Kenny Wheeler quotes
Here are some quotes by the very modest, yet verbally often quite precise, trumpeter and composer Kenny Wheeler, derived from various sources. Kenny was a member of Søyr 1979 - 1981.
Trumpet player and composer Kenny Wheeler (1930-2014) was born Canadian, but lived most of his life in England. He came to influence a huge amount of musicians from the seventies onwards and recorded a number of widely admired albums. But unknown to many is the fact that he toured Norway extensively with Søyr from 1979 to 1981. This was a period in which the band (for various reasons) didn’t release any records, which may explain this "mystery". Listed under Videos, however, you’ll find a recording done for the Norwegian broadcaster NRK in 1981 displaying Kenny in excellent shape both as a composer and soloist. He was a very modest man, only reluctently giving interviews, but here is a collection of quotes from articles and inteviews during the period 1980-2010. He is talking about himself and his music in his own cunning way - the way he both played and composed.
John Eyles writes in an interview with Wheeler in All About Jazz in 2003: «When I told (Evan) Parker that I wanted to interview Wheeler, his comment was, "There's a story there to be told. Don't let it get away.»
On writing music: «I know I have a system but I don't really want to know what the system is.» Liner notes from the CD Island with Bob Brookmeyer, 2003
«Kenny uses intervals in his writing that he's learned as an improviser.» Nick Smart quoted in The Guardian’s obituary by John Fordham in 2014.
«What I like doing best is writing sad tunes, and then letting wonderful musicians destroy them. I don't want the players to try to interpret what they think I'm feeling.» Interview with John Fordham in The Guardian, 2010
On the future: «I think I'm doing the same as I was thirty years ago. I'm still trying to find soppy romantic melodies mixed with a bit of chaos. That's what I've always done, I think. It is not really a question of moving forward.» From interview with John Eyles in All About Jazz, 2003
On the difference between writing music and playing solos: «I think Hoagy Carmichael said that about Stardust, he got it before anyone else got it. I have the same feeling about the tunes I write. I quite like them because I don't feel responsible. But the solo, nobody is to blame but yourself.»
«I suppose you could work at a solo. Especially in the old days in big bands when you got two solos a night. Sometimes I used to think I'd plan the first eight bars of my solo but it always went wrong. I'd get into bar two and it would be all.... I could never plan out a solo. It has to be immediate, you know.» From interview with John Eyles in All About Jazz, 2003
On his own playing:«If I ever got to like my own playing I’d give it up.» From article by Nick Smart, 2015
«If I were to play with a rhythm section that was playing straight ahead bebop, I would feel very uncomfortable. I like to play in a loose situation, you know. I try to throw in a little bebop but I try not to throw in bebop licks. Try.» From interview with John Eyles in All About Jazz, 2003
On the relationship to his own records: «I never listen to my own records more than once or twice. Maybe seven or eight years later I'll pull it out again and listen. I don't even like to think about whether they are good or whether I like them. I'm just happy when other people seem to like them, you know.» From interview with John Eyles in All About Jazz, 2003
On his favorite recording: «Deer Wan. That’s the most complete – with Jan Garbarek, Ralph Towner, John Abercrombie, Jack DeJohnette and Dave Holland. My favourite band.» Interview with Chris Parker in 1990 (London Jazz News, 2022)
On being a band leader: «CP: What are your plans afterwards? KW: Definitely not to be a bandleader for a long time! If you could just write the music and play it, it’d be OK, but there’s so much else involved. I’ll usually get letters, calls – I’m not the hustling type, but I keep working.» Interview with Chris Parker in 1990 (London Jazz News, 2022)
On reviews: «Evan (Parker) sent me some reviews the other day of Dream Sequence that he got off the Internet. There was a really glowingly good one but then there were three or four little ones that made me feel sick and negative and horrible. One guy mentioned that, ‘Wheeler sits in now and again at The Vortex and does one set. I hope Wheeler is not trying to protect his ECM base.’ As if I'm hiding away in London and only doing it now and again in a small situation. That made me feel really sick, that anyone could sit there and watch a set and then print that on the Internet after.» From interview with John Eyles in All About Jazz, 2003
On warming up: «His regular two-hour warmup routine in the mornings borders on a meditation, "just breathing out through the trumpet, not using my tongue. That's how I try to keep in shape, I don't play pieces.» Interview with John Fordham in The Guardian 2010
On inspiration and Windmill Tilter (The Story of Don Quixote) with John Dankworth’s orchestra: «The world’s greatest losers are some of my favourite people and I wanted to do something about that, but I had a talk with Dankworth and he put me on a bit. He mentioned some names, and Don Quixote caught my attention. I went to the local library and met a lady there who was very helpful, and the more I read, the more I liked him, but I wasn’t sure if it was a great idea because I think Richard Strauss has done something ... Dave Holland and John McLaughlin were both on it, very early in their careers, before they left for the States.» Interview with Chris Parker in 1990 (London Jazz News, 2022)
On free jazz: «At that time I was very frustrated, (late sixties, editor’s note) because I’d spent 20 years trying to play strict be-bop - although I love it, it’s my roots - and I could never do it! I don’t know why? Probably because I just wasn’t good enough - I love Miles and Dizzie and all them and I tried to play in that...and I couldn’t do it so I didn’t get many jazz gigs. There were people around, great players who could play that music, like Tubby Hayes, Jimmy Deuchar, Ronnie Scott and all them, so I wasn’t doing many jazz gigs and I was frustrated. And then I found out about this place where the young guys were playing this new, funny music, so I went along one night and listened to it - and I hated it on site, but I went back a couple of times and they eventually said: - Do you want to sit in? So I thought why not and I just went berserk on the trumpet for about ten minutes. Even to this day I couldn’t say if this music..if the music is good or bad, I just find it theraputic. I get something out of my system. So I started to play a lot with them, you know, Evan Parker, John Stevens, Tony Oxley, Derek Bailey, Barry Guy, all them, and that’s how I got asked into Europe first of all, because it was like a communal scene between Germany, Holland and England mostly I think, of people who played this kind of music. And they moved around to different countries so that's how I got asked to do... It was a few years after I had been playing in Europe that they knew I could even play on a chord.» Interview in 1990 in ArtistsHouseMusic.org
«I always tried to play bebop, but I never could play it, I don’t think I could play it till this day. As much as I love it and it’s my roots, but... I never could play five or six choruses of I Got Rhythm in the idiom, you know. I’d get a bit nervous and go out, do something else, so I wasn’t really accepted in England by the bebop crowd actually. But I was dying to play- I didn’t know what I wanted to play, and knew I couldn’t really play bebop... Then I found out about this little theatre [The Little Theatre Club] where John Stevens was playing, they had sessions playing free jazz once a week, I guess that was sort of the start of the free jazz movement in England more or less... It must have been 1966 the first time I came in there. I went up there one night to listen, and I hated it, what they were playing. But I stayed on, and then I came back another night and they said – why don’t you come and sit in? So I sat in, and I just went completely berserk on the trumpet, let out a lot of frustrations, cause I’d been dying to play a lot. As I said, I didn’t feel I was accepted by the “in” players because I couldn’t really play a “straight” chorus in their language, so I just kept on playing with these guys.» Interview in 1981 with Per Husby in Cadence.
©Morten Thomte 2023
Photo: Chris Laurence