Wednesday, September 3, 2003
By KAREN BLISS --
In between touring with the Guess Who, recording and performing under his own name, and writing for other artists, Randy Bachman has cut a jazz album, entitled "Jazzthing." He is seeking an established jazz label to release it in the spring, in time to hit next summer's blues and jazz festivals.
"I'm heading for the top," says Bachman of the labels he's seeking out. "I'm trying for Concord, Blue Note. I'm trying for the creme de la creme of the jazz (labels), not somebody who's just getting into it."
He adds that early in the project's evolution, about a year ago, he played three demos for Universal Music Canada, where his former lawyer Graham Henderson now works as senior VP, business affairs & e-commerce. "They're the Verve people in Canada," he says of another notable jazz label.
After completing "Jazzthing" last week, Bachman will be talking with independent and major labels in Canada and the U.S. This week, he has scheduled meetings in Los Angeles.
Bachman basically recorded the whole album in Vancouver at both Mushroom and Greenhouse studios, which have the same gear as his Salt Spring Island studio, where he demoed the tracks.
"A lot of people love to come to where I live, but it was just too hard to get them all at once, last minute, so I get a studio, see who's available, go there and do it, bring it back, and have the same board and Pro Tools at my home studio," explains Bachman. Among the guests on "Jazzthing" are Bachman's wife, singer Denise McCann; saxophononist/vocalist Curtis Stigers; singer-guitarist Joel Kroeker; keyboardist Chris Gestrin; clarinet player Francois Houle; and acoustic bassist Dave Young, who played with guitar legend Lenny Breau. Breau, who died in 1984, is featured postumously on the album.
"I'm just having the most fun time of my life and stretching my brain as far as thinking and playing because to play with these jazz guys, everything's live off the floor," says Bachman. "I'll do a demo first with loops and machines just so I can get a tempo and a feel and the chords, and put it down and play it for these jazz guys and they go, 'yeah,' and they write their own little charts and we go in and play it, first or second take. "It's basically the magic of hearing Elvis or early Aretha or Frank Sinatra. It's a guy singing with a band live off the floor and there's nothing like it. It's gotta happen then or it doesn't happen. All the overdubs can't get it."
Bachman's interest in jazz began when he was 16 and linked up for a brief time with Breau, who lived around the corner from him in Winnipeg. While they went separate musical directions, Bachman's did give a couple of nods to his jazz roots as songwriter/guitarist for BTO and the Guess Who.
"I sang 'Looking Out For Number One' which was BTO's big jazz hit," says Bachman. "It was like a top 30 jazz single off of a rock album. And back in the Guess Who, I wrote 'She's Come Undun,' which is probably the first pop/jazz single. It was 1968. And 'Blue Collar.' And the odd song on BTO was kind of jazzy.
"I just thought, well, I'm not that great a guitar player, never mind playing jazz. I play the same lick over and over four times in every song, 12 songs on an album, " he laughs. "But I really pride myself on being a really good songwriter, so (for this album) I went and wrote with guys in Nashville, and England, and wrote songs in this '50s, Chet Baker kind of jazz club (genre)."
"Jazzthing" is comprised of all original material, except for three tracks. Bachman does a version of "That Old Feeling" popularized by Chet Baker. Bachman also took the live track of Breau and Young playing "Summertime" from the 2-CD set he executive produced called "Live At Bourbon Street" and overdubbed himself on it. The third is a rendition of Johnny Cash's "I Walk The Line" with True North/Universal Music Canada signing Joel Kroeker.
Bachman likens the overall sound of "Jazzthing" to that of Chet Baker or early Harry Connick Jr. He says the 150 pounds he lost over the past two years, from gastric bypass surgery, followed by good old fashioned diet and exercise, has not just given him a six pack. "I have a new voice, which ended up much better than my old voice," he says.
"Instead of taking two breaths, when I'm singing one line, I can now take one breath and sing two or three lines and control my air going out 'cause of my stomach muscles, and therefore control my pitch better, and then with pitch correct on Pro Tools you can nail it better anyways, so actually I'm a singer on this album, for the first time, by choice.
"The other times were by default, like 'Takin' Care Of Business' was an accident. I sang that by accident. 'You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet' was an accident, so I have these accidental things in my career that have been hits," he laughs. "But to actually sit down and copy a Chet Baker arrangement and play his trumpet solo on my guitar and then try to sing in his style, I have to change the key because he sings very high, angelic. I sing kind of low and almost the way I'm talking now. I just find a new way to sing-talk, kind of like Leonard Cohen in pitch."
