JAZZ PIANIST MIKE LONGO JOINED BY BASSIST BOB CRANSHAW AND DRUMMER LEWIS NASH
After more than a half-century as a jazz pianist, and having learned valuable lessons early on from studying with Oscar Peterson and playing with Dizzy Gillespie, Mike Longo delivers an incredible repertoire of in-depth musical exploration on his latest trio recording, Sting Like a Bee.
This new album, also featuring jazz stalwarts Bob Cranshaw on bass and Lewis Nash on drums, showcases Longo’s always-evolutionary playing on a dozen tunes recorded "live in the studio, mostly first takes with the absolute minimum of editing" to capture the most spontaneous, rapturous, improvisational jazz possible. They had never played as a trio before and there was only one rehearsal, but each of them had previously recorded and played live together. "Bob and Lewis are both from the same ‘polymetric school’ of playing where you can have more than one meter going on at the same time," Longo states. "With them there is a contrapuntal perfection between the musicians, plus great interaction."
Sting Like a Bee is the follow-up album to Longo’s 2007 trio recording Float Like a Butterfly. "That earlier album explored certain uses of rhythm in music that can produce a floating effect for both the player and listener," explains Longo. "Sting Like a Bee, like each new recording I do, moves a little farther in the exploration. On this one we don’t pull any punches." Sting Like a Bee and many of Longo’s other recordings are available online at jazzbeat.com, amazon.com, cdbaby.com and digital download sites such as iTunes.
Longo’s style evolved from playing during his teenage years with Cannonball Adderley, earning a degree in classical music, getting private lessons from Oscar Peterson, and performing with Dizzy Gillespie for a quarter of a century (including nine years of non-stop touring and recording, and several years as the musical director for Dizzy’s band). "Being around Diz was a constant learning process," Mike says.
The Peterson and Gillespie influences are evident on Sting Like a Bee only in the subtleties, but Longo tips his hat to each of them with specific pieces. Longo does a solo piano rendition of Gillespie’s "Kush" to end the album. "One of the important things I learned from Diz was a ‘polymetric time conception.’ Briefly that means music that is in more than one meter in different tempos at the same time. This tune was on the first album I made with Dizzy, a live recording, Swing Low Sweet Cadillac on Impulse Records. I always wondered if it would be possible for a pianist to play in one meter with his left hand against a different meter and tempo coming from the right hand, and have them mesh together. You hear the left playing six-eight and the right doing three-four at another tempo, and at one point dipping into a four-four swing in yet another tempo. It was a challenge to do it live without resorting to overdubs."
The Peterson tribute is a medley of melodies from "West Side Story" because Longo has fond memories of being invited to watch Peterson’s trio rehearse these tunes before recording their classic versions in the Sixties. "I didn’t worry about my versions sounding like theirs because I learned way back how to personalize the stuff I play. When I was 20-years-old I got the chance to record my first album when I was asked to do the songs from the play ‘Funny Girl’ before the musical was even staged on Broadway. I knew it was impossible to do the material like Barbra Streisand was rehearsing it, so I just took the music and did my own jazz interpretations."
Mike says, "Oscar taught me true jazz piano playing." In Chicago in the early Sixties, Peterson invited Longo to study with him at the Advanced School of Contemporary Music for jazz musicians. Longo spent the next six months in what he calls "the most intense period of study in my life," often with private lessons from Peterson. "I first learned all the T’s from him
– touch, time, tone, technique, taste, textures and temperature. That last one has to do with intensity, how hot you play. He had me practicing 13 hours a day and I also had to make a living playing gigs most nights. It was a complete turnaround for me musically. What I learned about jazz piano playing from him was profound."Sting Like a Bee also contains three Longo originals. The bluesy "Checked Bags" is a tribute to his good friend, the late Milt Jackson, nicknamed "Bags" and one of the few vibraphonists to delve deeply into the blues. Regarding the short-and-speedy "Bird Seed," Longo says, "I play seven bars of three-beats in four-four time. This came from a seed Charlie Parker planted in my head years ago with the tune ‘Constellation,’ although he did it with groups of two and I am using groups of three." Longo’s other composition is the slow, haunting, love song "Someone to Love." The recording includes tunes by several of Longo’s favorite composers. "Cole Porter’s music lends itself to jazz interpretation and he represents an amazing era in music composition." Herbie Hancock’s "Tell Me a Bedtime Story" "seems to me to be influenced by Stravinsky and Bartok because the piece has some interesting 5/4 bars and amazing figures employing cycles of thirds and seconds." Longo’s trio plays two Wayne Shorter tunes, the fast-paced "Speak No Evil" and the soft "Dance Cadaverous." Longo explains, "He is such an outstanding composer, but most of what he writes is for horn groups, so it’s a great challenge to transform the material to a piano trio setting."