Tom Varner: Heaven and Hell

Last weekend I was able to attend a session with Tom Varner at the Northwest Horn Symposium. I was interested to attend for a couple reasons. His topic was of interest, listed in the program as “Solos, Duos, Trios: Options for ‘jazz’ and ‘non-jazz’ Improvisation,” but also I was interested as he had sent a copy of his recent CD project, Heaven and Hell, to Horn Matters for review.

First, I should note that Tom Varner has been an active jazz hornist for many years; for more see his bio. I personally first heard him play live at a Northeast Horn Workshop over ten years ago. Varner makes more use of the lower range of the horn than some of the other jazz hornists out there (in part a function of his use of a standard double horn, but also he has a fine low range) and Varner brings a deep, lyric sound to his playing.

His website lists thirteen recordings with him as composer/leader, and Heaven and Hell is his latest release. It is for a ten piece group but Varner is featured prominently. On the jacket it is described as “An ex-New-Yorker’s post 9/11 meditation on the good and bad around us all….” This certainly sets the mood, and the session at the workshop clarified things further for me.

The CD itself is set up as a mixture of longer tracks and shorter interludes. The interludes are very much like what was demonstrated in the workshop session; they are free improvisations that serve well to link the other sections of the CD. I listened to the whole CD yesterday in one run and this is by far the best way to listen to it. It is not set up like a collection of jazz standards that you could shuffle through in almost any order; this is a dramatic suite that needs to be heard from the prelude right through to the postlude for full effect.

The OmniTone website description fleshes out more details on the project. Heaven and Hell according to Varner

“is a ‘looking back’ at an almost-eight-year process of thinking about, composing, organizing, and executing the music, during a time of huge changes in the world and personally, as well, for many folks.” It’s filled with, what Tom describes as, “the ‘combo platter’ in life that seems to grow stronger the older we get — the good and the bad that is all around us,” from “The Daily Dance,” which reminds Tom of “the morning scramble of getting kids to school,” to the snapshot of “new parents at 3 AM” that is “Waltz for the Proud Tired Worriers,” which Tom feels is the most heaven-like, to the bleak, twisted, smouldering “Structure Down,” which is “the most ‘hell’” to Tom’s ears.

The sections of the entire Heaven and Hell suite, which form a dramatic arc, are tied together with short, improvisational interludes that Tom describes as interludes as “‘quiet reflections,’ bits of staring into space, between more heavy events.” He goes on to say, “I also think of the whole piece rather cinematically, with lots of jump-cuts from different moments in time, often from a reflective present to a turbulent past. ‘The Trilling Clouds’ signals a heightened awareness, and the final ‘Postlude: Nine Years Later’ is a kind of ‘sigh from the future.’”

In terms of horn, it is easy to hear Varner in the tracks and all of the players involved sound great. If you are interested in jazz horn, especially so if you want to get away from jazz standards, this CD is a must buy and may be purchased here.