When NEA Jazz Master Kenny Barron said the above some time ago, it actually inspired a bit of social media controversy. As you'll discover through this interview with the veteran pianist, he can back this advice with sixty years plus of experience, and the younger musicians he's employed in his trio and quintet have listened to him. Kenny himself learned this from the example of the giants of his youth, and he'll tell you who they are and why they still impact his playing today. Most of all, he'll tell you how to get Beyond This Place and join him where the air is rarified.
Listen to our conversation, above.
Interview transcript:
Brian Delp: First off, I want to congratulate you on two new awards within the last month. The Jazz Journalists Association named you Top Pianist of 2024. And I believe you just received the Deutsche Jazz Prize in Germany last month. Where do you keep all these things? You've got to have the biggest mantelpiece, one that would stretch across this room I'm in. It's got to be huge.
Kenny Barron: Some of the stuff goes on the walls, so it's okay. [laughs]
But that must be a great feeling, considering that you've been at this for six decades or more, and people still find your work so incredibly valid. I know I do.
Well, that's very comforting. So, I still have some relevance.
So much more than that. You've released, what, two or three new albums in the last 18 months. Regarding your last one, The Source, I hadn't heard you play solo I don't think in decades and hearing you all by yourself in that studio in France, playing these incredible pieces of music, it was just outstanding.
Thank you.
So tell me, why did it take 40 years for you to make a new recording alone?
Probably because nobody asked.
Honestly?
Honestly, yes. When Jean Philippe approached me about doing that, I was very happy to accept. But doing a solo recording always fills me with trepidation to do that.
Oh, how so?
For me, that's one of the scariest environments—playing solo for me. At least before you start. When you sit it down, the fear starts to melt away. After the first song, I'm okay. But, it's like upsetting your stomach before you start that kind of thing. I think that's a healthy thing though.
I couldn't agree more, but you were exploring not just your own work, like “Sunshower,” of course, which is magnificent, and “Phantoms.” You also included two pieces by Ellington and Strayhorn, “Isfahan” and “Daydream.” Any particular reason why you chose those two particular selections?
Because I loved them. Actually, Mulgrew Miller and I did some duo concerts and I heard him play that. I'd heard it before and I fell in love with it. But when I heard him do it, I said, “Yeah, I wanna play that song.” And “Isfahan,” I used to hear Tommy Flanagan play that tune. Then I heard Johnny Hodges play it with Duke and I really fell in love with it again.
I remember the last time I saw “Isfahan” done, it was actually from students at a place where you now teach, the Juilliard Jazz Orchestra. I saw them do “Isfahan,” this was many years ago, in Dizzy's Club, just as the sun was going down, and all of the buildings on the East side of Central Park turned red and gold. And they follow that with “Blood Count.” It was an astounding moment, but the thing is that you have had a career that's been full of astounding musical moments.
You just mentioned playing in duo with Mulgrew Miller, but he's just one of the many legends that you have been paired with over the last 60 years, notably, of course, Stan Getz. Every time I listen to People Time, I start to tear up because what you achieved with Stan was that musical height that so few people do. You were paired with Charlie Haden at Iridium. You have been paired with Tommy Flanagan. You've been paired with Regina Carter, and I believe that you and Regina are going to reunite and do at least one gig this summer, right?
I think so, yes.
I think you're slated for a duo concert up in Vancouver at the end of June. That's another incredible combination because you have two jazz masters working together, which is always delightful. But let's talk about your new recording, wWhich is very familiar ground because you're working with a quintet, including your trio with Kiyoshi Kitagawa and Johnathan Blake. And how many years have you guys been playing together?
Oh, a long time. Kiyoshi has been with me for almost 30 years. And Johnathan Blake for at least 20 years.
He’s one of the younger musicians with whom you've been working over the years. Then in the quintet on the new recording, Beyond This Place, you have a veteran vibraphonist like Steve Nelson, who is always wonderful to hear and to watch. Then on saxophone, Immanuel Wilkins, who I think is one of the rising stars.
Oh, very much so.
Does your mentorship of these younger musicians like Immanuel and Jonathan come out of the 25 years you spent teaching at Rutgers University here in New Jersey and the work that you're doing at Juilliard now?
I don't know about that, but I know I love to play with younger guys, because it's very inspirational for me. It’s like getting your butt kicked.
Please, go into detail about that.
