Rossy & Kanan Quartet BUD
Featuring Jimmy Wormworth & Putter Smith
I’f you love bebop but you are too young to have listened to the masters live -or you are not that young but you miss that sound- there are a few bands still active on the planet that keep that tradition truly alive.
Mike and I really believe that with Putter and Jimmy we are getting really close to that sound and feeling. It is really amazing to experience how relevant and moving this music is, we can feel it on stage and on the response of audiences in every single gig !
This liner notes written by Mike for the 3rd CD of this band gives an idea of what we’re up to this year.
Jordi Rossy
Begues Barcelona
For this third offering by our quartet, we have once again chosen the work of a single composer. Bud Powell is widely acknowledged as one of the great pianists in jazz history. His compositions, like his playing, are innovative, sophisticated, lyrical, and swinging. But performing the works of a jazz composer (rather than a composer of the Great American Songbook like Gershwin or Arlen) is rather more challenging. The great standards can be interpreted in any number of ways. Jazz compositions naturally come with the language of the composer’s own improvising. The challenge is to be true to that language and still make a personal statement. Playing with Jimmy Wormworth and Putter Smith really made this possible. They are both part of the generation for whom swing is natural, and having an individual voice is a mandate. Jorge and I simply needed to hear that beat and play something honest.
Powell was a strong personality – the equal of Parker, Monk, Gillespie, etc. His compositions offer a wide emotional range from whimsical swing to dark and mysterious. We hope you enjoy hearing these songs as much as we enjoyed exploring them.
Michael Kanan
Brooklyn NY
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