Warren Wolf at the 2011 Detroit Jazz Festival

Warren Wolf

A Complete Musician
By Geoffrey Himes | Photo by Andrea Canter

ON THE WALL OF WARREN WOLFS WOLFPAC STUDIO IN Baltimore, theres a painting of the musician as a chubby 3-year-old boy, wearing a green dashiki and standing on a chair above a vibraphone. Look at those eyes, says his father, Warren Wolf Sr., nodding at the painting. Totally focused. He was already playing Charlie Parker tunes. The proud papa, sporting a bushy salt-and-pepper goatee and Afro, glances fondly over his oval glasses at his son. Theres no baby fat on Junior these days. Wolfs muscular physique is the result of a regimen that takes him to the gym six days a week.
As a child, he pursued a different regimen. By the time he was able to go to school, the young boy had a daily schedule of 90 minutes of practice after dinner: 30 minutes on vibes, 30 minutes on piano and 30 minutes on drums. During summer vacation there would two 90-minute sessions a day. Though he sometimes resented the workload, it paid off: Today, hes terrific on all three instruments. Though audiences outside Baltimore know him only as a vibraphonist, his hometown audiences know him as a drummer and pianist as well. You can often see him in those roles at the citys top jazz clubs, such as An die Musik where he recently laid down a Dennis Chambers-like groove behind Chick Coreas former bassist Mike Pope. Wolf became such a powerhouse percussionist, in fact, that his friends still refer to him as Chano, after Dizzy Gillespies conga player Chano Pozo. On the same wall as the painting, theres a gig poster for Wolfpack and Chano at the Sportsmans Lounge, from when the grade-school boy played with his fathers band at the Baltimore club. And Junior has played piano on occasional projects, such as Bobby Watsons 2007 album From The Heart (Palmetto). On his two major projects this year, however, Wolf sticks to the mallets. He plays the vibes on all eight tracks of Christian McBride & Inside Straights People Music (Mack Avenue) and on eight of the nine tracks of Wolfs own album Wolfgang (Mack Avenue). On the ninth track he plays marimba. It makes sense for him to focusno one ever became a huge jazz star by being a utility player. And if he had to select just one path, mallets were the obvious choice, for it allows him to use everything he learned as a pianist and drummer; it allows him to play both tunes and beats. Honestly, he confesses, I think of myself as a vibraphonist-slash-drummer. But Im trying to make my presence known, and the vibes have given me the most recognition, so I lean in that direction. When people hire me, they tend to put me on vibes. Its an instrument you dont see every time. At almost every show I play, at least one person comes up and says, Wow, Ive never seen a xylophone out front before. I say, Thanks, but its not a xylophone. Its pretty funny, claims bassist Kris Funn, who plays on Wolfgang and has known Wolf since middle school. On the vibes, he plays by the book, but on piano or the drums, he has a more unorthodox style. His fingerings are weird, and he plays drums left-handed even though hes right-handed. He plays them so wrong but so right. Ive

called him for gigs on all three instruments. Its harder for a drummer to become a bandleader, adds Wolf. There are hundreds of drummers out here but only about a dozen serious vibes players. I hear people say, Youre so good on vibes you couldnt possibly be good enough on drums because you couldnt have practiced enough. If they only knew. But I also love vibes because it gives me a chance to play melody. Melody is an element that distinguishes Wolfgang from dozens of other records released every year by straightahead jazz virtuosos educated at Berklee College of Music (as Wolf was) or similar conservatories. The discs strong themes may come from the blues (theres an arrangement of the traditional tune Frankie And Johnny), from classical music (the Mozart Requiem is incorporated into the title track) or from Wolfs own head, but the tunes always have two qualities: Theyre easy to grab and hold onto and they make the listener feel something. A lot of jazz nowadays is too thought-out, Wolf laments. A lot of musiciansand Im guilty of this myself sometimesare playing for ourselves and not the audience. To get away from that, I want to choose tunes that will connect with people. Take any popular songIt Dont Mean A Thing, Take Five, Mercy, Mercy, Mercy, My Girl or Billie Jeanand youll find a strong melody. You can solo all day and run all these changes over all kinds of meters and the average listener cant follow it. I think of all the hours of training that guys like me have had at Berklee, Juilliard or elsewhere. Were the best trained musicians around, and often we cant come up with a simple melody that some uneducated guy might come up with at home. This is not to imply that Wolf is playing pop or r&b instrumentals where the tune is everything. This is theme-and-variation improvisation that works because the themes are especially strong and the variations are just as compellingand the one is clearly tied to the other. You can hear this on the new albums opener, Sunrise, recorded with Wolfs working band of Funn, pianist Aaron Goldberg and drummer Billy Williams Jr. It begins with a ballad melody that evokes the romance of a new relationship. When the track shifts to a medium-tempo, mid-morning pulse, Funns jagged, descending line on upright bass and Goldbergs push-and-pull phrasing prompt Wolf to reconstruct the theme into forms that echo but never duplicate the opening statement. Its an illustration of how a theme can be reshaped repeatedly yet still sound melodic. Something similar occurs in the second track, Frankie And Johnny, recorded with the rhythm section of McBride, pianist Benny Green and drummer Lewis Nash. Green bangs out a funky blues riff; McBride introduces the familiar folk melody as a pizzicato stroll and then shouts Hah! with pleasure. Wolf picks up the tune, plays it once and then starts messing with it. But he doesnt just run the scales; instead, he invents new blues melodies in the same neighborhood. Green does something similar on his solo, and Nash gives everything a finger-snapping strut. The same approach can be heard on the title track, Wolfgang. (That title nods to the similarity of the names Warren Wolf, his band Wolfpac and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.) Recorded as a duet with pianist Aaron Diehl, it begins with quotes from the Mozart Requiem that are reworked into a jazz ballad and then into a New Orleans blues. Its an astonishing transformation, because Wolf can play the classical snippets with a lilting precision and can play the blues
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with sassy feeling. Its as if he were channeling both John Lewis and Milt Jackson from the Modern Jazz Quartet. Yeah, Wolf agrees, that was influenced by the MJQ. I had that line from the Mozart Requiem that I liked, and I developed it by repeating it in different keys with counterpoint. Its like the way Chick Corea took that line from the Concierto de Aranjuez and turned it into Spain. I needed a pianist who was good at classical and jazz, and Aaron was an obvious choice. I heard Warren when he played with Christian at the Vanguard, Diehl recalls. I had just been studying the archives of John Lewis because I wanted to record some of the Modern Jazz Quartet material, and when I heard Warren, I said, This guy is a virtuoso like Milt. Thats what made the Modern Jazz Quartet: the contrast between Milts soulful, bluesy quality and Johns more genteel, more baroque sensibility. Warren has botha real soulfulness but also a thorough knowledge of classical music. The first time Wolf encountered Green and

