The Yellowjackets, cutting-edge purveyors of innovative, eclectic jazz for more than 25 years, are no strangers to change. With every recording since their debut album in 1981, they have pushed the boundaries of improvisational jazz and have been leaders in the music's inescapable evolution.
CAPA presents the Yellowjackets at the Lincoln Theatre (769 E. Long St.) on Wednesday, April 28, at 8 pm. Tickets are $31 at the Ohio Theatre Ticket Office (39 E. State St.), all Ticketmaster outlets, and
www.ticketmaster.com. To purchase tickets by phone, please call (614) 469-0939 or (800) 745-3000. The Lincoln Theatre Ticket Office will open two hours prior to the performance. Students between the ages of 13-19 may purchase $5 High Five tickets while available.
The story of the Yellowjackets is admittedly convoluted, a series of creative lefts and rights with fortuitous results. Keyboardist Russell Ferrante, bassist Jimmy Haslip, and drummer Ricky Lawson first assembled as session players for jazz guitar virtuoso Robben Ford's 1977 instrumental release, The Inside Story. Although Ford's label wanted him to follow up with a more pop- and vocal-oriented album, the band preferred an instrumental approach. They renamed themselves the Yellowjackets and released an album by the same name in 1981. Ford made appearances on their first couple of recordings, but moved on to other projects when he and the band parted on amicable terms in 1984 after the release of Mirage a Trois.
By 1987, Lawson had left the band and was replaced by
William Kennedy, whose polyrhythmic sensibilities opened doors to a greater sense of exploration and a further departure from the familiar.
"During that time, I had been listening to a lot of African and Afro-Cuban music," he says, "and I started writing in a lot of 6/8 patterns and experimenting with that kind of thing. I brought it over to Russ, and he was really interested in it. We started experimenting with a lot of polyrhythmic composition."
The result was Four Corners, an album with a distinct world music sensibility, and one of the Yellowjackets' most commercially and artistically successful albums to date.
Subsequent albums Politics (1988) and The Spin (1989) dispensed with some of the multi-layered intensity of Four Corners and took a more acoustic direction. Greenhouse, released in 1990, welcomed tenor saxophonist Bob Mintzer into the Yellowjackets lineup. Mintzer's dedication to the jazz tradition, along with his highly developed skills as an arranger, have taken the Yellowjackets to a new level of sophistication over the past 12 years.
Throughout the ‘90s, the Yellowjackets continued to explore a diverse cross-section of sound and rhythm. The relaxed and mellow Dreamland (1995) marked a brief reunion with
Warner Brothers that also spawned Blue Hats (1997) and Club Nocturne (1998).
The Yellowjackets entered the new millennium with their self-released Mint Jam. Recorded live at the Mint in Los Angeles in July 2001, the two-disc set was nominated for a Grammy for Best Contemporary Jazz Album. Backing up the regular lineup of Ferrante, Haslip, and Mintzer was drummer Marcus Baylor, who was a member of the band until Kennedy returned in 2010.
Time Squared, the follow-up to Mint Jam, was released in May 2003. Their first studio recording in five years, Time Squared captures much of the energy and spontaneity that made Mint Jam a formidable Grammy contender.
In response to countless requests from fans over the years, the Yellowjackets released their first Christmas album in September 2004. Peace Round includes several traditional holiday songs, each with a unique contemporary jazz spin. Altered State, released in March 2005, continues to merge the traditional with the progressive by exploring unusual time signatures and exotic rhythms.
The Yellowjackets celebrated their 25th anniversary with the CD/DVD release of the aptly titled Twenty-Five in May 2006. The CD portion of the two-disc set featured a live 2005 performance in Paris, while the DVD includes a second live performance filmed at the Naima Club in Forli, Italy, in October 2005. In addition to the concert footage, the DVD also includes interviews with current and past band members, retrospective performance footage, and several other features.
In the summer of 2007, the Yellowjackets were joined by guitar virtuoso Mike Stern for some electrifying performances at the Montreal Jazz Festival. The dates served as the catalyst for Lifecycle, a Yellowjackets/Stern studio collaboration considered by many to be one of the most innovative and memorable jazz albums of 2008. The first Yellowjackets recording in 15 years to feature a guitar player, Lifecycle illustrates the kind of energy and creative brilliance that results when five talented players pool their individual skills as songwriters and musicians and merge into an entity that's far greater than the sum of its parts.
New Morning: The Paris Concert is a new DVD released in July 2009, takes you up close and personal with the Yellowjackets on stage at the New Morning, one of the most celebrated clubs in Paris.
www.yellowjackets.com
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