Kind of Kenny

Full disclosure. Until today when I heard Kind of Kenny for the first time I knew nothing of Jason Keiser. But the Kenny in the title, pictured, of course is more familiar from records and hearing him live a few times down the years. I even met the Kenny here alluded to Kenny Wheeler interviewing him in his house in Leytonstone. The article ran in the first ever issue of Jazzwise magazine which launched in the spring of 1997 if you are interested. I have long since lost my copy. I remember we were going to press so had to write the story quickly on the train back to the office in Streatham and type it up when I got in.

The last time I clapped eyes on Kenny who was a very pleasant, humble and interesting person to talk to, was a few years before his death when he was sat in a wheelchair in the lobby of the Royal Academy of Music on the Marylebone Road waiting for transport to pick him up. The focus of that long ago Jazzwise interview was Angel Song, the trumpeter-composer's 1997 masterpiece part of which plays a role in the course of this tremendous tribute album stocked full of Wheeler originals and blended with aptly rendered Keiser tunes.

4-STARS - Album of the Week I'm excited about all things Wheeler at the moment given that next year there is an important sounding biography to be published which I am - one of many, surely - looking forward to reading, a painstaking work of research and scholarship by Brian Shaw and Professor Nick Smart's Song for Someone: The Musical Life of Kenny Wheeler.

Kind of Kenny opens with Keiser's own piece the title track. Then it's Kenny piece 1990s tune 'Hotel Le Hot' from The Widow in the Window (ECM) which has been recorded since by the BBC Big Band among others.

Made in a San José studio Keiser on Kind of Kenny is with another guitarist John Stowell, singer Danielle Wertz on some very effective tracks playing the Norma Winstone role superbly, trumpeter and flugel player Erik Jekabson and saxophonist Mike Zilber. As you'd expect this is all thoughtful music appropriate given how reflective, calm, often bittersweet and reverie laden Wheeler's beautiful compositions often proved. Where Wertz makes the Winstonian mood linger longest is 'Gentle Piece' that again goes back to approaching 35 years ago and this time to Music For Large & Small Ensembles (ECM, 1990) and a track that had a great Dave Holland solo at the beginning.

Ingrid Jensen covered the piece with Steve Treseler on her Invisible Sounds For Kenny Wheeler that had the voice of Kate Jacobson on it and came out in 2018 four years after Wheeler's death at the age of 84.

Keiser interestingly as a young player was influenced by Joe Pass who for many years was a regular visitor to play Ronnie Scott's. Keiser detoured years later to study bluegrass at East Tennessee State University. There's no trace of bluegrass that I can discern here. His records include 2022's The Axe Axis that had Kind of Kenny's Stowell and another version of 'Gentle Piece' on it. Keiser likes to play a vintage 1977 Ovation Legend guitar.

'Kayak' here later in the record is a real mood lifter and you get the quirkier, more twisty and turny Wheeler type of tune. This piece, that perhaps has a certain late-1940s Birth of the Cool feel to it is on the hard-to-find to physically own Ah Um label release of the same name from the 1990s. It has been covered by a range of people since including a perky nonet version by trombonist Alan Ferber on Scenes From an Exit Row issued in 2005.

Keiser tune 'Wheeler's Waltz' contains fine contributions in the Wheeler mantle by Jekabson and again Wertz is meaningful in the ethereal, crucial, vocal elements to its overall complexity.

Wheeler's own 'W. W',' which was on Double, Double You pun intended of course given Wheeler's love of wordplay is very short - a fraction of the length found on the 1980s album that had Michael Brecker among the players.

Wheeler's 'Kind Folk' is the 7th of the 10 tunes. Herein there's marvelous guitar work. It was Bill Frisell who played the guitar role on its Angel Song version, the album mentioned earlier in this article that became Wheeler's 1990s masterpiece. It had Birth of the Cool alto sax legend Lee Konitz on it and another Miles alumnus Dave Holland also played a significant role.

Keiser has poured a lot of love into this record. It's a wonderful weekend listen and treat. Highlights include 'The Jigsaw' which was on It Takes Two (CAM Jazz, 2006) with John Abercrombie (1944-2017) among the players. And there is a lot of the spirit of Abercrombie dotted throughout this guitar centered homage of pastels and painterly poeticism.

Wheeler and Winstone's 'For Jan' covered by people like George Colligan and Peter Erskine is the best of the vocal featuring tracks. "The turning of wheels within wheels" - how apt overall - as the lyrics on the song lightly brush upon. We're fans of Danish singer Mette Juul who did a great version of the song in an arrangement by Ambrose Akinmusire. Kind of Kenny is completed by a duet original tune of Keiser's involving Stowell. Seek this very worthwhile album out. It helps enkindle the Kenny Wheeler sound and carefully fastens it to our hearts and minds all over again.