Tom Varner's Got 'Nine Surprises' And A Big Band Is All Of Them

Transcript

DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. In 2005, jazz composer and French horn player Tom Varner left New York for Seattle, where he put together a nine-piece band of local players. Their new album is out, and jazz critic Kevin Whitehead says Varner can really write, and this band can really play.

(SOUNDBITE OF TOM VARNER SONG, "SEATTLE BLUES")

KEVIN WHITEHEAD, BYLINE: Tom Varner's "Seattle Blues," channeling Charles Mingus for a second, from the album "Nine Surprises." Varner's Nonet, with its three brass, four reeds and two rhythm, is expansive but lighter than a big band; there's no piano, for one thing. It boasts some very good soloists, like trumpeter Thomas Marriott.

(SOUNDBITE OF TOM VARNER SONG, "SEATTLE BLUES")

WHITEHEAD: Phil Sparks on bass and Byron Vannoy on drums. Tom Varner gives his soloists room to stretch, but keeps some for himself. He's been one of jazz's top French horn players since the '80s, when there were finally enough good ones to count. Varner has great control and a punchy, swinging beat. His sound's forceful enough to stand up to all those other horns.

(SOUNDBITE OF TOM VARNER SONG, "MALI KING COUNTY")

WHITEHEAD: As composer, Tom Varner likes that bluesy, churchy call and response. He also likes music that unfolds in layers. Most of his album "Nine Surprises" is a long suite, whose main theme splits seven horns into three strata.

(SOUNDBITE OF TOM VARNER SONG, "REPRISE AND FINALE")

WHITEHEAD: Tom Varner's writing is a bit like shaker furniture - sturdy and well-crafted, with clean lines and details that rhyme from piece to piece. He once said he's looking to construct a big picture with lots of little pictures in it. In his "Nine Surprises" suite, that march keeps coming back transformed, as in a ghostly variation with clarinet in the lead.

(SOUNDBITE OF TOM VARNER SONG, "HIGH GUYS")

WHITEHEAD: Steve Treseler on clarinet. Tom Varner wrote thematically rich music for his New York small groups, so his Seattle band's expanded palette is a logical next step. He writes some beautiful wrong-note harmonies in clashing colors, sometimes so dense, you may hear instruments that aren't there, like a phantom mandolin, briefly heard on "Spackle."

(SOUNDBITE OF TOM VARNER SONG, "SPACKLE")

WHITEHEAD: A project like "Nine Surprises" calls for players resourceful and well-drilled enough to breeze through tricky writing and flesh it out on the fly, players who can sound as tight or smeary as they need to be. Tom Varner's charts make them sound good, and they return the favor. But then, half of being a really good bandleader is having the really good band.

(SOUNDBITE OF TOM VARNER SONG, "MELE")

DAVIES: Kevin Whitehead writes for Point of Departure, and is the author of "Why Jazz?" He reviewed "Nine Surprises" by the Tom Varner Nonet.

(SOUNDBITE OF TOM VARNER SONG, "MELE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.