[Wolf] plays drums left-handed even though hes righthanded. He plays them so wrong but so right. Kris Funn
McBride was on Milt Jacksons 1997 album, Burnin In The Woodhouse. I liked the way Benny comped behind the vibes, Wolf says. A lot of piano players dont know their job. Theyre supposed to support you, but they play over you; theyre supposed to follow you, but they want to lead you. Its the same with drummers. I want a drummer who knows when to be busy and when not to be busy. Wolfgang is Wolfs second CD for Mack Avenue Records (following 2011s Warren Wolf ) but his sixth overall. He did two earlier discs2008s RAW and 2011s Warren Chano Pozo Wolfon his own label and two more2009s Incredible Jazz Vibes and 2010s Black Wolffor Japans M&I Records. The latter two albums, which are very hard to find now, feature pianist Mulgrew Miller, who passed away on May 29. Mulgrew helped me out a lot in the beginning, Wolf says. Not only was he the second person to take me out on the roadright after Tim Warfield in 2003but he also introduced me to a Japanese producer. Mulgrew was a nice guy who played a hell of a lot of piano. He brought a whole history of the piano to jazz, but he never got the recognition he deserved. Those older guys pass on the experience of the still older guys they played with when they were in their 20s. When youre playing with Mulgrew or Bobby Watson, youre getting that experience of playing with Art Blakey, that attitude of Yes, its my band, but you have to give other people a chance to shine. Wolf first met McBride in 1997 when the former was attending Berklee and the latter was performing at Bostons Regatta Bar. The young student asked the bassist to sign some CDs and declared, Hey, Mr. McBride, someday were going to play together. Wolf soon realized that jazz stars hear that a lot, but three

years later he was invited to Jazz Aspen Snowmass Academy, where McBride was the artistic director. McBride wasnt aware that a vibes player would be attending, so he didnt have a score for a vibes part in the big-band arrangement of Shade Of The Cedar Tree, McBrides composition for Cedar Walton (who died on Aug. 19). I said I didnt need it because I knew his music, Wolf remembers. And I played it through without the score. After that we exchanged numbers and he said, Someday Im going to call you for a gig. That call finally came seven years later. A woman said, Hello, Mr. Wolf, Mr. McBride wants to know if you can play with him at the Village Vanguard. I did six nights there and figured it was over. I said, I got to play with Christian McBride. Good. But his manager kept calling for the next six years. Unlike many vibraphonists, Wolf prefers two sticks rather than four. When hes tried four-mallet playing, hes often developed a sore on the inside of his index finger. Plus, the two-stick approach allows him to strike the keys as if with drum sticks, and its that athletic approach that makes his sound so distinctive. Im different from most vibraphonists, he says, because I work out a lot, and that allows me to play as hard as possible. When I was at Berklee in 1997, [the Baltimore drummer] John Lamkin invited me down to Wallys Caf. At that point I was still using a classical approach, but I found that no one past the first few rows could hear me. When I complained about it, my roommate at the time said, Lets go to the gym. I started going all the timewhich I still doand before long I was playing the vibes so hard that I was knocking the tubes out of tune. And thats hard to do. The other quality that distinguishes Wolf is his connection to Baltimore. Theres something about musicians from that city that combines the funkiness of the South and the thoughtfulness of the North. Maybe thats because the town sits south of the MasonDixon Line and north of the Union/Confederate border along the Potomac River. The musicians from Baltimore whove made it Gary Bartz, Gary Thomas, Dennis Chambers, George Colliganall bring a real fire to the stage, Wolf says. Its a blues thing. A lot of them come from the black church where youre playing hard all day. The Copy Cat Building in Baltimore is an old industrial warehouse that has been converted into studio spaces for painters, sculptors, reggae bands and indie-rock bands. On the wall of the Wolfpac Studio is a display with a hand-written sign that says, 100 Years of Baltimore Jazz. Below the sign are photos of Juniors great-grandfather pianist James Nelson Wolfe sitting at a piano; his grandfather the pianist James Nelson Wolfe Jr., also sitting at a piano; his father and himself standing by their vibes; and Juniors two sons, 6-year-old Kaden and 9-year-old Devaughn sitting behind drum sets. On the ledge of the catercorner wall sit nine carved drums from Africa. Warren Wolf Sr. explains the provenance of each, one of them dating back 150 years. They say you need to play an instrument for 10,000 hours to master itby the time he went to Berklee, hed had 15,000 hours of practice, says the father, a former history teacher, about his son. I wanted to prepare a jazz musician who would be ready for the first Intergalactic Jazz Festival to calm the aliens. I wanted him to be a superstar, because I couldnt do it myself. When I saw him go past me musically at age 6 or 7, I knew what the deal was. DB