Sax great Gary Bartz one of Bay Area’s best kept secrets
A saxophonist with a searing tone honed in the bands of Charles Mingus Art Blakey and Miles Davis Gary Bartz is often depicted as one of jazz s great improvisers He doesn t see himself that way Related Articles What to expect at Stagecoach country roots pop surprises big desert nights Review Phish looks Rock Hall worthy during Bay Area show Lady Gaga adds multiple San Francisco Los Angeles tour dates Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival dates declared Coachella Post Malone Megan Thee Stallion highlight day weekend Awarded the nation s highest jazz honor last year by the National Endowment for the Arts the -year-old Bartz resists describing his music as impromptu creation He d rather people see his music as the development of intensive cultivation That s one thing that is misunderstood when I perform you re watching me write commented Bartz whose move to Emeryville in hasn t made him any less of a scarce presence on Bay Area stages He performs with an all-star quintet April at Yoshi s in Oakland and April at Santa Cruz s Kuumbwa Jazz Center The Baltimore-raised Bartz moved to New York City in to research at Juilliard and majored in composition because the conservatory didn t have a jazz operation His tunes draw on a broad spectrum of Black American music seamlessly encompassing blues funk and R B along with bebop and avant garde directions forged by Ornette Coleman which are also steeped in the blues Bartz s point in rejecting the term improvisation is that he proceeds with a plan He s composing with his group as he plays I m not just taking licks and stringing them together he disclosed on a contemporary video call looking and sounding more like someone starting to receive AARP solicitations than an octogenarian I m recomposing all the time I m really thinking about how it starts evolving thematic material and where we re going so everybody knows where we re ending Getting set to release a series of new albums after more than a decade since his last project as a leader Bartz has been retooling his band since the departure of his longtime pianist and music director Barney McCall who moved back to Australia He brings a heavyweight New York combo to the Bay Area featuring drummer Kassa Overall and guitarist Paul Bollenback a brilliant accompanist who s worked intermittently with Bartz for decades though he s best known as a longtime collaborator with the late Hammond B maestro Joey DeFrancesco His focus and potential the fact that he doesn t stop learning he amazes me Bollenback announced He s got the spring in his step of a -year-old I ve been working regularly with him again since around and it s constantly great to play with him It s nice to see him get certain real momentum with his own working band Filling in for Bartz s longtime bassist James King is Rueben Rogers who s performed around the region dozens of times in groups led by saxophonist Joshua Redman vocalist Dianne Reeves and tenor sax legend Charles Lloyd among several others Marc Cary another musician who s worked widely around the Bay Area over the past three decades is playing piano and Fender Rhodes He heard several stories about Bartz as a young musician from his mentor bebop piano great Walter Davis Jr so it seemed natural when they started hanging out during his formative stints with vocalist Betty Carter and drummer Arthur Taylor He d scoop me up after the gig and drop a lot of knowledge about wellbeing and longevity in this business Cary recalled I ve invariably had this sense that s my big brother Getting to play with him of late has been awesome I m learning a lot I can tell you that His knowledge and musical taste is so vast It s been an opportunity to go deeper into the music than I would have gone myself Cary first recorded with Bartz when the saxophonist joined trumpeter Roy Hargrove s band as a special guest on the live album Of Kindred Souls which includes tracks recorded at Kuumbwa Bach Dancing Dynamite Society and the old Yoshi s on Claremont Avenue With his lithe touch on the Rhodes he s an ideal accompanist for the songs that Bartz has been exploring including pieces by El DeBarge Patti Labelle Anita Baker McCoy Tyner and Jimmy Reed When he feels like it Bartz puts down his horn to sing He s not concerned about definitions or labels We play music and I don t see music as categories he commented That s for business people to deal with I d rather not deal with that I was watching a video of Miles Davis when we played the Isle of Wight in and they appealed him What are you going to play He explained Call it anything It s just a name and from the horn of Bartz it s going to sound sweet and tangy and full of soul Contact Andrew Gilbert at jazzscribe aol com GARY BARTZ When where p m April - at Yoshi s Oakland - www yoshis com p m April at Kuumbwa Jazz Center Santa Cruz - www kuumbwajazz org
