With a 25-year legacy behind them, Russell Ferrante and his pioneering bandmates push the lim
Building on an eclectic bedrock of jazz, funk, rock, and R&B, the Yellowjackets continue to push boundaries with their milestone anniversary album and DVD, recorded live in Europe during their Fall, 2005 tour. With this strong collection of tracks, saxophonist Bob Mintzer, bassist Jimmy Haslip, drummer Marcus Baylor, and Russell again prove themselves to be both students and masters, demonstrating deft command of their instruments and performance, yet never fearing to experiment and ride a groove to destination unknown.
Over the last twenty-five years, though, the Yellowjackets’ grooves and destinations have evolved considerably. “The kinds of things we solo over are more pliant and less groove-oriented, with more shape and a wider dynamic range,” says Russell, whose playing has grown in tandem with the group’s musical development. “In the past, some of the music was rooted in R&B. As the musicians and music changed, everyone’s playing has had to change, too. The current band is like a jazz quartet, even though we do have electric bass and I do use some synths. It’s very interactive and on any given night, a certain section might be roaring, or Marcus might play it with brushes, or there might be no time and it goes somewhere else. We’re drawing on a wider palette, I guess.” As far as instrumentation, Russell’s rig has also changed with the tides of the band. “I’m playing more acoustic piano than I did in the beginning. Now, it’s really the heart of the keyboard chair and I use synths for coloration, some orchestration, and some new dimensions.”
Independent of the Yellowjackets, Russell’s keyboard work is a case study in how to do it right. Gospel exuberance often joins with bebop complexity on Twenty Five, and each line and chord is delivered with a level of subtlety and taste that would make Monk proud. Thoughtful and meticulous, energetic and inspired, Russell’s playing reflects years of musical exploration and dedication. Chilling with the man, his pets, his piano, and his excellent homemade espresso, we explored some of the methodology and philosophy that goes into his music.
The Talented Mr. Goodchord
Russell is an expert practitioner of the epic Mr. Goodchord system, an approach to voice leading developed by jazz guitarist Mick Goodrick. In his books, Mick takes every possible three- and four-note diatonic chord and inversion that can exist in a given scale (major, harmonic minor, and melodic minor are the ones he explores) and shows how to move to from there to any other three- or four-note diatonic chord contained in that same scale, making use of the smoothest voice leading possible (to go deeper, see Mitch Haupers’ articles on the subject in our Sep. ’03 and Jan. ’04 issues). Though originally meant for six-stringers, Mr. Goodchord’s system has a lot to offer keyboardists as well.
“What blew me away about Mick Goodrick’s books is the beauty of coming up with a system that explores every possibility of moving from any three- and four- note structure to any other three- and four- note structure within these certain scales he’s using,” says Russell. “It was very methodical and rigorous. Taking that approach and applying it to everything you do — it appeals to me. Someone may think it’s too scientific, but if you explore the options, you can select within those possibilities what appeals to you and then work with that. In Mick’s books, you can open any page — and I’ve done this — go through a certain progression of voicings, and it will just inspire tons of ideas, compositionally and melodically, as well.
“I teach private students part-time at three different schools. It always really excites them. This one student who’s a wonderful sax player was applying this to his instrument. He told me, ‘Wow, this is the sort of stuff that should be at the center of a curriculum, as opposed to being some weird add-on. This is really fundamental.’ That’s how I feel about it. It’s voice leading, moving melodically from chord to chord, and understanding relationships of multiple notes. It’s critical to making good music.”
How do you approach learning from Mick’s system? “It would be a daunting task to go from page one,” says Russell. “But if you take the underlying idea — voice leading from chord to chord and the rigor involved in that — and apply it to any progression, using some of Mick’s ideas, it expands the options enormously.” Russell was kind enough to show us how to apply Mick’s principles to the king of all cutting tunes, “Giant Steps.” Check out “Mr. Goodchord Meets Giant Steps” on page 24 for more.
