Once upon a time, a musician named Bill Warfield got the idea to celebrate the instrument that he played – the trumpet – and some of the people who played that instrument. He would do so by writing a suite of big-band compositions for trumpet soloist. But rather than make these pieces into showcases for his own playing, he decided to write them for a different trumpeter – who in fact was one of those musicians he had admired as a young man. And that’s how Trumpet Story came into being. But let’s dispense with the fairytale trappings; although this album is indeed a dream come true, there’s nothing fictional about the hard work and focused talent that merge in these performances. The album does, honor one of the oldest lessons in the jazz canon, however: the importance of presenting a cohesive narrative, of creating music with a beginning and an end – yes, of “telling a story” – which artists from Louis Armstrong to Frank Zappa have made their overriding goal. And when it comes to storytelling, you need two things: good material and, just as important, a good storyteller. In this case, make that two storytellers: Randy Brecker and Warfield himself. Each is justifiably lionized for his tale-spinning skills, and on this album they complement each other like prologue and epilogue. Warfield tells his stories on paper. His arrangements sharply illustrate his own compositions, but also reveal his thoughts and emotions when he embroiders pieces written by others. And like any gifted chronicler, Warfield can shift his voice to fit the mood and the action – from the showy funk of the opening track to the lambent subtleties of the very next piece (Herbie Hancock’s “Speak Like A Child), to the elegant British majesty of “Flowerdale” to the jittery caffeination of Joe Zawinul’s “Pharaoh’s Dance.” Brecker, on the other hand, speaks through his horn, in statements laconic or garrulous and in tones gilded or blunt, with phrases that either slide off a log or race for the mountaintop. Brecker is a skilled composer himself – witness “Sponge” in this collection – but that aspect of his music has receded into the shadow cast by his improvising. For over 40 years, he has towered above contemporaries in a succession of genres. His solos have blended lyricism and virtuosity, with such consistent inventiveness – and over so long a time – that many listeners have come to take him for granted. Sure, he’s a six-time GRAMMY winner; a fusion hero, as a founding member of Blood, Sweat & Tears, and of course his own Brecker Brothers Band; and a famed contributor to a panoply of styles – hard-bop, fusion, big-band, Brazilian – who has energized bands led by Charles Mingus, Horace Silver, and Larry Coryell. Yet for all that, you might well describe him as “underappreciated” – which speaks to the true level of Brecker’s artistry, and the real range of his accomplishments. He may have no bigger fan than Warfield, who conceived the compositions at the heart of this album specifically for Brecker’s trumpet. (“I don’t really sound like him,” says Warfield. “But I know a lot of the things I play are based on things I heard him do.”) The two horn players met in 1994, at a big-band studio date. A couple years later, Warfield invited Brecker to perform Sketches Of Spain, the iconic 1958 collaboration between Miles Davis and Gil Evans, with the band directed by Warfield at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. (Warfield eventually rose to the position of Director of Jazz Studies at Lehigh, and the university provided major financial support for the production of Trumpet Story.) “Randy’s commitment to this project was remarkable,” Warfield says. “I’ve done studio projects with a lot of famous people, and he was just like one of the guys in the band: ‘What do you need? How can I help?’ I’ve never had someone in his position commit to a project with the level of intensity that he did.” You’ll find similar praise from Brecker for Warfield elsewhere in this booklet. Originally a four-part suite, Trumpet Story grew from a vehicle for Brecker into a larger project incorporating facets of Warfield’s personal history – specifically, the impact of musicians who inspired his own development. That includes “not just trumpet players but also some composers who influenced me as I was coming up,” he explains. “They’re often the same, but not always.” Thus the compositions by Hancock and Zawinul, and also the hard-bop “Theme For Malcolm” by Donald Brown, best known for his stint with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers in the early 80s: all three were pianists, not trumpeters, but their writing left its mark on Warfield’s work. The most telling of these, “Speak Like A Child,” comes from Hancock’s 1968 album of the same name, which, says Warfield, was “reminiscent of the French Impressionistic composers of the early 20th century. The horns were woven into the fabric of each tune and not used as they traditionally had been; I tried to maintain that quality in this big band arrangement.” He succeeds with fleshed-out textures that still recall Hancock’s original chamber-band instrumentation. Warfield’s career featured some early experience in r-&-b and funk bands, a period represented by “When Janie Takes The Stand”; he recounts that “The melody is derived from a background I made up for use behind a saxophone solo on the James Brown tune ‘Payback.’ The musicians, usually a quiet bunch, have a bit of an exuberant reaction after the take.” (Considering the solos from Brecker, guitarist Vic Juris, and trombonist Tim Sessions, who could blame them?) His other compositions reflect the personal as well as the professional. Of “Carol,” he says, I’ve always wanted to write a tune for my wife. So here it is. Carol is a visual artist of an extraordinary sort. We inspire each other day in and day out, and I’m grateful to her for all of the support she has given over the years.” The episodic and intriguing “In The Land Of Chad And Barbie” stems from Warfield’s association with Daniel Brita, a Brazilian composer of contemporary electronic music, who used some of Warfield’s tunes as the basis for a computer-generated piece of his own. And Warfield combined elements from two favored compositions – “Waltz For Debby” by pianist Bill Evans and “Up Jumped Spring” by trumpeter Freddie Hubbard – to come up with “A Window That Shows Me The Moon,” with a lovely piano introduction from Art Hirahara. They all fit together like chapters of a book: one part autobiography, one part history, and one part character study, portraying one of the great trumpet players of our time. It makes for one heckuva good story. NEIL TESSER