Kenny Wheeler


Kenneth Vincent John Wheeler, OC was a Canadian composer and trumpet and flugelhorn player, based in the U.K. from the 1950s onwards.
Most of his performances were rooted in jazz, but he was also active in free improvisation and occasionally contributed to rock music recordings. Wheeler wrote more than one hundred compositions and was a skilled arranger for small groups and large ensembles.
Wheeler was the patron of the Royal Academy Junior Jazz course.

Early life

Wheeler was born in Toronto, Ontario, on 14 January 1930. Growing up in Toronto, he began playing the cornet at age 12 and became interested in jazz in his mid-teens. Wheeler spent a year studying composition at The Royal Conservatory of Music in 1950. In 1952 he moved to Britain. He found his way into the London jazz scene of the time, playing in groups led by Tommy Whittle, Tubby Hayes, and Ronnie Scott.

Career

In the late 1950s, he was a member of Buddy Featherstonhaugh's quintet together with Bobby Wellins. From 1959 until 1965 he was a member of John Dankworth's orchestra, during which time he also studied composition with Richard Rodney Bennett and Bill Russo. In a 1961 interview with Kitty Grime, his fellow trumpeter and Dankworth band-member Dickie Hawdon exalted his canadian colleague thus: "You name any British musician who doesn't copy records, and I'll name you one - Kenny Wheeler." He was also with the Animals' Big Band that made its only public appearance at the 5th Annual British Jazz & Blues Festival in Richmond with tenors Stan Robinson, Dick Morrissey and Al Gay, baritone sax Paul Carroll, and fellow trumpets Ian Carr and Greg Brown. In 1968, Wheeler appeared on guitarist Terry Smith's first solo album, Fall Out.
Wheeler performed and recorded his own compositions with large jazz ensembles throughout his career, beginning with the first album under his own name, Windmill Tilter, recorded with the John Dankworth band. BGO Records released a CD in September 2010. The big band album Song for Someone fused Wheeler's characteristic orchestral writing with passages of free improvisation provided by musicians such as Evan Parker and Derek Bailey, and was also named Album of the Year by Melody Maker magazine in 1975. It has subsequently been reissued on CD by Parker's Psi label.
In the mid-1960s, Wheeler became a close participant in the nascent free improvisation movement in London, playing with Parker, John Stevens, the Spontaneous Music Ensemble and the Globe Unity Orchestra. Despite the above-noted accomplishments, much of his reputation rests on his work with smaller jazz groups. Wheeler's first small group recordings to gain significant critical attention were Gnu High and Deer Wan, both for the ECM label. One exception from the ongoing collaboration with ECM was his rare album on CBC called Ensemble Fusionaire in 1976. This had three other Canadian musicians and was recorded in St. Mary's Church in Toronto for a different character to the sound than on the ECM recordings.
Wheeler was the trumpeter in the Anthony Braxton Quartet from 1971 to 1976. He was also a member of the chamber jazz trio Azimuth with John Taylor and Norma Winstone from 1977 to 2000. Their first release under this name was a 1977 album issued by ECM; two albums followed, with later albums coming in 1985 and 1995. He was featured in a profile on composer Graham Collier in the 1985 Channel 4 documentary Hoarded Dreams.

Later life

Music for Large & Small Ensembles included the Wheeler compositions "Sea Lady" and "The Sweet Time Suite", the latter his most ambitious extended work for big band since Windmill Tilter. In 1997 Wheeler received widespread critical praise for his album Angel Song, which featured an unusual drummer-less quartet of Bill Frisell, Dave Holland and Lee Konitz. Wheeler recorded seven albums with CAM Jazz from 2005 to 2008 but returned to ECM to record his final album, Songs for Quintet, in 2013.
Wheeler died after a short period of frail health at a nursing home in London on 18 September 2014. He was 84 years old. He was survived by his wife, Doreen, and his children, Mark and Louanne.

Discography

As leader/co-leader

  • 1968: Windmill Tilter with The John Dankworth Orchestra
  • 1973: Song for Someone
  • 1975: Gnu High
  • 1976: Ensemble Fusionaire
  • 1977: Deer Wan
  • 1980: Around 6
  • 1984: Double, Double You
  • 1988: Flutter By, Butterfly
  • 1988: Visions
  • 1990: Music for Large & Small Ensembles
  • 1990: The Widow in the Window
  • 1991: Spanish Rhapsody
  • 1992: Kayak
  • 1997: All the More recorded 1993
  • 1997: Angel Song
  • 1999: A Long Time Ago
  • 2003: Island with Bob Brookmeyer
  • 2003: Dream Sequence
  • 2004: Where Do We Go from Here? with John Taylor
  • 2005: What Now?
  • 2006: It Takes Two!
  • 2008: Other People with Hugo Wolf String Quartet featuring John Taylor
  • 2011: One of Many with John Taylor and Steve Swallow
  • 2012: The Long Waiting
  • 2013: Mirrors London Vocal Project with Norma Winstone
  • 2013: Six for Six
  • 2015: Songs for Quintet
  • 2015: ''On the Way to Two''

