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Virtuoso jazz bassist John Patitucci credits his grandfather with igniting his passion for jazz. This Grammy Award winner, who has played with a who’s who of jazz greats including Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock, had his mind blown as a kid when his grandpa showed up one day at his Brooklyn home with a box of records.
The record stash, which had been left in the trash on a sidewalk, included such seminal gems as Art Blakey’s “Mosaic,” Ray Charles’ “Genius + Soul = Jazz,” Jimmy Smith’s “Hoochie Coochie Man” and a few Wes Montgomery classics.
“My grandfather found this box in the street when he was working on fixing roads in New York,” Patitucci explains. “It was amazing. It changed my life. My brother and I had no idea what was going on. On the radio we were hearing Motown and the Beatles and British invasion, and then we hear Wes Montgomery and Art Blakey and Thelonious Monk, and all this stuff we didn’t really understand. It was wild.”
Acclaimed as one of the most versatile and inventive bassists in jazz, Patitucci’s latest album, “Brooklyn,” is a homage to his New York roots. It mixes original compositions with covers of Monk’s “Trinkle Tinkle” and “Ugly Beauty,” and Montgomery’s “The Thumb.”
A prolific composer drawing from a wide palette, Patitucci created an album that ranges from irresistible tracks like the funky “Band of Brothers” and the African song “Dugu Kamalemba” by Malian singer Oumou Sangare, to a moving bass solo tribute to his wife and children, and the sublime, hypnotic “Bells Of Coutance.”
“I was on the road with Wayne (Shorter) and we were in Coutance in France,” he says. “Near the hotel was a church and these bells started going off with this colorful wash of sounds. I recorded it with my phone, and I interpreted the overtones and harmonics to shape the piece.”
As All About Jazz noted, Patitucci is the “bassist of choice through the years for Corea, Roy Haynes, Wayne Shorter and many other jazz giants.”
Born in Brooklyn, he began playing the electric bass at age 10, composing and performing at age 12 and playing the acoustic bass at 15.
“Initially, I was trying to be like my brother and I wanted to play guitar because he played guitar, but it didn’t feel good,” he recalls. “As soon as I had an electric bass, it was such a cool feeling. And at the time, I was hearing the great Motown records with (bassist) James Jamerson, and of course there were the British guys like (Paul) McCartney and (John) Entwistle.”
After moving west, he studied classical bass at San Francisco State University and Long Beach State University.
He came to fame playing with Corea, working with the legendary keyboardist in both his Elektric Band and Akoustic Band.
“The Chick Corea Electric Band represented a significant turning point in contemporary jazz history, and John Patitucci’s contributions to that entity were nothing less than stellar,” noted Bass Musician Magazine.
“We’re going to be doing some stuff together next year because he’s turning 75 and we’re going to have an Elektric Band reunion,” Patitucci notes. “I was with him for 10 years. It was a huge mentorship. My huge, most penetrating mentors are Chick, Wayne and Herbie (Hancock). They’re kind of Mt. Rushmore dudes.”
More recently, he began touring in 2000 with sax legend Shorter, a giant of jazz, who played with Miles Davis and co-founded Weather Report. As a member of Shorter’s Quartet, he played bass on “Beyond the Sound Barrier,” which won the 2006 Grammy for Best Instrumental Jazz Album.
“I met Wayne in 1986 about a year into my stay with Chick,” he notes. “I heard Wayne’s music before I heard Chick’s. He was playing on that Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers record ‘Mosaic,’ which was in the box in Brooklyn when I was a kid.”
Adept at many genres from jazz and pop to classical, Patitucci, who will make his Maui debut on Saturday at the fifth annual Maui Jazz & Blues Festival, says he hopes to never stop creatively growing.
“There’s always something new that you can learn,” he says. “That’s what’s great about music, you never know everything. I want to be challenged, and I’m still trying to figure out how to get better.”
