Kenny Wheeler “With and Without Words”

ARTISTS

Kenny Wheeler reimagined by Norma Winstone, Jason Keiser and Kenny Wheeler Legacy

ALBUM TITLES

“Wheeler with Words”

“Kind of Kenny”

“Some Days Are Better”

LABELS

Amm Records

OA2 Records

Greenleaf Records

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Ten years after his passing, Kenny Wheeler has inspired three very different tributes – and none of them feels superfluous. Two are albums shaped by distinct authorial perspectives, while the third is a project that revives lost big band arrangements: the scores survived, but the recordings did not. The result is, in effect, a new Wheeler album – one without Wheeler himself as instrumentalist, for obvious reasons.

In Wheeler with Words (Amm Records), Norma Winstone retraces her long association with Wheeler. The title makes the intent clear: she revisits pieces originally performed with lyrics, such as Sea Lady (here evoking Evan Parker’s soprano saxophone introduction), while also reworking pieces once sung with wordless vocals – her most original contribution to Wheeler’s sound – or even instrumental compositions, now recast with newly written lyrics. In these, sound often seems to take precedence over semantic content. Some may question the decision to replace the titles of familiar works – Child of Tomorrow, She Loves Him, and Things We Trust mask Nicolette, Canter No. 1, Kind Folk, and Old Ballad respectively. The result leans toward a set of intelligent pop songs of unusual musical quality, though it risks falling into a liminal space: Winstone’s name is revered by jazz listeners, yet they are often resistant to lyrics, and the instrumental passages sometimes undercut the premise.

Kind of Kenny (OA2 Records), by young Californian guitarist Jason Keiser, comes from a different place. Free from autobiographical baggage or instrument-specific associations, Keiser pays tribute by inhabiting Wheeler’s compositional style. Two original pieces in “Wheeler mode” show just how deeply he has internalized it. As in Winstone’s album, the most compelling feature is the shift in use: here, Wheeler’s music becomes chamber jazz, delicate and finely etched, stripped of the metaphysical vastness that often characterized Wheeler himself.

The group Keiser assembles blends two Wheelerian templates. One recalls the drummerless quartet of Angel Song, though here the brass–reed front line is paired with guitars instead of bass. The second introduces female vocals in three tracks, something Wheeler typically reserved for big bands. Yet Wheeler’s presence emerges only in part – in the wind harmonies more than in the solos. Erik Jekabson’s trumpet and flugelhorn do not seek to imitate Wheeler, nor does Danielle Wertz’s voice mirror Winstone’s. Keiser and guitarist John Stowell, on acoustic and electric guitars respectively, carve out their own space. Themes like Hotel Le Hot, Gentle Piece, and Kind Folk provide some of Wheeler’s richest harmonic contexts for improvisation, and Keiser’s group approaches them on their own terms. His guitar duo Wheeler’s Waltz transcends its tribute role to stand as a fine contemporary performance in its own right.

The third project is the most philological. Some Days Are Better (Greenleaf Music), credited to the Kenny Wheeler Legacy Orchestra under Nick Smart and John Daversa, reconstructs orchestral works Wheeler wrote for the BBC between 1968 and 1972 – pieces whose recordings were lost but whose scores remained. These charts reveal Wheeler in full command of his poetics: the atmosphere, the arrangements, the melodic lines, and above all the harmonic intervals that define his ensemble sound. Here, Wheeler the composer and arranger takes precedence over Wheeler the improviser. Solos, when they occur, can sometimes fracture the totality, but the orchestral writing itself remains complete and luminous.

In this sense, Some Days Are Better offers a crucial missing link between Windmill Tilter (1968) and Song for Someone (1973). It reveals extraordinary pieces Wheeler never returned to – Dallab, Who’s Standing in My Corner, Everybody Knows It – and restores works whose quartet versions only hinted at their orchestral origins. Hearing Smatter (here Smatta) in its intended ensemble breadth underlines how much was lost in its later reduction.

Together, these three releases show Wheeler in multiple dimensions: reimagined with words, distilled into chamber jazz, and restored to orchestral grandeur. What unites them is the enduring vitality of his music – and the certainty that, even without Wheeler’s trumpet or flugelhorn, his voice continues to resonate.

—Paolo Vitolo

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