Stacking It Up
Hand in hand with Russell’s love for graceful voice leading comes his enthusiasm for exploring the possibilities of stacked chords. “Polychords,” he elaborates, “Two major chords that are a fifth apart on the scale.” Easy examples include a Gmaj triad over a Cmaj triad, and a Cmaj triad over an Fmaj triad. “I play them in inversions and get rid of the doubled notes,” he continues. Russell uses these types of chords for comping, and they can work especially well on modal tunes like “So What.”
“It’s also a way of controlling dissonance,” he says. “You can pick triads where all the notes are in the scale, or you can start creeping out of the tonality and get kind of far away. For Fmin, how about playing a Gmaj triad over an Fmin triad, or Emin over F?”
Russell’s Rhythms
On Twenty Five’s opening track “Revelation,” Russell bends barlines with a gospel-flavored solo that’s energetic, uplifting, and accessible, yet deceptively deep in its rhythmic content. If you’re already a Yellowjackets fan, you know his penchant to play repeated rhythmic patterns, usually consisting of odd-numbered groupings of notes, and extend them over two- and four-bar phrases. It may sound angular or against the beat, but no matter the complexity of the rhythmic figure he’s playing, Russell knows just where every note falls in the groove.
“The more you play around with odd groupings of notes — five, seven, and three — and feel how they work out in two- or four-bar phrases, the easier it is to feel them against the time,” says Russell. “Splitting your brain and feeling that syncopation against the downbeats of any bar — it becomes something you can internalize, react to, and utilize like you’d utilize any other rhythm that’s common to you, like a clave.
“That’s the key to performing live. When you’re playing, there’s little or no time to think. You have to be reacting and your attention should be focused on what’s going on around you so you can respond and fold whatever you’re doing in with everyone else’s part. This has to be stuff you develop in your practice time and your vocabulary has to be as wide as it can, so you can respond in a variety of ways depending on the music.
Russell’s approach to rhythm not only informs his live playing, but also inspires his compositional process. “On Altered State, there are three tunes I wrote that were all based on [rhythmic groupings of] five and seven. There’s one tune called ‘’57 Chevy’ and the right hand actually started out as an exercise, but then I thought, ‘This could be a cool accompaniment for a melody.’ The bottom [right-hand] fingers play [repeated groups of] five [sixteenth notes], the top fingers are playing [repeated groups of] three [sixteenth notes], and then the left hand is playing [repeated groups of] seven [sixteenth notes]. It sounds kind of convoluted and a little warped, but it also sounds like a folk song, since everything is in one key. It turned into a really nice compositional device.”
Progressive Playing
Hang around with enough contemporary music buffs and you’ll be sure to hear whispers of the jaded opinion that tonality is over. Everything that could be done with it has already been done, the story goes. Progressive music, by definition, must be atonal or beyond.
Though his playing is rooted in traditional styles, Russell is no doubt a progressive, experimental musician. At the same time, his keyboard work is beautifully, unapologetically tonal. How does that work? “It’s kind of a prevailing point of view in a lot of critical and ‘progressive’ circles that more angst, dissonance, and complexity equates with better and more evolved music,” Russell affirms. “I don’t feel that way. The most moving music to me can be simple, like folk music, African music, or gospel, and certainly so many classic recordings by artists like B.B. King, Aretha Franklin, and Stevie Wonder. Their music is very tonal, but they put together the notes in their own individual ways. It may not be something you’ve never heard before, but it has personality and is reflective of a certain individual. I put a lot of value on that — that whatever an artist does, it can be expressive, whether it’s complex or simple, that it’s genuine and that it really communicates something about the person that’s playing and is inspiring in some way. I like music that has an uplifting quality.”
Russell does bend tonality at times, though in a subtle way. “In a lot of the tunes that I’ve written or been part of writing in the Yellowjackets, I’ll constantly try to find a slightly different route from point A to point B within a key center. I’ll make some slight diversions, but then come back, gently move outside the tonality, and then lead back into it — not in a jarring way, but making it seamless, so maybe you don’t realize the song has gone to another key or time signature. It’s very organic.”
