Michel Camilo-Joe Lovano concert, Dan Tepfer, Tomasz Stanko
January 1, 1970
I got busy grading papers and forgot yesterday was newsletter day. So here it is, a day late. This week's Jazz Notes profiled Dan Tepfer, a talented young pianist who, before coming to New England Conservatory for a master's degree in jazz studies, earned an astrophysics degree (with honors) from Edinburgh University. There's also a review of a concert by pianist Michel Camilo and tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano. (Editing caused an inaccuracy in the later: Camilo closed out his solo set with the tune "Cocowalk," from his Grammy-winning CD "Live at the Blue Note." The song "From Within" preceded it. Editing also snipped mentions of the Camilo-Lovano duet on "Besame Mucho" and their encore, "Stella By Starlight.")* * * * *
Berklee professors delve into classics
By Bill Beuttler, Globe Correspondent | March 11, 2005
The Berklee College of Music showed off its brand-name faculty Wednesday night with spectacular solo and duet performances by pianist Michel Camilo and tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano — the college's Herb Alpert Visiting Professor and the Gary Burton Chair in Jazz Performance, respectively.
The occasion was a fund-raising concert for a new Michel Camilo Scholarship, to be presented this year to a student from Camilo's native Dominican Republic. Camilo came onstage to announce the scholarship and the solo-and-duet theme, and Lovano then walked on blowing the tenor on his tune "Sanctuary Park," to begin his solo segment.
Lovano played the entire evening with a breathiness a la Ben Webster, perhaps owing to the absence of other instruments obscuring his sound. It lent a romantic edge to Lovano's refined explorations of assorted themes.
Next up was another Lovano original, "Fort Worth," followed by an unusual take on his own "On This Day," with Lovano accompanying himself by striking a group of eight gongs with a mallet in his right hand, while fingering his tenor with his left.
He closed out his solo segment with luscious reads of two classics: Thelonious Monk's "Pannonica" and John Coltrane's "Crescent," both explored on the forthcoming Lovano quartet CD "Joyous Encounter," due from Blue Note in May.
Camilo returned to the stage for his solo set, which opened with a medley of tunes from his January 2005 release, "Solo": Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Luiza" and Francis Hime's "Minha." Camilo's playing has a classical feel, making full use of his left hand and exhibiting phenomenal control of dynamics. Thunderous chords yielded seamlessly to exquisitely soft passages, and a stupendous end to the medley earned Camilo a standing ovation.
He followed it with George Gershwin's "Our Love Is Here to Stay," which had a bluesy, stride-like feel to it, before closing out his set with the melancholy ballad "From Within."
Their duet set began with an abstract reading of Wayne Shorter's already abstract "Footprints." Lovano grooved animatedly to Camilo's solo after finishing his own, and throughout it was obvious how much fun the two were having improvising together.
Lovano especially outdid himself on "Blue Monk," and the two of them made Coltrane's classic "Giant Steps" their own — Lovano blowing fast but nothing like Coltrane, and Camilo giving the piece some Latin flavor, both rhythmically and harmonically.
© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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The piano is his universe these days
By Bill Beuttler, Globe Correspondent | March 11, 2005
The brilliant young pianist Dan Tepfer doesn't consider having a degree in astrophysics from the University of Edinburgh all that unusual.
There have been other young pianists, he notes, who've studied highly complex subjects in college before focusing on careers in jazz. Tepfer's teacher Danilo Perez, for instance, studied electrical engineering in Panama and at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Herbie Hancock majored in the same subject at Grinnell. And Tepfer's fellow French import Jean-Michel Pilc had a major even more esoteric than astrophysics: rocket science.
"He actually makes a big deal in his biography of being a rocket scientist," says Tepfer, 23.
In any case, music has Tepfer's full attention now. Tepfer is completing a master's degree at New England Conservatory this semester. He also recently released an impressive self-produced CD, "Before the Storm," that mixes four studio pieces with three tunes recorded live. Two of the three live takes were done at Zeitgeist Gallery, where Tepfer and his trio mates — Jorge Roeder (bass) and Richie Barshay (drums) — return Sunday.
Playing music professionally is nothing new to Tepfer, who began doing so as a teenager in Paris, where he was born and raised. The son of American parents (his father is a biologist and his mother an opera singer), Tepfer continued gigging a couple of nights a week while studying at Edinburgh, where there was a surprisingly strong jazz-club scene but not many jazz-savvy musicians. Despite the rigor of his studies, Tepfer — who spent a dozen years studying classical piano at a Paris conservatory — never intended to give up music.
"I figured I could study astrophysics and do music on the side better than I could study music and do astrophysics on the side," he says. "I actually did end up just naturally spending a lot more time playing music and working on music than I did working on astrophysics."