I mean they push you. And I love that. I love what Johnathan does. He does some amazing stuff. I got a chance to hear it when I first heard Immanuel on a recording. He was at Juilliard while I was there. I didn't know him and he told me that he came there specifically to study with me, but I had retired. I called him about a gig and when I heard him play, it was just phenomenal. We were supposed to do the Vanguard and actually this happened during COVID. We wound up doing a quartet at the Vanguard, just a live streaming thing, because there was no audience and again, it was phenomenal. So we did this recording. We were actually on tour in Europe, so we recorded in Paris. I like that he takes chances, which encourages me to take chances, so you never know which way it's going to go sometimes.
You said something and I don't think it was recent. I think that this has been resurrected on social media, but it has certainly been making the rounds lately, that you said that too many younger musicians are playing from the head, and not from the heart, which has caused, I won't say controversy, but certainly has caused a lot of conversation. Do you want to add anything to that? I I'm really interested.
Yes, I was surprised. I saw a bit of that and I thought about contributing to it, but, no, let it stand. It's something I said, and I agree with what I said, and especially in terms of writing in terms of composition, it's very heady. But that's the way they hear things, and there's an evolution and things evolve, but what I'm talking about is when a young musician says, “I want to compose,” it's almost like instantaneously they say, “Well, how complicated can I make this?” That's what I'm talking about.
It's not necessary. It shows that you know how to do certain things. Certainly that you know math very well. Or somebody who plays a lot of notes without ever slowing down or ever playing a whole note. But then young people, and I was one of them at one time, they want to play everything they know all the time. That’s one of the advantages of working with older people like when I was working with Dizzy.
When you first started working with Dizzy in 1963 or whenever, were you playing everything you knew?
One of the things he told me was: “Just slow down, save yourself. You don't have to play everything, every chorus, you know. There's, there's some more stuff coming, so just relax and just take your time.” That's the lesson I think I learned. And then listening to my heroes, like Tommy Flanagan, who was a big influence and Hank Jones. They told stories. It wasn't about playing as fast as you can play.
In the 40 years I've been doing this, when I put Hank Jones on the air, I always call him the ever sublime because that's exactly what he is. The ever sublime Hank Jones. Every time you heard him sit down at the piano, and I was lucky enough to see him play live, it was mesmerizing.
Yes, it was.
I've had those moments with you as well. We were talking before we started here about the night we first met. And then within a couple of months of that, I was watching you play at Bradley's, which is long, long gone. But I would sit there and watch you play until four o'clock in the morning. And it was mesmerizing. I feel lucky that I had that experience, that I could sit and watch you do that. Just as the younger musicians who are playing with you now, I'm sure that they feel very lucky that they are doing what they're doing, especially on this new album, Beyond This Place. Can you elaborate on what that title means? I love the artwork, by the way, as well.
Yes, I do too. I don't remember the artist's name. [Ed. Note: The artist was R. Gregory Christie.] I was shown three paintings and I had to choose between them, and they all had that kind of motif of somebody going somewhere. That's the one I chose.
And in this case, it's someone in a boat that's actually above the ocean, above the water about three or four feet. But they're holding an umbrella, prepared for all eventualities. Is that what it entails, going beyond this place? You got to be prepared for all eventualities?
Well, yes, I think so. You got to be prepared.
I have to say that having heard the title track from the album, Beyond This Place, it sounds gospel, but it also sounds like a homecoming of some kind. Is there something in that?
Not in my mind. It really is about going beyond not death, but just going beyond where you are at the moment. I wrote the music first and then the title came later and that's what it signified to me. Beyond this place, there's something better somewhere. There are actually lyrics to it, which I hope to do. A friend of mine wrote lyrics to it. At some point I'm going to record that if I can find the right singer.
Anybody in mind?
Not at the moment.
These days, most people would automatically say Samara Joy.
Yes, that's certainly an option.
There you go. See, if that's the way it winds up, then I want to a very small amount of credit for suggesting it. I also enjoyed your revisiting “Sunset,” which I hadn't heard in decades, from originally your first album as a leader. I love the interplay between you and Steve Nelson on the vibraphone and Immanuel Wilkins on the alto saxophone. It has that wonderful feel. It sounds different to me, because on the original, you were playing electric piano.
That's right.
So it's a different kind of interplay, but it's still just a beautiful groove. Any reason why you revisited that after 50 years?
