Episode 3-Caleb Wheeler Curtis: Improvisation in Space, Time, and Sound
Release Date: 02/14/2023
Strictly Jazz Sounds
Grammy-Award winning saxophonist Wayne Escoffery is my guest on the 21st episode of Strictly Jazz Sounds. What attracted me to Wayne was his prolific traveling, extensive performances and recordings with his own band (11 recordings), the Mingus Big Band (3 recordings, one a Grammy Award winner), the Black Art Jazz Collective (4 recordings), and as sideman with trumpeter Tom Harrell (7 recordings, co-producing 4) plus works with other notable jazz musicians. He is now a Harlem resident in the neighborhood where Sonny Rollins grew up, Sugar Hill, but he was born and spent his childhood years in...
info_outlineStrictly Jazz Sounds
Roni Eytan, a renowned Israeli-born, New York based jazz harmonica player, performs with a passion that differs from other harmonica artists. Perhaps it’s the region from which he derives-the Middle East and North Africa. His culture greatly influences his compositions and inspires his passions. Roni’s work is influenced by harmonica legend Toots Thielemans but only partially. The folk cultures that make up the regions and his spiritual influences mostly inspire his writing. Roni Eytan stopped by my studio to talk about his harmonica work and how he got interested in this...
info_outlineStrictly Jazz Sounds
Alexandra (Alex) Ridout is a young jazz trumpeter from the UK, now residing in New York City. In this episode of Strictly Jazz Sounds, she lays out her journey as a musician, comparing the experiences and educational backgrounds between the UK and the US. Ridout recalls her time at the Royal Academy of Music in London and Manhattan School of Music, emphasizing her family's influence, especially her jazz musician parents. Highlighting her musical achievements, the conversation includes her participation and victory in the BBC Youth Competition, winning at 17 years old. She talks about her...
info_outlineStrictly Jazz Sounds
In this episode of Strictly Jazz Sounds, I have a conversation with Jocelyn Gould, a professional jazz guitarist who fills all the shoes it requires to drive a successful career. Jocelyn shares her journey from pretending to play a cardboard guitar at the age of four to winning a Juno Award for her first album, Elegant Traveler. She later discusses the challenges and triumphs of her career, including her education in the U.S. at Michigan State University, her experiences in New York's rough and tumble jazz scene, and her recent endeavors, including her podcast and latest album releases....
info_outlineStrictly Jazz Sounds
Yasushi Nakamura loves his music. And he truly loves laying down the groove lines behind a hot band like he does for almost a dozen bands. However, being one of today’s first-call bassists means frequent and long show tours that can take him away from his family of two-children and spouse for weeks, even months at a time. It has resulted in an impressive list and number of recordings made on both electric and acoustic or double bass. Pianist and longtime friend, Emmet Cohen, says that Yasushi “…is known in the music community for playing in over a dozen bands and is hardly ever seen...
info_outlineStrictly Jazz Sounds
Question: What would jazz music sound like if it had been born in a country without patriarchy; taught without bias and performed on a stage with radical inclusivity? That’s what jazz titan Terri Lyne Carrington says is the foundation behind Berklee College of Music’s Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice. Terri Lyne is the founder and artistic director of the Institute and a professor at Berklee, her alma mater. In this episode of Strictly Jazz Sounds, I spend time with Terri Lyne Carrington, getting deep into this question along with how to lift women and nonbinary individuals in this...
info_outlineStrictly Jazz Sounds
In jazz, two legendary harp musicians come to mind. Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane. Now, there is a third musician whose image immediately erupts into focus. For harp artist, educator, and Grammy nominated musician Brandee Younger, both Ashby and Coltrane made a tremendous impact on her. And with her latest recording, Brand New Life, on Impulse Records, Brandee Younger embraces Ashby and her impact on the harp. I caught up with Grammy nominated harpist Brandee Younger at the Spoleto Jazz Festival in Charleston, North Carolina. This was a major opportunity for me to learn how the harp,...
info_outlineStrictly Jazz Sounds
For tenor saxophonist, composer, bandleader, educator and artist Roxy Coss, jazz education is everything. When we talked in July, she and her husband, saxophonist, educator and composer, Lucas Pino, just returned from their week-long session as co-directors of the Brubeck Jazz Summit, (yes, that Brubeck-Dave Brubeck) a week-long intensive emersion of jazz education and performance for talented students worldwide. To participate, young people must have exceptional capacity. To teach, your credentials must be superior. In this episode, Roxy Coss shares her deep thoughts and intense...
