INTERVIEW Wynton Marsalis," my editor said. Hmmmm. Exciting, maybe. Same answers, different newspaper, probably. Why not interview one of the young men he surrounds himself with in the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra (LCJO)? Eric Reed, pianist with Wynton since 1989, was a likely candidate. He'll be playing with the LCJO at Centennial Hall at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, October 10.
At 24, he has three albums as a leader and many albums with Marsalis and others to his credit. Brother Branford told People magazine this guy is someone to watch, "a bad motherfucker," he said.
How does it feel to have these kinds of endorsements at age 24?
"I guess that's it, have a good day, I don't know what else you need!" Reed replies, laughing on the phone from his Milwaukee hotel room. "It doesn't get much better than that--to be endorsed by somebody who is as much respected and well known as Branford Marsalis. Working with his brother, Wynton, is pretty much the icing on the cake."
How did he get so far at such a tender age?
"It's about timing," Reed reflected. "I met Wynton 10 years ago. If I hadn't met him then, I might not be here now. I grew up in L.A. and it might have been a different story."
Reed met Marsalis when the trumpeter visited his school. He took a liking to the 14-year-old pianist and kept track of him.
"He'd fly me out to gigs to check out the music," Reed recalled. "He eventually called me and I started playing with him in 1989. Marcus (Roberts) was starting his own career. He said he'd been considering me all along, but I find that hard to believe considering how I sounded."
He got the call from Marsalis when he was a freshman at Cal State Northridge. Although he spends 80 percent of his time on the road or in New York with Marsalis, he still lives in L.A. He likes the laid-back vibe there, but not the music scene in general. The musicians are another story. Many of L.A.'s greats gave him his start in his teens, people such as Clora Bryant, Gerald Wilson, John Clayton, Larry Gales and Buddy Collette.
Cutting his teeth with this variety of musicians gave him what Marsalis wanted. "I think he could hear a certain level of talent and advancement, a certain development in my ear to be able to pick up music and learn music easily, those were the qualities he was looking for," Reed surmised. "He also knew my parents and knew I had a decent upbringing and wouldn't embarrass him in public."
His "decent upbringing" by his gospel-singing minister father included early music training. Reed started noodling on the piano at age two. At five he began studying beginner versions of the classics and heard his first jazz records. A second-hand Ramsey Lewis album opened young Reed's eyes and ears.
"The very first notes that I heard from the Ramsey Lewis Sounds of Christmas record were from 'Merry Christmas Baby,' and to hear Ramsey Lewis play the piano in such a way, it was as if he was bringing out in me what I had been wanting to play. I'd grown up playing in church--playing very gospelly, very down home, very soulful. All of a sudden it made sense, like 'Okay it goes somewhere else, too. This isn't gospel music, what is this?' I started playing my hymns in church like that and of course, I got chewed out for it."
For six years after this early indoctrination in jazz, he didn't hear any more jazz until he saw a public television presentation of Ain't Misbehavin. He went to the library and checked out the soundtrack, followed by more jazz albums. Just judging the recordings by the covers, he fell upon a blue album by Coleman Hawkins, another pretty flowered one by Chick Corea and a gray album by Art Tatum.
The late Tatum and John Coltrane are the two jazz musicians he would most liked to have met and talked with. When he put the Tatum album on his parent's turntable, he thought he had the speed too high, but it was just Tatum's amazing facility on the piano.
"You can just hear his mastery of the piano; his sense of harmony was unbelievable," Reed said. "No piano player in jazz had more technique. He was just a genius. And John Coltrane was constantly searching for different ways to play three notes. He found a million ways to do it. He found ways that were impossible."
"Wynton is somebody whose brain I can pick, too. To see his inspiration, he's constantly going. I can see where he could physically get tired, but he musters up the energy and the nerve and gumption and the inspiration to go out there every day and do what it takes to play good music. He's a complete bundle of energy. He's always got his hand in a project--writing a book or coming up with some new ideas on how to present jazz."
Reed isn't the only youngster in the LCJO. The orchestra members' biographies all begin with their birth date. Most can't remember the first lunar landing. Marsalis and record companies have been criticized by musicians and journalists for giving young artists a lot of exposure and recording contracts before they've "paid their dues." In response to that, Reed said, "The record labels are trying to sell records; that's what they do. This is one way to get them sold, by targeting younger musicians and exploiting the whole youth movement. Quite naturally, just because of youth, people don't deserve a lot of things, but change is always based on a very young concept and you can't really change if you don't have anybody to follow up.
"A lot of people who are complaining are the same people who aren't really giving us much help in learning to play the music," he continued. "Some musicians you can't get anything out of them. Either it's selfishness, or they don't know how to explain it to you."
Reed acknowledged that some people, like Betty Carter, are very helpful to young musicians. He's following a graduate of the Betty Carter rhythm section school, Cyrus Chestnut, into the LCJO.
"In my two years and two months with Betty Carter, I learned to always push forward, strive for excellence, never be satisfied with the status quo," Chestnut said from his home in New York. He spent most of the summer touring Europe with the LCJO, but he opted out of this tour.
"I want to pursue Cyrus Chestnut," he explained. "I like the trio format, everybody knows me as a sideman, and I want to be in the court where I'm in charge."
Chestnut will appear in a trio with drummer Jae Sinnett and bassist Jimmy Masters at 7 p.m. Saturday, October 7, in St. Philip's Plaza, 4380 N. Campbell Ave. Like Reed, he grew up playing gospel music in the church. Both pianists mentioned they're planning an album of spirituals together. "We're going to...have us a nice little stomp session," Chestnut said.
The session on Tuesday night with the LCJO will feature the music of Duke Ellington, including parts of his "Peer Gynt Suite" and "Far East Suite," as well as music by Count Basie and Wayne Shorter.
