 |  | Article on Kenny from jpost.com
| 5/16/2008 6:05:45 AM - Watching Kenny Werner work can be deceptive. While he's making his way through a jazz number, the 56-year-old pianist almost seems disinterested in what he's doing. Not for him the scowls, frowns and corporeal contortions of the likes of fellow ivory ticklers Keith Jarrett and Brad Mehldau.
Instead, Werner hardly looks at his keyboard, and the flurries and chords seem to emanate out of the end of his fingers almost without intent. The man is the essence of uncontrived cool.
Werner will be here later this week to give five concerts, along with local flutist Ilan Salem, as part of the Hot Jazz Series. He approaches his craft with consummate ease. "There should be a deep connection between yourself and the sound you are producing," he notes. "You should always be moving, looking for the areas you like, and moving intuitively."
Werner expounded his philosophy in depth a number of years ago, when he published a book entitled Effortless Mastery. In it, he talks about how some musicians are more concerned about how good their sound is, rather than just going with the flow. "I can hear when a musician is not moving intuitively, and they are thinking about their style. You need to have tremendous skill to play naturally."
Apparently, that does not just pertain to playing music. "We walk and talk intuitively and, when music is close enough to you, you get closer to connecting with the real you."
That, presumably, becomes easier as we grow as people and get a better idea of who we are. "An artist spends most of his life uncovering who he is - however ugly that can get. The music expresses who you are, including the things we hate about ourselves. As you get older you become more benevolent and gain wisdom. That helps artists too."
IN MUSICAL terms, Werner has been there and done that, and maintains a rapid learning trajectory. His last album, Lawn Chair Society, is an enticing mix of straightahead jazz and all manner of musical explorations, with some electronic lacing thrown in for good measure. The forthcoming tour here will be largely based on an album Salem put out last year together with Werner, called Twists and Turns.
Considering Werner's openness and ability to embrace new directions, one wonders whether he imbibed some of the spirit of this part of the world creating the album. Surely, artists - particularly jazz artists - also bring their cultural baggage to their work.
"Ilan is a fine musician and I enjoyed playing with him at the Rimon School workshops a few years ago. But you don't necessarily get the cultural baggage coming through with the artist. Everyone, to an extent, neutralizes their cultural baggage through jazz training, and that supersedes the culture, although some tunes do embrace their own culture."
But Israeli culture is not foreign to Werner. He has already played here on several occasions and, like most New York-based jazz artists, he comes across players from this part of the world in the Big Apple.
"In New York everyone is from everywhere, so you don't always notice that a jazz player may be from Israel. If there is an added value to Israeli musicians it is that they can take a very aggressive approach to the music and, if they are good, they can be a powerhouse."
The bottom line for Werner is just going out on stage, communicating and growing. "If a musician is deep into his own emotions and spiritual essence, that radiates to the audience, and they get that about themselves too. People should become more human when they leave the auditorium. Art is not important, it is about us, the people." | | http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1201867284608&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull |
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"Perfection. 360 degrees of soul and science in one human being. My kind of musician."
-- Quincy Jones
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"Kenny Werner is a total musician. He feeds my heart and my brain and pushes me into fresh territories.
I am grateful that our agendas can coincide that often.
Toots
PS He also wrote a book on how to “liberate” one’s own creativity!"
-- Toots Thielemans
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"... an ebullient stylist ... his solos start evenhandedly and become wooly rides into the darkness."
-- The Village Voice
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"Mr. Werner and his trio took apart two pieces, a swinging original of his
own called 'Jackson Five' along with 'You and the Night and the Music',
and reconfigured them with all sorts of nearly miraculous rhythm and
tempo changes....a type of rhythm section fluidity that's rarely heard....
Mr. Werner is a clear virtuoso, and when he solos there's wit
everywhere, with clichés dragged out of the closet to poke fun at or
rhythmic bumps added for humor."
-- Peter Watrous, New York Times
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"When one hears pianist Kenny Werner, that feeling of elation is clearly front and center.”
-- Zan Stewart, The Newark Star Ledger
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"Whether soloing or interpreting, Werner takes you outside, but not by any route you've followed before. You never know where he's going, but every place he takes you is a delight."
-- Keyboard Magazine
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"Werner has become one of our most literate and visceral pianists."
-- JAZZTIMES
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"Since about 1980 Kenny Werner has been one of jazz's unsung heroes"
-- Harvey Pekar
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"Werner owns more chops and brains than most pianists do....Werner hardly raises his voice to make subtle points, couching his logic in neat vamps, sinewy angular lines, dizzying rhythmic double entendres."
-- Down Beat
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"Werner, patient as a spider, spins a web of lyric calm and dancing beauty and fills in the corners, not budging far from his center....Werner's set - one of the very best in a series [Live At Maybeck Hall] that has quietly become a bellwether for pianists of our era - merely shows one gentler aspect of an extraordinary gifted artist."
-- The Boston Pheonix
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| | | | | | | Effortless Mastery Participant Offer (book included) |  | GET THE BOOK HERE as well as Kenny Werner's personal guide through the process. This is a profound series and a great opportunity!
In the Effortless Mastery Participant Offer you will receive monthly audio and video streams of lectures,... |  | |
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