| The Randy Bachmann jazz album – contrary to what you might think, it’s not coming out of nowhere. Randy Bachman has been waiting 30 years for the right moment.
A legendary figure in rock and roll, having sold more than 40 million records earning 120 gold and platinum album/singles awards, Bachman has always kept jazz close to his heart. He even snuck jazz chords into The Guess Who or Bachman-Turner Overdrive solos.
His longtime friend and mentor, celebrated jazz guitarist Lenny Breau, tried to convince him many years ago to record a jazz album, and even though Bachman founded the Guitarchives record label – which rescues and releases otherwise lost archival jazz guitar music – in the ’90s, it wasn’t until now that Bachman felt the time was right. And even though he finally got around to seeing his vision to fruition, Bachman says recording JazzThing was no easy task.
"It took about five or six years basically travelling from London to Nashville to L.A. working with the really top writers for other projects," says Bachman. "We’d done writing for a project and our job would be done and I’d say, ‘Now can we do something for fun?’ They’d say, ‘Sure, what do you wanna do?’ and I’d say, ‘Well I wanna write "My Funny Valentine" or "Cry Me a River" or some Irving Berlin or Duke Ellington kind of thing.’
"People don’t believe me when I say I wrote the tunes, because it’s difficult. It’s about bridging the gap between the genres. It’s completely different."
Not only has the jazz community embraced Bachman, they totally dig JazzThing. In it, Bachman explores his early jazz influences with his own traditional standards, always keeping Breau in mind. In fact, two tracks contain Breau and Bachman together, even though Breau died in 1984, a collaboration much like that of Natalie and Nat King Cole’s "Unforgettable." Culled from over 2000 hours of live performances, Bachman played and sang along with Breau’s recording of "Summertime" for six months before going to the studio with it. As a result, there’s a sincerity to it that Bachman is convinced comes from his love of the man and his longtime involvement in jazz.
"It’s not like I’m jumping on a bandwagon," emphasizes Bachman. "I didn’t want to do a bunch of covers. I’m not that good a singer and player to reinterpret something someone else has done over and over. I know my strength is as a songwriter and I was bent on writing songs that would fit in with the few standards that I did. Lenny always wanted me to do jazz. And now I’m doing it. It’s just 30 years late." |
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