n' roll. "Well, yeah," Watts says. "It is a departure, you might say. It's meant to be music of tomorrow, not from yesterday. And it would be great if people think it's that. I mean, I'd love people to like it as a dance record. And if it so happens that they're dancing to 'Kenny Clarke' or 'Max Roach,' that would be fantastic." The giddy samba groove of "Airto" speaks of the playfulness of that Brazilian master, and the dirgelike "Tony Williams" is a stirring requiem for that formidable drumming genius who died just a week before the recording session. Other tracks are named for bebop pioneers Clarke and Roach, West Coast jazz icon Shelly Manne and the great Billy Higgins. Messing Around Led To Album Watts said the Charlie Watts/Jim Keltner Project sessions came about during down time while the Stones were recording Bridges to Babylon in early 1997. "We went into another studio to mess around a bit. Jim [Keltner] started bringing in more and more equipment ... samplers and all kinds of electronic stuff. He had made these sequences that he played for me, and I said, 'What shall I do on this?' And he'd just say, 'Play along with it.' So we did that and ended up with lots of boxes of tapes from us playing that way together." Watts delivered the tapes to co-producer Philippe Chauveau, who digitally edited and supplied overdubs in Paris. Each track features Watts on drums, with Keltner adding percussion and samples. Guests include Mick Jagger on keyboards, Keith Richards on guitar and Remy Vignolo on bass. Keltner said Watts provided the primary creative impulses for the CD. "This is truly Charlie's baby," Keltner said. "He really produced this thing. Charlie's genius is that he oversaw everything and kept the thing simple, reining it in from getting too ambitious with orchestrating around the melodies. Charlie's instincts were really fantastic on this." The tracks on Charlie Watts/Jim Keltner Project are multilayered, but at the core of it is Watts' signature beat, like the shuffle beat on "Roy Haynes" or the "Start Me Up" back beat on "Billy Higgins." "That was particularly at Keltner's insistence," Watts said. "I kind of wanted to get into it more, but Keltner kept saying, 'Play that way you play,' whatever that is. But that's it. He kept that there." Playing Is Always Jazz Keltner commented on Watts' drumming prowess: "Listening back to some of these tracks I was floored because it was so amazing how Charlie can rush like mad and still make it feel great. But that's what he's always done with the Stones. That's his style. He plays this great groove and then when he rushes. ... With anybody else it would be like, 'Oh, oh, he's rushing.' But with him there's such commitment or something. I don't know exactly what it is. He can't explain it and I don't necessarily like going into too much detail with him about it. I just marvel at it. The essence of his playing is as a jazz player even when he's playing rock, in that he starts a thing and he commits like jazz players do, with emotion." The tune "Tony Williams" features Jagger on piano and a strange voice reciting something. "The voice that you hear on this track is Jim," Watts said. "I asked him to read this magazine article. It was the last interview that Tony did, and Jim is reading it through this sort of megaphone thing that he had brought into the studio. It's an actual interview with Tony where he talks about the cymbal being the center of the universe. He gets very ethereal in this interview. And that's what Keltner actually read. It was a very moving time, really." CD closer "The Elvin Suite," featuring Blondie Chaplin on vocals, is particularly evocative. "That was really the one," Watts said. "The melody was a thing that Blondie Chaplin used to sing and hum along, and it was so beautiful. Blondie's from South Africa, and so I made it into a very African thing, which seemed to work rather well. Elvin is a particular hero of mine. God, he's such an icon. I first saw him in 1961 or '62, and he looks exactly the same now. It's amazing, man. And he plays as well. It's unbelievable. I actually saw Elvin in Los Angeles when we were doing this project. It was soon after seeing him that we did this track. I think in a way, that's the one that comes off most of somebody. For me, it works beautifully, that one. The others work, too, but this one really captures some essence of Elvin, I think." |
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