For those who believe jazz is dying or is already dead, they've obviously never heard the music of Kenny Garrett. The famed saxophonist, who was once a member of the Duke Ellington orchestra and has played with the likes of Miles Davis, Sting, Art Blakey and Peter Gabriel, is just one of many living testaments to the vitality and evolutionary nature that defines one of America's greatest surviving art forms. Although the face of jazz is ever-changing, its core objective has and will always remain unwavering -- to express freely with a certain degree of risk and vulnerability, emotion and originality through the art of an imaginative spontaneity.
I sat down with the multi-Grammy nominee this week to talk about his two most recent albums, "Happy People" and "Standard of Language," along with topics ranging from hip-hop and folk music to Japanese culture.
Whitney Youngs: On both of your most recent albums, 'Happy People' (2002, Warner Brothers) and 'Standard of Language' (2003, Warner Brothers), you use the same players for both recordings that you use on your tours. Band leaders are known to use different players in the studio as opposed to on the road. How did you form this band and what about it has made it work for the last few years?
