Brian Charette knows his way around an organ. He began playing a Hammond M3 in high school but didn't graduate to the B3 until he moved to New York at age 20. While gigging in the city, he met Brother Jack McDuff and played his organ in Harlem at Showman's Jazz Club. [Photo above of Brian Charette at the Van Gelder Studio courtesy of Brian Charette]
Brian also knows how to compose soul-jazz. His new album, Jackpot, is terrific. It features Brian on organ backed by Cory Weeds on tenor saxophone, Ed Cherry on guitar and Bill Stewart on drums. The album of Brian's originals was recorded for Cory's record label, Cellar Live. There's so much flavor in Brian's hands and feet, Cory is always a warm and centered player, Ed is as smooth and groovy as can be, and Bill drives it all along with a wide array of surprising figures.
Here's a short video about Brian...
And here's Highball...
Recently, I had a chance to find out more about Brian during an e-interview:
JazzWax: What was childhood like?
Brian Charette: I grew up in Meriden, Ct., on a retired dairy farm surrounded by rolling hills. My parents were and still are amazing. They exposed me to all sorts of interesting intellectual pursuits. When I was a kid, I was in a gifted program at Talcott Mountain Science Center in Avon, where I studied aeronautics. We built rockets and other things that fly. We had to calculate wind and trajectory. I also worked in an early full musical instrument digital interface (MIDI) studio in 1984 on a Macintosh computer. At home, I was a voracious reader of books on physics and philosophy, as well as the Bible. My parents were schoolteachers, and my father wrote books on sacred geometry—which ascribes symbolic and sacred meanings to geometric shapes, such as the pyramids. When I focused on something, it got heavy fast.
JW: Did you travel?
BC: We did. My parents took us on cross-country trips to see historical sites, including Sun Studio in Memphis, the Grand Canyon, the Petrified Forest and the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. My brother, Marc, is two years younger, plays drums now and is a banker. By the time I was 15, I had been to every state in the continental U.S. But socially, I was introverted. [Photo above of Brian Charette by Remo Neuhaus]
JW: Why?
BC: I had hearing problems at a young age. When I was 7 and 9, I had procedures on my ears. My ear canals were blocked with skin and fluid. They put tubes in my ears to open the canals. Because of my ear issues, I couldn't hear people unless I looked at them. I could hear a little and was already playing piano, but this slight handicap made me inwardly focused and I kept to myself. There were other issues. I was very heavy and not very child-like in my thinking, so other kids thought I was strange and stayed away from me. I also had pretty complicated allergies and nasal issues. Recuperation from the ear procedures wasn’t too bad, but I was rather sickly, which is in contrast to now, when I’m rarely sick. Oh, and a pinky finger was set wrong by a doctor after I broke it. I was inward focused. An interesting childhood.
JW: Anyone musical at home?
BC: My mother. I'd listen as she played classical piano. At age 5 or 6, I started to sit at the piano. She soon gave me lessons and I began formal training at 7 with a local piano teacher who was very good but rather strict, which made me a competent player fast. [Photo of Brian Charette by Volha Talatynik]
JW: When did you start playing jazz?
BC: In junior year of high school. A saxophonist in a rock band I was playing with introduced me to Charlie Parker. In high school, I started to play gigs locally with major jazz players such as Houston Person and Lou Donaldson. I soon bought a Hammond M3 to play in my rock band. The M3 is much smaller than the B3.
JW: Did you study jazz?
BC: Yes, at the Berklee College of Music in Boston for three weeks over the summer before college at the University of Connecticut. At Berklee, I was in Rick Peckham's John Scofield Ensemble, where I learned a lot about playing with a group and had my first jazz jams. They had lots of cool concerts at Berklee so I got to listen to lots of great music. Berklee also had tape machines that played at 1/2 speed, which in 1990 was pretty uncommon. So I started to transcribe music for the first time. At the slower speed, I could hear each note more clearly, making it easier to transcribe solos on albums. [Photo above of Brian Charette by Volha Talatynik]
JW: A good jazz program at University of Connecticut?
BC: Very. The jazz band there was under the direction of Ellen Rowe. She brought in leading jazz artists such as Marvin Stamm, Kenny Wheeler and Joey Calderazzo. I also studied classical piano and form and analysis while playing lots of gigs. It was a time of great learning for me.
JW: After college, who was most important to your organ development?
BC: I moved to New York in 1994 at age 20 and lived with a friend in an apartment in the East Village. It’s the building on the cover of Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti album. Back then, I was playing piano but soon bought a portable Hammond XB-2. For some reason, I immediately started to play lots of gigs on organ. Each Thursday night, I’d play in Harlem at Showman’s with Joey Morant and occasionally with Jerry Weldon and Grady Tate. Then I met Jack McDuff in the dressing room at the Blue Note. He let me play his organ. [Photo above of Brian Charette on the Hammond C3 at the Van Gelder Studio, courtesy of Brian Charette]
JW: Who were you listening to?
BC: Jimmy Smith and Steve Winwood, Jon Lord and Chester Thompson. I loved the progressive rock records because of the sound made by the synthesizers and organ. I also was into Melvin Rhyne because of his amazing bebop lines. And Larry Young. Then I went back in time to organists like Ethel Smith and Milt Buckner
JW: How did you wind up playing behind so many celebrated artists after college, including Michael McDonald and Joni Mitchell?
BC: I was lucky to know great musical directors. I played organ behind Michael McDonald through my relationship with musicians Jimmy and Jerry Vivino. They put the band together. I also played a Central Park concert in 1999 celebrating the music of Joni Mitchell called Joni’s Jazz. In addition to Joni, performers included Joe Jackson and Chaka Khan. The band was organized by Vernon Reid. To bring myself up to speed, I transcribed music for the band or we had sheet music.
JW: Tell me about your new album, Jackpot. What was your vision?
BC: I wrote all the songs in a hotel room in Budapest while on tour. I set up my keyboard in the room with headphones. Melodies and chords came to me as I wrote. I wanted memorable bebop melody lines and I wanted to write them quickly so they weren't too complicated. We recorded at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio in New Jersey—me, Cory Weeds, Ed Cherry and Bill Stewart. I wrote the music with this band in mind. I wanted to have an album of grits-and-gravy swinging tunes just because I'd never really done that and I thought it was time. [Photo above, from left, Ed Cherry, Brian Charette, Cory Weeds and Bill Stewart at Rudy Van Gelder Studio in New Jersey]
Jazzwax tracks: You'll find Brian Charette's Jackpot (Cellar Live) here.
JazzWax clip: Want another video track from Brian's new album? Here's Brian's Unmasked...
