People who have only heard it once tell me they find themselves humming it for days afterward. Garrett is carrying on that challenge with his latest CD, “Songbook” (Warner Bros), the first that features original compositions, including his trademark number, “Sing a Song of Song.” I mention the reaction it gets at live concerts. A number like ‘Countdown’ is in E, which means it puts the alto into C Sharp. There is a strong sense of honoring experience in Garrett’s music, whether it’s dedicating his CD “Triology” to Joe Henderson and Sonny Rollins or recording his Coltrane album, “Pursuance,” “more a meditation on Trane’s music than a tribute album.” Why did an alto player chose to do the music of a tenor saxophonist? “The challenge. “I just say, ‘it’s Miles, man!’ I wanted to absorb as much as I could ’cause I figured once that experience was gone, it was gone.” “People ask me why so long,” he says, shaking his head in disbelief. After a short spell with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Garrett went on to work with three legendary trumpeters: Woody Shaw, Freddie Hubbard and Miles Davis, sticking with Miles’ band for five years. If you’re honest, I think it comes out.” What comes out in Garrett’s case is instantly recognizable: a fast, keening alto with a seamless body and a lyrical curl to its edges, all quavering with boundless energy. I said I didn’t know and he said ‘Well, everyone has their own sound.’ That kind of stayed in the back of my mind, but I didn’t try to consciously develop a sound, I was just trying to be true with myself about what I felt when I played. How did he get it? “Once I was listening to the radio with my father when he asked me who the sax player was. Three and a half years later, he left that band taking with him the most valuable thing a musician can possess, his own sound.
What he wanted began at age 18 when Mercer Ellington, the great man’s son, asked him to join the Duke Ellington Orchestra. For if Kenny Garrett is anything, it’s a man who knows what he wants. Garrett points to the photographer’s lens-shade. Welcome to the busy world of the most promising alto saxophonist on the scene today. “Fourchette,” he says, “… Cuillère.” They arrived with his lunch, Chinese take-out, in the middle of an improvised French lesson that is taking place during a photo shoot scheduled just before our interview.
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