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Also making their Maui debut on Saturday, Strunz & Farah have been hailed by Guitar Player magazine as “two of the planet’s most gifted acoustic guitarists.” Performing together since 1979, they developed an original, influential musical style merging Latin American and Middle Eastern influences.
The duo’s early albums, “Mosaico,” “Frontera” and “Guitarras,” were forerunners of what became known as world music. Over the years, they have collaborated with a spectrum of celebrated international artists including jazz bass legend Stanley Clarke, flutist Hubert Laws, Indian master violinist Dr. L. Subramaniam, sarod virtuoso Ashish Khan, Jackson Browne and with Sting playing on the soundtrack of the IMAX film “The Living Sea.”
Jorge Strunz was born in Costa Rica, while Ardeshir Farah was born in Tehran, Iran. Teaming together, Strunz says Farah exposed him to a Middle Eastern sensibility, “and we were both fans of flamenco and were fans of the fusion style of John McLaughlin and early rock styles like Jimi Hendrix. We had a lot in common although we were from different parts of the globe. And we thought we could combine our backgrounds and do an interesting, original mixture of things on an acoustic level with two guitars.”
“It was an honor to collaborate with Jorge,” Farah adds. “He had extensive experience in Latin music, so it was a great collaboration.”
Over the years, they have wowed audiences at festivals around the world including Switzerland’s Montreux Jazz Festival, Mexico’s Festival Internacional Cervantino, the Puerto Rico Heineken JazzFest, Cuba’s Festival Internacional de Guitarra and the Montreal International Jazz Festival, performing before 85,000 people.
While Latin American and Middle Eastern influences provide a foundation, Strunz explains, “We have many influences, from jazz, classical and flamenco to some forms of rock and pop guitar.”
“Bridging cultures and stunning audiences, they offer a fusion of influences that perhaps no other ensemble can boast,” raved Jazziz magazine. And Guitar Player noted, “With their incendiary blend of flamenco color, driving Afro-Latin rhythms and dazzling nylon string virtuosity, Strunz & Farah are spectacular live. For guitar lovers, the experience can be downright apocalyptic.”
“We still have fun playing with each other,” Strunz says. “We’re both still fascinated with the guitar and its possibilities. We’re both guitar fanatics. What could be better than playing with another guitar player?”
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Besides the Royal Lahaina Resort, various island venues are hosting related Maui Jazz & Blues Festival events. The Jazz Alley TV Trio and others will perform at a free event from 5 to 7 p.m. today at Duke’s Beach House in Kaanapali, and Hula Grill will feature a festival sneak peek with the visiting artists from 6 to 9 p.m., also in Kaanapali.
On Friday, John Zangrando and Shiro Mori will offer a free performance from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Hawaiian Moons Natural Foods in Kihei. And Andrew Molina will perform from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at Whole Foods in Kahului.
Also on Friday, the Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea will feature Benny Uyetake and saxophonist Phil Smith at Ferraro’s from 6 to 9 p.m. The Jazz Alley TV Trio will play at DUO restaurant from 6 to 9 p.m. Gene Argel and Zangrando will play in the resort’s Lobby Lounge from 7 to 11. And the Jazz Alley TV Trio will also play from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday in DUO.
Both the Royal Lahaina Resort and the Four Seasons are offering special room rates throughout the festival. For a full schedule of related events, visit www.mauijazzandbluesfestival.com.
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On Friday, at Virginia’s Lockn’ Music Festival, the Tedeschi Trucks Band will headline an all-star tribute to Joe Cocker’s landmark “Mad Dogs & Englishmen” album. It will include former Mad Dogs members, bandleader and keyboardist Leon Russell, keyboardist Chris Stainton, and backing singers Rita Coolidge, Claudia Lennear and Maui’s Pamela Polland.
Polland joined the legendary Mad Dogs & Englishmen Tour with Cocker and Russell in 1970 and sang on the resulting live album as well as in the film documentary. The concert will be live-streamed by Tourgigs.