A two-year graduate scholarship to study jazz at NEC brought him to Boston, where he hooked up with fellow NEC students Roeder and Barshay, both of whom are also graduating this semester.
"I was really impressed with their combination of incredible musical tightness — how much you could rely on them — and their freedom and their willingness to be very improvisational and very responsive," Tepfer says. "They're able to be incredibly solid and also incredibly fluid at the same time."
Barshay, who will tour Europe in May with his occasional employer Hancock (who also plays on three tracks of Barshay's debut release, "Homework"), says he likes the way the trio blends Tepfer's harmonic complexity with the others' South American and world music rhythmic influences.
"Jorge and I come from a background of polyrhythms and mixed meter playing that Dan has been able to incorporate in his composing to give the band its sound," he says.
The trio toured Europe together last summer (the third live cut from Tepfer's CD, a much-disguised version of John Coltrane's "Giant Steps," was recorded at the Sunset Jazz Club in Paris) and the US West Coast in January. Setting up those tours as a young unknown wasn't easy.
"It's a huge amount of work," Tepfer says. "But the point is, it's possible. And once you do it, it's just amazing the difference it makes musically. A jazz musician's education is now done in school, which is great from a theoretical point of view: You learn a lot of information. But there's much less of that kind of visceral bandstand experience that used to be the way that the musicians learned. Being on tour, especially with great players like Jorge and Richie, is just an invaluable experience."
Tepfer's decision to lead a trio is in keeping with his heroes, three of whom — Keith Jarrett, Brad Mehldau, and Ahmad Jamal — are renowned for their trio work. Ditto NEC professor Danilo Perez and two other pianists with whom Tepfer has studied, Kenny Werner and Fred Hersch. "I've always loved the trio," says Tepfer. "It's the format that permits the most real improvisation."
These days it is classical music, not astrophysics, that divides Tepfer's attention. His girlfriend, Karen Gomyo, is a much-lauded classical violinist. Outside his trio, Tepfer works occasionally with vocalists Claudia Solal and Irene Aebi. And he leads an experimental sextet mixing violin, viola, and cello with his jazz trio. Tepfer hopes the sextet can eventually meld jazz and classical music together as seamlessly as the Stan Getz album "Focus," which Tepfer considers the best mix of jazz and classical he has ever heard.
"I certainly don't want to do the thing where it's, 'OK, here's some classical and here's some jazz,'" Tepfer says. "Ultimately, I'd really like to have something new that fuses both."
Mixing jazz and classical is one thing, mixing music and astrophysics another. From here on, Tepfer says, he will concentrate on music.
"Music at its best is really a complete discipline for both the left and right brain," he says. "Whereas science really is only right brain. And I feel I really miss that when I spend a lot of time doing science. It doesn't feel like I'm completely me, whereas music really does."
March madness: More than 3,000 student musicians and 221 bands from across the United States will compete tomorrow for trophies and scholarships totaling $100,000 at the Berklee College of Music's 37th annual High School Jazz Festival. The competition takes place at the Hynes Convention Center, 900 Boylston St., between 9 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., with awards presented at 6 p.m. A winner's showcase will follow in the 2,700-seat Hynes Grand Ballroom at 7 p.m. The all-day event is free and open to the public.
© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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Calendar Jazz Picks
Sun 3-13
Tomasz Stanko Quartet Regattabar, Charles Hotel, One Bennett St., Cambridge. 617-395-7757. 7:30 p.m. $15.
Trumpeter Tomasz Stanko, 62, has been called "the Polish Miles Davis," and it's easy enough to hear why. Stanko's quiet lyricism calls to mind the understated playing of his early idols Davis and Chet Baker. Through the years Stanko has mined a free jazz mixing European and American influences in his own work, and has performed alongside such notables as Chico Freeman, Jack DeJohnette, and Cecil Taylor. His recent CD for ECM Records, last year's "Suspended Night," is melodic and spare and subtly gorgeous. On it Stanko is joined by the three talented young Poles who will back him in Cambridge: pianist Marcin Wasilewski, bassist Slawomir Kurkiewicz, and Michal Miskiewicz. The rhythm section's own impressively lyrical CD on ECM, "Trio," was released last month and features a mix of their own originals as well as covers of Björk ("Hyperballad"), Wayne Shorter ("Plaza Real"), and their sometime boss Stanko ("Green Sky").
Thu 3-10 Gato Barbieri The Argentine sax star reprised his "Last Tango in Paris" theme on his most recent disc ("The Shadow of the Cat," 2002), along with other smooth fare. Expect more of the same tonight. Regattabar, Charles Hotel, One Bennett St., Cambridge. 617-395-7757. 7:30 and p.m. $24. Repeats Fri ($26) and Sat ($28).
BILL BEUTTLER