PREVIEW
BRAD TURNER
April 11 and 12
Beat Niq Jazz and Social Club
Few jazz musicians are experts on three instruments, but that’s not the only thing that makes accomplished trumpeter, pianist and drummer Brad Turner unusual in jazz circles. The Vancouver-based leader of his own trio and quartet is classically trained and has several jazz degrees, but throughout his career he has also played with a wide range of musicians.
"Name the style, name the genre, and you’ll find me in it somewhere," says Turner, whose career has spanned funk, avant-garde, pop and classical. He co-founded the fusion group Metalwood and has been a key player in Vancouver’s Hard Rubber Orchestra, various multi-media performances and collaborations with Peggy Lee’s improvisational creations.
"I think anyone who considers themselves strictly a jazz musician is putting a pretty serious salary cap on their potential earnings."
Turner’s flexibility is the result of more than economics, though – it’s also related to his refusal to limit his inspiration for jazz composition and performance.
"I’ve been working at my career for a long time, to present myself as someone who is willing and able to play all different styles of music," he says. "But my focus is jazz and improvising."
That focus has earned him the 1999 Trumpeter of the Year award from Jazz Report magazine and two Juno award nominations for Jazz Composer of the Year. An accomplished composer, Turner continues to experiment, whether it’s through his current interests in Brazilian music and pop groups like Radiohead or through the challenge of improvising on pop tunes. He dismisses the current buzz around such industry phrases as "the new standard," pointing out that there is nothing "new" in jazz musicians playing popular songs of their era.
"I think jazz music has always reflected, in certain terms, the popular music of the day or the era, if you will," says Turner. "Not all popular forms and styles lend themselves to more mainstream jazz composing, but some really do. I think I’d be selling myself short if I didn’t allow myself the creative flexibility to dabble in and see what works."
Turner likes challenge and experimentation, but he is also a patient professional. Considering that his greatest inspirations, Wayne Shorter and Victor Lewis, are two of the most challenging jazz musicians of the last 50 years, it’s no wonder he’s willing to pace himself.
"Right now, I’m still trying to deal with Wayne Shorter’s music," says Turner. "You know, there are a lot of directions suggested in his body of work and he’s just one example of a person like that. I’m interested in seeing how far I can go, but in the meantime I’m not in any rush to be skipping over anything that I find."
That patience is reflected in his recordings. In fact, his current trio has been playing together since 1996, but has yet to release a CD.
"When something is released, I’d like it to have an identity, and that usually comes from having a group that has performed together and is developing something," says Turner. "I think the trio is starting to really do that."
Like other aspects of his performance and composition, Turner prefers to be open about his recording style.
"I’m really into releasing live (recordings) – there are so many things that happen on a bandstand in front of a good audience that are really hard to capture in the studio. I don’t like getting trapped into the ‘Oh, let’s do it again – let’s see if we can do it better.’ I’m not really sure what better is because a lot of times better happens in the moment." |
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