Yellowjackets

         Music as exploration is a concept as old as jazz itself. Some of the best compositions and most prolific musical careers have started at point A by artists and bands with little or no conception of point B’s whereabouts.

Such is the story of the Yellowjackets, an outfit that began as the session band for guitarist Robben Ford in the late ‘70s and took on a life of its own in a matter of a few years. More than two decades after its genesis, the band continues to delve into every corner of the musical universe – simply because it’s there to be explored – and weave a multi-layered and innovative tapestry of sonic experience.

By the mid 1970s, Ford had assembled keyboardist Russell Ferrante, bassist Jimmy Haslip and drummer Ricky Lawson – a team of up and coming players who backed him on his mostly instrumental 1977 release, The Inside Story. Although Ford’s label wanted him to follow up with a more pop- and vocal-oriented album, the band – then known as the Robben Ford Group – preferred the instrumental approach. They renamed themselves the Yellowjackets, and while Ford made appearances on their first couple albums, the band and its former leader parted on amicable terms after the release of Mirage a Trois in 1984.

“That was a very exciting time for instrumental music,” Ferrante recalls. “It seemed like a lot of people were open to mixing and matching various musical styles. There wasn't the strict compartmentalization that you see in radio now.”

With the success of innovative instrumental bands like Weather Report around the same time, crossing and merging genres had become a successful strategy, artistically as well as commercially. “There was no thought about whether this style should go with that one,” Ferrante adds. “Nothing was genre specific. It was just the music that we had all played – R&B music and electric music and acoustic music, blues, pop, the whole thing was just all music. We just did what came naturally.”

By 1987, Lawson had left the band and was replaced by William Kennedy, whose polyrhythmic sensibilities opened doors to an even greater sense of exploration – and a further departure from the familiar, Haslip recalls.

“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 things.”

The result was Four Corners, an album with a distinctly 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 since taken the ‘Jackets to a new level of sophistication over the past twelve years.

“It was very interesting,” Mintzer says of his early days with the band. “I was challenged. There was a way of playing and writing that had been in place for a while. I basically tried to step into that, acknowledge what had already been going on and add to that in some way.”

Haslip’s high praise picks up where Mintzer’s modesty leaves off. “Bob is an amazing musician,” he says. “He has a very distinct voice. He’s the really serious traditionalist in the band. He also has a very wide, eclectic view of composing, so he lends himself to what we are trying to do. He’s very much into experimentation, and he has his own big band, so his skills as an arranger are also very good to have on board.”

Throughout the ‘90s, the ‘Jackets continued to explore a diverse cross section of sound and rhythm. The relaxed and mellow Dreamland, released in 1995, marked a brief reunion with Warner Brothers that also spawned Blue Hats in 1997 and Club Nocturne in 1998.

The Yellowjackets enter the new millennium with the release of Mint Jam on the Heads Up International label. Recorded live at the Mint in Los Angeles in July 2001, the two-disc set is scheduled for international release in March 2002. Backing up the regular lineup of Ferrante, Haslip and Mintzer on Mint Jam is drummer Marcus Baylor.

While the Yellowjackets are optimistic about the future, even the charter members aren’t about to limit their options by mapping that future too carefully.

“We never know, even when we start writing,” says Ferrante. “The music might take you in a completely unanticipated direction. I think you have to stay open to that. We just start playing and writing, and a thread starts to emerge, and we’ll follow that and see what happens.”

"No matter where the thread leads," says Haslip, exploration will always be a primary objective. "That, to me, is the key element,” he says. “That’s what jazz means to me. It means exploration. That’s kind of a lost art.”

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NEW DOUBLE CD MINT JAM CAPTURES

THE YELLOWJACKETS LIVE

For over twenty years, the Yellowjackets have been recording, performing and building a worldwide fan base. With fifteen albums, a dozen Grammy nominations and two Grammy awards to date, the group continues to blaze a trail into the 21^st century with an energy and a signature sound that few will fail to recognize and most have come to love. Mint Jam (HUCD 3065), a double CD recorded live at The Mint in Los Angeles in July of 2001, is now set for international release on March 26^th, 2002 by Heads Up International. The album captures all of the energy and excitement of a live 'Jackets concert.

Though many live recordings simply rework older material, Mint Jam contains eight previously unrecorded compositions, along with four classic Yellowjackets tunes. From the opening track, “Les is Mo,” a tip of the hat to the classic live recording Swiss Movement by Les McCann and Eddie Harris, to the closer, “The Evening News,” the Yellowjackets display the kind of chemistry and group dynamic that have energized and astounded audiences around the world.

Although the Yellowjackets have never played the nostalgia game, some of the new material on the album revisits their earlier R&B- and funk-based sensibilities, according to bassist Jimmy Haslip, but with the more evolved and more global perspective that two decades of recording and world touring have afforded them.

“We took a look at some of our earlier influences,” he says. “We hadn’t really thought about music on those levels in a while – maybe for twenty-some years. That’s how compositions like ‘Les Is Mo’ and ‘Motet’ came about. Even a piece like ‘Boomtown’ has a little bit more of a funky feel to it.”