info_outlineStrictly Jazz Sounds
Japanese jazz pianist Miki Yamanaka, born and raised in Kyoto and Kobe Japan, now resides in New York City with her drummer husband Jimmy Macbride. Her upcoming album, Shades of Rainbow is set to drop on September 8. Excitement explodes in Miki during this hour-long interview with this jubilant pianist who is a mainstay at New York’s prime jazz clubs for emerging talent, Smalls and Mezzrow, both found in the West Village in Greenwich Village in the lower west side of Manhattan. Miki’s been a New York resident since 2012. She did her graduate work at Queens College in Jazz Performance...
info_outlineStrictly Jazz Sounds
“”— Music moves the soul in so many ways. It moves the spirit and inspires living beings to become one with the music. Argentinian Julieta Eugenio was just that person from a young age. She’s not entirely sure why. Her parents didn’t play an instrument though they played recordings around the house. As long as she can remember, music was in her life. Her personal interest wasn’t piqued until she saw a piano when she was about five years old. It was like magic, Julieta recalls. She was visually pinned to the piano. That’s love at first site. Music grabbed her and it...
info_outlineCaleb Wheeler Curtis designs playgrounds for his band members when he composes, creating opportunities for improvisation within a structured framework. It’s all about space to freely express oneself. This Ann Arbor, Michigan native who now lives in Brooklyn, New York City, has recently released to critical acclaim his fifth album, Heatmap. Caleb and I spent some time talking about this recording and his growth as a musician.
Caleb is the consummate collaborator with a discography that details a journey full of an adventure in music. Beginning with Walking Distance: Neighborhood in 2015, Caleb’s relationships weaved a path rich with partnerships and mentors who provided a foundation for him, that guided him in his writings and arrangements. He is the first one to tell you that getting to the place where he considered himself to be a professional musician was not easy. Caleb firmly believes it requires commitment to your art.
Caleb is fortunate to have Imani Records producer and owner and Grammy nominee Orrin Evans as a mentor, giving him opportunities to stretch as a musician and guidance as a composer and bandleader. Heatmap, produced by Orrin Evans, is a product of such collaborations and mentorships. Caleb played in Evans’ band, Captain Black Big Band, performing on his two Grammy nominated recordings. He and Orrin Evans developed a bond that Caleb identifies as critical to his growth as a musician and composer.
Caleb’s compositions reflect an approach that provides space for each musician to expand and bring to the experience their own artistry and talent thus giving his compositions a fresh breath for improvising. His approach is strong without being forced; one critic acknowledges. And while his musical spirit has an open willingness for exploration, his musical upbringing with strong mentorship gives it an inherent wisdom.
Caleb Wheeler Curtis was a MacDowell Fellow, an artist’s residency program in rural Peterborough, New Hampshire. There, Caleb was given his own space and time to compose, play the piano uninterrupted by the daily forces of urban life. The end-product, 10 originals on which Caleb plays on alto saxophone except for one track on soprano. Heatmap features, of course Curtis on saxophone, Orrin Evans on piano, Eric Revis on bass and Gerald Cleaver on the drums. Caleb and his band can be heard on two tracks played in their entirety on Strictly Jazz Sounds. I asked him to explain his composition style.
His credits as a collaborator, composer and saxophonist (mostly alto) led to recordings from Freebird featuring Jason Moran in 2018. Curtis also teamed up to record Curtis+Garabedian+Sperrazza: New York in 2018 with Vinnie Sperrazza and Noah Garabedian; and Curtis/Carter/Ferber: Doing Nothing Is Hard Business, a project that included Rahsaan Carter and Mark Ferber in 2020. Curtis’s discography also includes playing on two Grammy-nominated recordings with the Orrin Evans-led group the Captain Black Big Band: Presence, released in 2018 and The Intangible Between, dropped in 2020. Curtis released two albums for the Orrin Evans-owned record label Imani, Brothers in 2018 and Ain’t No Storm in 2021. It doesn’t stop there. In 2021 Curtis collaborated to release two recordings, No One Is Anyone, with Noah Garabedian, Vinnie Sperrazza and Orrin Evans and Substrate with Swiss pianist Laurent Nicoud.
Caleb earned a music degree from Michigan State University, and later a masters in music from William Paterson University. Since then, he has focused on the New York jazz scene from Brooklyn.