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recipient of the 2009 Gugenheim fellowship award |
Billy Childs had falling leaves on his mind when he began to
think about the music for his new ArtistShare CD, Autumn: In Moving
Pictures. The Grammy-winning pianist composer
was
driving in upstate
“And
I kept watching the trees as they rushed by the window,” he recalls. "Just beautiful. It was the source of why this whole
album exists. You know, being from
Los Angeles, you hardly ever see colors like that. So when you do, it makes a really profound impression.”
Impressionism, in fact, is the feeling that pervades Autumn: In Moving Pictures, Childs’ second album for ArtistShare, as well as the second collection of compositions and orchestrations for his jazz chamber ensemble. The music, composed for piano, acoustic guitar, sax, flute, harp, bass, drums, string quartet and woodwind quintet, in varying combinations, is rich with atmospheric timbres -- a series of musical portraits evoking not just the colorful leaves of autumn, but the season itself in all its multiplicity of sensations.
Childs’ great strengths as a composer – and a pianist, as well – are his ability to create a memorable melody (far too rare a skill in most 21st century music), his affection for moving, contrapuntal passages, his gift for finding a kaleidoscope of colorful timbres, whether he’s writing for a small chamber ensemble or a full orchestra, and the layers of emotional depth that invest everything he writes. Those qualities have been an evolving part of his musical growth since his first recordings were released on the Windham Hill label in the late ‘80s. Recognized as an important, rising young talent almost immediately after his graduation from the University of Southern California with a Bachelor of Music in Composition degree in 1979, recording and/or performing since then with the likes of Freddie Hubbard, J.J. Johnson, Joe Henderson, Alan Holdsworth, Eddie Daniels, Dianne Reeves, Yo Yo Ma, Sting and Chris Botti.
The idea of a jazz chamber ensemble, however, has always been close to Childs’ creative heart. A “hybrid form” that’s been tried at various times throughout jazz history, as far back as Gershwin’s “Rhapsody In Blue,” the “third stream” efforts of Gunther Schuller, George Russell and John Lewis and the Modern Jazz Quartet in the ‘50s and ‘60s and the fusion of ‘70s and ‘80s groups such as Weather Report and Return To Forever. Like the best of those efforts, Childs has followed his own path into a creative land of his own imagining; a land in which the free-flowing spontaneity of jazz shares comfortable, common ground with the far-ranging timbres and complex structures of classical music.
When he began to think about Vol. 2 of his Jazz Chamber Music, and Autumn: In Moving Pictures became the focus, the piece that led the way was “The Path Among the Trees,” the album’s opening track. The floating, shimmering sounds of the work immediately motivated Childs to “direct the compositions to that type of aesthetic.”
Other pieces followed. “Raindrop Patterns” takes a similar pattern, adding the impressionistic streaks of rain slipping down a window gazing out on an autumnal landscape.
“Red Wheelbarrow” was inspired by the famous, haiku-like poem by William Carlos Williams. “That poem,” says Childs, “has always reminded me of a lonely wheelbarrow sitting in the middle of an open meadow, just after it’s rained. While I was on my drive through New York state, I saw this little path between the trees and that whole image stayed in my mind.” The slow, arching melody captures the image Childs describes, enhanced by guitarist Larry Koonse’s gorgeous soloing.
“A Man Chasing the Horizon,” written as a commission from Chamber Music America, takes somewhat of a side path. “It goes,” he says, “in a multitude of directions.” Which it does. But what is most fascinating about it is the effectiveness with which he blends pointillistic, deconstructivist compositional techniques with his free-flying piano soloing.
“Prelude In E Minor” touches gently upon the Impressionistic aspects of Childs’ creative vision with a middle section inspired by Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin. It also represents, he says a “continuation.” “I eventually want to write something like the Well Tempered Clavier -- 24 preludes and fugues in major and minor keys. It’s going to take forever, but this, and one that I wrote for Lyric, are the start.”
The final two pieces are orchestrations of intriguingly disparate pieces of music. Faure’s Pavane is one of the most frequently played classical pieces, in part because of its gorgeous melody. “It’s so simple and direct,” says Childs. “But logical and symmetrical. A perfect work of art.” And, in his hands, a beautifully expressive piece for the Jazz Chamber Ensemble, with a striking Childs’ solo in the middle.
“Waltz For Debby” is, of course, the famous Bill Evans composition. But for Childs, his version of it describes a Debby who has “turned into a very complicated young woman.” “I remember hearing the Swingle Singers do Bach’s Two-Part Invention number four in D minor – my parents used to love them. I thought it was really cool, and I wanted something like that on this CD. But I wanted a theme that was slow moving, and the theme that kept coming into my head was ‘Waltz For Debby’.”
There are times when the vision of an experience is seen most clearly through the eyes of someone who comes to it anew. Autumn: In Moving Pictures is a perfect example. In its compelling music, Billy Childs -- Los Angeles born, raised in a world of endless summers and dry Santa Ana winds -- brings the amber and russet hues of autumn, the falling raindrops and pathways through the trees, vividly to life.
- Don Heckman
