Search - Paul Renz :: Everlasting

Paul Renz has been an all-star student, mastering guitar, bass and composition. A scholarship boy on the National Dean?s List. Summa cum laude at Berklee College of Music and the New England Conservatory of Music. "Who?s Who Among Students at American Universities and Colleges 1984-1985." Paul Renz has also been an all-star teacher. Tutor of ear training, composition, harmony, theory and arranging at Berklee. Then a high school gifted students teacher in Virginia. Summer camp music director in Maine. And a community college prof back in Virginia. Presently Renz is a Minnesotan, working at both the MacPhail Center for the Arts and the West Bank School of Music. That?s a lot of time spent in classrooms. Yet the good news is that there?s nothing remotely academic about Renz?s music. Nothing dryly theoretical or by-the-book predictable whatsoever. Paul Renz?s music is a kick! It?s a fresh, breathing, surprising, tune-filled, character-to-spare personal amalgam of so much that?s so fine about modern mainstream jazz. Paul Renz?s sounds are certainly well-schooled, but never dry or fuddy. Renz has had some great teachers, including composer, arranger, pianist and "Lydiot," George Russell-the post-bop and big band living legend. And ECM guitar star Mick Goodrick. Not to mention Berklee?s venerable Herb Pomeroy. He does all those cats proud on Everlasting. The CD certainly isn?t a one-man show. Bassist Renz is in great Land O?Lakes company. There?s trumpeter Jon Pemberton, of Size Six, the Skatet and his own Pembertones, making a belated CD debut. Plus longtime Guthrie Theater musician, Keni Holmen, Cedar Ave. Big Band saxophonist Dave Brattain, TC Jazz Cartel guitarist extraordinaire "Wally" Walstad, fellow Berklee grad and trio leader David Singley, plus crafty drummer Ron Edgar. The latter gent spent 12 years in L.A. as a studio drummer, working with Victor Feldman and other heavyweights. Edgar describes himself as an "underground, selective player," and the same tag could be applied to the rest of Everlasting?s clearly talented cast. Renz gives each of them plenty of space to shine. He?s the most democratic kind of bandleader, a fellow whose primary interest is making the compositions blossom fully. That?s no surprise, since Renz wrote all 12 tunes on Everlasting. Composing and arranging is obviously the man?s forte. Some of these songs will stick to your ears like white on rice. Renz is a helluva chart writer. I won?t do any blow-by-blow review of Everlasting?s contents. You can hear for yourself how hip the music is. Let?s just mention a few salient points. It?s apparent from the very first notes blown by Keni Holmen?s solo saxophone that listeners are in for something special. There are no tired head/solos/head arrangements on Everlasting, no overworked bop chords strung together haphazardly and no slumming blues ditties. Instead you get, boom! ?an instant cadenza. There are several such solos that leap off this album and Renz the composer wastes no time letting Holmen fire off the first one. This is no random gesture, either. Everlasting is loose and a bit rambunctious, yet ultimately as well scripted as a play by Pinter. "Well You Couldn?t" is an obvious tip of the composer?s cap to his greatness, Thelonious Monk. "Latin in Deed" is a stunner with plenty of Afro-Cuban fire yet no latin cliches. Brattain and Pemberton blow with precision then abandon, their horns soaring and sparring and scintillating. Singley sounds just a tad like 60?s Hungarian wizard Gabor Szabo in his splendid solo. And Edgar will have you reaching for those old Art Blakey meets Sabu records as he closes the track with some hands-on beauty. Now dig the elegant voicings of "Cabin in the Rain," where Renz?s electric bass packs room-filling weight. And relish the intertwined horn lines of "E flat Potato" and "Latch On," worthy of some classic Blue Note or Prestige albums. Amazingly, these tracks were recorded live, with just on