The album includes a few familiar – yet still fresh – touchstones as well. Longtime 'Jackets fans will likely be surprised at the unusual renditions of earlier hits like “Runferyerlife,” “Tortoise and the Hare” and “Statue of Liberty.”

Haslip and keyboardist Russell Ferrante founded the band in 1979 and saxophonist Bob Mintzer joined the group a few years later. The current lineup also features drummer Marcus Baylor who has brought a renewed energy and enthusiasm to the Yellowjackets sound. While each member is given plenty of space to display their individual talents, Mint Jam is truly a testament to the Yellowjackets philosophy that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” The band has never sounded more inspired and those lucky enough to have attended this magical set would no doubt agree.

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In 1977, Robben Ford assembled a group of veteran session musicians to record his album The Inside Story. The trio of musicians, which included keyboardist Russell Ferrante, bassist Jimmy Haslip and drummer Ricky Lawson, soon discovered a certain "chemistry" and musical affinity that led to their formation of Yellowjackets. The Inside Story being mainly instrumental, Robben Ford's record label wanted him to record another album that was more pop and vocal oriented. The group, known as the Robben Ford Group, preferred to pursue the instrumental route, and a "band within a band" was formed. This same group with Robben Ford on guitar recorded digital demos that were eventually accepted by Warner Brothers, and Yellowjackets was born. While Robben's contributions would diminish over the years to being a guest artist, the group known as Yellowjackets would flourish.

Their debut album Yellowjackets made serious waves in jazz radio, garnering public and critical acclaim. Mirage A Trois followed in its footsteps. While they went on a brief hiatus to pursue other projects, they reassembled in time for the 1984 Playboy Jazz Festival, adding percussionist Paulinho Da Costa and their new lead voice, sax man Marc Russo. This landmark concert paved the way for their eventual success both on the Billboard Jazz charts and concert venues around the world, and resulted in the third spicy Yellowjackets album Samurai Samba. 1986 saw the group moving over to MCA Records to record Shades, the title track being written by Donald Fagen (of Steely Dan fame) as a tribute to the many "shades" he heard in the group's music.

With their album Four Corners, Ricky Lawson departed to join Lionel Richie's touring band and was replaced by the versatile William Kennedy. This rock-solid lineup took the Yellowjackets into new territory, exploring world beats and densely-populated soundscapes that reflected a growing maturity in their music.

Politics, the follow-up to Four Corners, mellows out, and the group sheds some of the electronic elements and starts exploring acoustic sounds. Marc Russo's final recording with Yellowjackets, The Spin, was recorded in Oslo, Norway by noted engineer Jan Erik Kongshaug (well known for his work on the ECM label), and the Jackets proved that they could belt out acoustic jazz with the best!

Greenhouse ushered in a new era. With Marc gone, the Yellowjackets trio would record one of their most adventurous albums to date, featuring ace big band arranger and saxophonist Bob Mintzer on many of the tracks, and string accompaniments on a handful of others. Shortly thereafter, Bob Mintzer became a bona fide member of Yellowjackets. The Jackets also recorded on one of Bob Mintzer's dmp Records projects, One Music. Live Wires captures the group in concert with Mintzer at the helm. The two albums that followed, Like A River and Run For Your Life, reflected a growing interest in straight-ahead acoustic jazz.

Yellowjackets Today

With 1995's Dreamland, Yellowjackets returned to their first record label, Warner Brothers, producing their most relaxed, and relaxing, recording to date. Blue Hats is more spontaneous than its predecessors, musically rich and particularly revealing in showing how Yellowjackets have evolved since that landmark first album. Club Nocturne, their newest recording, achieves great crossover appeal with the guest vocalists Kurt Elling, Jonathan Butler and Brenda Russell. And while the Yellowjackets of today sound little like the original Yellowjackets from fifteen-plus years ago at first listen, the unmistakable talents of the individuals involved still have the unique signatures that shine through regardless of their musical setting, whether it be blistering-hot fusion or full-blown acoustic jazz. In other words, their music has evolved and matured considerably, but there's no mistaking that it is Yellowjackets you are hearing.

A New Face

At the beginning of 1999, William Kennedy departed Yellowjackets to pursue other interests. Taking over the drum chair is the versatile Peter Erskine. Peter has played many styles of music, from rock to jazz, and just about everything in-between. His straight-ahead jazz drumming style is a superb match for the acoustic direction in which Yellowjackets are heading.

What's In A Name?

If you're expecting something cute or meaningful in the naming of the group, you may be disappointed. Russell Ferrante relates the following on how the group's name was chosen: "I wish there was a clever rationale, but there really isn't. At the time we were making our demo in hopes of landing a recording contract, we were still the "Robben Ford Band". We had recorded one record with Robben, (primarily instrumental) but his record company was "encouraging" him do do something more pop and vocal oriented. As we also wanted to continue playing instrumental music, we all decided to form a "band within a band" so to speak. At the demo session Jimmy brought in a sheet full of possible names, most just awful. The one that popped out was Yellowjackets as it seemed to connotate something lively, energetic, and something with a "sting". That's really about as deep as it went. Once you choose a name, you're stuck with it so here we are, 16 years later, grown men playing in a band named 'Yellowjackets.'"