    Collaborations with John Taylor

  • with Norma Winstone, Paolo Fresu, Paolo Damiani, Tony Oxley: Live at Roccella Jonica
  • featuring Gabriele Mirabassi: Moon
  • with Riccardo Del Fra: Overnight
  • ''Pause, and Think Again''

    As Azimuth

  • Azimuth
  • The Touchstone
  • Départ, with Ralph Towner
  • Azimuth '85
  • How It Was Then... Never Again
  • Siren's Song, with The Maritime Jazz Orchestra

    Other collaborations

  • wrote/arranged "Ballad to Max" on Maynard Ferguson's album M.F. Horn
  • arranged "Fire and Rain", "My Sweet Lord", and "Your Song" on Maynard Ferguson's album Alive & Well in London
  • arranged "Theme from Summer of '42" and wrote/arranged "Free Wheeler" on Maynard Ferguson's album M.F. Horn Two
  • with Elton Dean and Joe Gallivan: The Cheque Is in the Mail
  • with Günter Christmann, Gerd Dudek, Albert Mangelsdorff, Paul Rutherford, Manfred Schoof: Horns
  • with Gordon Beck, Tony Oxley, Stan Sulzmann, Ron Mathewson: Seven Steps to Evans
  • with Tiziana Simona: Gigolo
  • with Claudio Fasoli, Jean-François Jenny Clark, Daniel Humair: Welcome
  • with Claudio Fasoli and Jean-François Jenny Clark: Land
  • with Gordon Beck, Tony Oxley, Stan Sulzmann, Dieter Ilg: A Tribute to Bill Evans
  • with Jeff Gardner, Hein van de Geyn, André Ceccarelli: California Daydream
  • with David Friedman, Jasper van't Hof: Greenhouse Fables
  • with Paolino Dalla Porta, Stefano Battaglia, Bill Elgart: Tales
  • with Claudio Fasoli, Mick Goodrick, Henri Texier - double bass, Billy Elgart - drums: "Ten tributes"
  • with Rabih Abou Khalil - Sultan's Picnic, Enja Records, 1994)
  • with Vandoorn - The Question is me, Riff/Baixim records 1994
  • with Paul Bley: Touché
  • with Sonny Greenwich: Live at the Montreal Bistro
  • with Brian Dickinson: Still Waters Hornblower, 1999)
  • with Lee Konitz: [Live at Birdland Neuberg
  • with Fred Hersch, Norma Winstone, Paul Clarvis: 4 in Perspective
  • with Marc Copland and John Abercrombie: That's for Sure
  • with Stan Sulzmann and John Parricelli: Ordesa
  • with Enrico Pieranunzi, Chris Potter, Charlie Haden & Paul Motian: Fellini Jazz
  • with Marc Copland and John Abercrombie: Brand New
  • with Tony Coe, John Edwards, Alan Hacker, Sylvia Hallett, Marcio Mattos, Evan Parker, Philipp Wachsmann: Free Zone Appleby 2003
  • with Gerd Dudek, Paul Dunmall, John Edwards, Tony Levin, Tony Marsh, Evan Parker, Paul Rogers, Philipp Wachsmann: Free Zone Appleby 2005
  • with Evan Parker, Paul Dunmall, Tony Levin, John Edwards: Live at the Vortex, London
  • with Evan Parker, Steve Beresford, John Edwards, Louis Moholo-Moholo: ''Foxes Fox: Live at the Vortex''

    Featured

  • Robert 'Bob' Cornford, Tony Coe, Kenny Wheeler and the NDR 'Pops' Orchestra: Long Shadows
  • The Guildhall Jazz Band: Walk Softly
  • The Jürgen Friedrich Quartet Featuring Kenny Wheeler: Summerflood
  • Tim Brady: Visions with L'orchestre de Chambre de Montréal
  • Dezső "Ablakos" Lakatos, Kenny Wheeler, György Vukán, Balázs Berkes, Imre Kőszegi, Creative Art Ensemble Brass & Rhythm, in "Spanish Rapsody" of György Vukán
  • The Upper Austrian Jazzorchestra: Plays the Music of Kenny Wheeler
  • The Maritime Jazz Orchestra: Now and Now-Again with Norma Winstone and John Taylor
  • UMO Jazz Orchestra: One More Time with Norma Winstone
  • Munich Jazz Orchestra: Sometime Suite
  • Colours Jazz Orchestra: ''Nineteen Plus One''

    As sideman

With John Abercrombie
  • Open Land
With Rabih Abou-Khalil
  • Blue Camel
  • The Sultan's Picnic
With George Adams
  • Sound Suggestions
With Pepper Adams
  • Conjuration: Fat Tuesday's Session (Reservoir, 1983 [1990