That's a good question. It's interesting because sometimes you record things and at the time I didn't really have a group. So I never got to play it, until much later. It’s nice to reach back in the vault, so to speak. And you find things that you recorded a long time ago and you didn't really play them all.
That doesn't take away from how great it sounds on your solo album, The Source, though I can listen to “Sunshower” played any way. I can listen to you play that on a tin can and I'd be happy.
But sometimes you go back in the vault and you find things and you see what else can I do with this or can I do something different with it.
And you did, you achieved that because it really does sound different from what it did in 1973. We were talking earlier about Tommy Flanagan, and I know that the piece, “Tragic Magic” is really dedicated to him.
Actually, it's not.
Oh, sorry. That's why we're talking, so I can get corrected on this stuff.
I don't know where that came from. But it's certainly in line with the kind of stuff he would record though. The kind of feeling. He was my primary influence.
I'm sure there are other pianists though that influenced you. I know Thelonious Monk was always big.
Oh yes. Monk. McCoy [Tyner], who was from my hometown.
Exactly. You and he were almost the same age, correct?
He was a few years older than me, even maybe five or six years older. But I heard him play a lot in Philly. His playing then was pretty much straight ahead. And it didn't change until he joined Trane. And the two of them together kind of put this thing together. I'm sure it wasn't an intentional thing. I'm sure it was organic. They just kind of changed the shape of the music.
Oh, they certainly did. And then, 20 years after that, you come along with Stan Getz and with George Mraz and Victor Lewis, or whoever happened to be in the rhythm section, though that was one of the best ones. I think that also changed the way that people were listening to this. Those two live albums of yours with Stan, Anniversary and Serenity, were very formative for me. I played them when I first started on air back in the mid to late 1980s. I was playing them all the time and I would always get people's comments about that. How beautiful is that? What is that? That's when you know that you're not only playing the right thing, but you're also touching somebody. How does that happen for you? How do how do you know when you've actually touched somebody with what you're doing?
Hopefully, it's just through a reaction. One of the things I would often tell my students, especially when playing a ballad, is “Can you make me cry?” You can look out in the audience and you can tell if you touched somebody on an emotional level. For me, that's happened in my entire life that I know of twice. I was playing a solo concert and I hear the sniffling behind me. So maybe somebody has a cold or something. And when it was over, the promoter came over to me and said, “You had this young lady in tears.” And the other time was at Bradley's.
Here we are, back at Bradley's.
I was playing with Ray Drummond and Ben Riley and, a friend of mine, an actor, Ted Ross was his name, who played in The Wiz. He had a detective show on TV for a while, but I'd met him many years ago in Seattle, but he was standing at the bar. I don't know what we were playing, but we were swinging hard. And when we came down again, he was teary eyed. So it's not always about ballads that do it.
I agree.
It's the emotion.
I've listened to pieces by Milt Jackson, where those mallets are moving so fast and he's swinging his ass off. And that's when I start tearing up. It's music like that that makes you glad to be alive.
Yes, exactly.
I want to talk to you about the concert that you're going to do three days after your birthday in San Francisco. Tell me about that because this is something very special. You're going to be featured at the piano with the Clayton Hamilton Jazz Orchestra for the debut of Oscar Peterson's Africa Suite. Am I right?
Well, I'm not going to be playing with the orchestra. I think that might be Benny Green, I'm not sure. But there's a portion of the show where myself and Benny are going to play compositions by Oscar, with Russell Malone, with a drummer-less trio, like Oscar used to have sometimes. Just piano, guitar and bass. I’m going to play two of Oscar's compositions. And then another song that I think that might've been done by him and Benny Carter, “I'm Beginning to See the Light.”
Recently, you were playing at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Tell us what happened with the act on the stage next to you that was overwhelming everything.
That happens a lot at certain festivals, where they have multiple events going on and somd sometimes you can hear very loudly. I think somebody said it was the Beach Boys who were playing opposite us on a different stage. You could hear the bass, very thunderous. Sometimes you just play through it. Otherwise, you go crazy trying to worry about it. You just deal with it.
It was Ashley Kahn, actually, who posted about this. He said what he loved was the fact that you chose to play something really quiet and made the audience lean forward to focus on what you were doing and not what this other band was doing. He thought that was a really bold choice and a brave one. He saluted you for it and I do as well. I think that’s terrific.
It actually was a Charlie Haden composition called “Nightfall.” It’s very slow and very beautiful. It’s one of my favorites as well.
This conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.
