Joe Lovano

Joe Lovano

MY FAVORITE THINGS: {|Joe Lovano|}
There isn't a musician in jazz with a broader stylistic comfort zone than saxophonist Joe Lovano. Equally at home playing standards, free improvs, and everything in between, Lovano has carved a career out of an ongoing dialogue between the Freedom Principle and the Tradition.On his recent 52ND STREET THEMES, Lovano pays tribute to such bebop icons as Tadd Dameron and Charlie Parker, men who were prime influences on Lovano's father, Tony "Big T" Lovano, a saxophone fixture on the Cleveland scene, and on his friend Willie "Face" Smith, who contributes idiomatic orchestrations on Joe Lovano's recording.Ted Panken of barnesandnoble.com spoke with the mighty Lovano about a few of his favorite things -- jazzwise, that is.

Barnes & Noble.com: What records changed your world when you heard them, that were paradigm-shifting events for you?

Joe Lovano: LOVANO: Well, Sonny Stitt's PERSONAL APPEARANCE is a great record. He played alto and tenor and played incredibly on "Easy Living," "Easy to Love," "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea," and "Autumn in New York." I listened to it every day when I was a kid for a long time and played drums along with it. I could sing along with his playing.

BN: Did Miles Davis's music affect you?

JL: KIND OF BLUE for sure, for everybody's contributions, and how they played as an ensemble as well as different quartets throughout the recording. And, {|ROUND ABOUT MIDNIGHT|}: Miles Davis on Columbia with John Coltrane, Philly Joe Jones, Red Garland, and Paul Chambers. That record and that band was one of my primary influences not only the individual soloing, but just the way they played as an ensemble, with a lot of interplay within the written stuff, and the way they treated the tunes, with counterparts within the band. I loved that version of "Tadd's Delight," and it's one of the reasons why I wanted Willie to write an arrangement on it for 52ND STREET THEMES.

BN: How about the tenor giants of the time?

JL: Sonny Rollins, OUR MAN IN JAZZ, with Don Cherry and Billy Higgins. That record knocked me out. The way Sonny plays, the way they play together, like they're having a ball. They're on their toes with each other, so to speak, chasing each other around, trying to figure out what's happening. [i]laughs[i] There's a lot of excitement in the air when you listen to that record, because the quartet feeling is so beautiful and creative.

BN: And Coltrane?

JL: TRANSITION, John Coltrane, the quartet, with "Dear Lord" and the tune "Transition." "Transition" was a record that came out a few years after Coltrane died, one of the first of his unreleased recordings that came out. The way they played together made a big impact on me.

BN: What's in your CD player now?

JL: That ECM record CODONA with Don Cherry, Colin Walcott, and Nana Vasconcelos. Also Paul Bley, Paul Motian, and Gary Peacock's new record on ECM called NOT TWO, NOT ONE.

BN: Any older things?

JL: I just listened to Sonny Rollins's record GLOBAL WARMING the other day, and it's fantastic. It's a lot of fun. Sonny's tone and the spirit he's playing in right now is beautiful, because he's just flying, and he's hitting such a beautiful groove. Also recently, THE ALL SEEING EYE by Wayne Shorter, which is a nice recording. The cats play with a beautiful spirit on that. Great tunes and a real searching attitude.

BN: You still gain so much inspiration from the masters.

JL: The last cassette that I listened to was from the old LP of John Coltrane, LIVE IN JAPAN. "Peace on Earth" is beautiful! Pharoah Sanders plays alto on it, and it's one of his solos. That concert was really a spiritual, beautiful moving performance, maybe less than a year before Trane died, and the recording touches me.

BN: Give me four of your favorite tenor saxophonists out of the Midwest -- apart from your dad -- and a few reasons why.

JL: Well, Johnny Griffin. Because he's one of the monsters of all time!

BN: You've got to do better than that.

JL: Well, it's a good way to start. Griff's flow and his attitude, his conception about rhythm and melody and how they swirl together, with some beautiful lines. Johnny plays in between a wispy sound and a real driving sound. He's got a lot of dimensions in his tone that have always attracted me. Yeah, his flow.

BN: Any of Griff's contemporaries?

JL: Well,Gene Ammons.Someone who also played with such a driving force but also had some wispy Lester Young kind of flow and feelings in his playing, too. I mean, he didn't just fill up the space. He played with a real heavy groove and beautiful melodic ideas.And Charlie Parker on tenor. Bird had another kind of personality that came through on it for me. He was on the stand with Don Byas and a lot of cats who had this way of playing through Coleman Hawkins that I think Bird heard, though his approach was lighter than that because he was so fluent on the instrument. He reached into the tenor with a real wide, beautiful approach, a natural flow that was unique and different. I think players like Sonny Rollins picked up on it early on, and people heard him on tenor through the years.

BN: Any of the Midwest modernists?

JL: Roland Kirk, for Rahsaan's driving power and the way he encompassed all instruments into the tenor. In a way, his tenor was kind of his home base for me, and the way he played that horn, with such a bellowing tone, and also a very free approach through the music that he played.