Slide on in, the jazz is fine

Trombonist Robin Eubanks barnstorms for a week with MSU’s Jazz Orchestra

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Robin Eubanks is one of the top trombonist-composer-arrangers in jazz, but “genius” talk isn’t his style. The latest international jazz star to take part in MSU’s Jazz Studies residency series doesn’t hide behind the mystique of improvisation, no matter how miraculous it might seem to outsiders.

Eubanks tells his students at Oberlin College that they improvise all day, when they’re talking and texting with friends.

“Yes, you have all these chords and harmonies you have to deal with, tempos and rhythms,” Eubanks said. “But if you approach it with fear, that doesn’t help. It’s like learning a language, like learning Spanish or Chinese.”

Eubanks is the second of three major jazz stars lassoed by Jazz Studies director Rodney Whitaker for weeklong residencies at Michigan State University in 2014- ’15. Bassist Christian McBride stayed for a week in early October and guitarist Peter Bernstein will visit MSU March 2 to 8.

The ambitious program, funded by a $1 million grant from the MSU Federal Credit Union, sets an agenda that reverberates around the state, not only at MSU.

After working with MSU students Tuesday and Wednesday, Eubanks and the jazz orchestra will barnstorm the state like the big bands of yore, visiting Hackett Catholic Central High School in Kalamazoo Thursday and Lansing’s Shabazz Academy Friday. Several of Eubanks’ own arrangements will be on the slate, including his joyous 2008 paean to the election of Barack Obama, “Yes We Can (A Victory Dance).”

By Friday night’s public performance at MSU’s Fairchild Theatre, Eubanks and the band will have the machine well oiled. The week will end with trips to Clarkston High School Saturday and West Ottawa High School in Holland Sunday. Eubanks has impeccable jazz pedigree, but he’s not a purist. He started out playing in funk and rock bands in Philadelphia after learning standard classical trombone material in junior high school band and orchestra.

His ears stood to attention when he heard James Brown’s legendary trombone man, Fred Wesley, play a commanding solo on Brown’s slow-burning 1969 twopart epic, “Let a Man Come in and Do the Popcorn.”

While trumpeters burst a blood vessel and saxophonists pitch woo, trombonists calmly get down to business. On “Let a Man,” Brown exhorts Wesley to “work out,” but he stands his ground and pops the corn in his own, buttery trombone time. Eubanks was so captivated he learned the solo by heart.

Years later, Eubanks met Wesley at the North Sea Jazz Festival and they became friends. When Wesley cut his first solo record, he invited Eubanks and fellow trombone giant Steve Turre (also famous for playing conch shells) to join him.

Early in Eubanks’ career, jazz was a means, not an end. “I started playing jazz simply to play better solos in the funk band,” he said. “When I played a solo, I sounded terrible.”

He went to a local record shop and bought albums that featured jazz legends Curtis Fuller, J.J. Johnson and Wayne Henderson of the Jazz Crusaders.

“The more I listened to it and found out about the history of it, it took on a much more significant role in my life,” he said. “That’s when I became a die-hard jazz person for a second there.”

In 1980, one of the great drummers and bandleaders in jazz history, Art Blakey, decided to add four horns to his sextet to form a big band.

Eubanks found himself at a nerveracking audition at Mikell’s Jazz Club on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

He joined a long line of horn players lined against the wall outside the club. It was the first time Eubanks saw Blakey in person.

That night, Blakey ended up adding four players to the band: Brothers Wynton and Branford Marsalis and Eubanks and his guitar-playing brother, Kevin, former leader of the Tonight Show Band.

Before long, Eubanks found himself in the trombone chair of Blakey’s legendary Jazz Messengers, a seat held by icons like Curtis Fuller, J.J. Johnson and Eubanks’ mentor, Slide Hampton.

European tours and nationwide exposure followed.

“That really opened my eyes to a lot of stuff,” Eubanks said. “It was the first time I started traveling. We went to Europe seven or eight times a year, traveled all over the world.”

Soon Eubanks was playing gigs with giants like drummer Elvin Jones, pianist McCoy Tyner and bluesman B.B. King.

After 15 years in bassist Dave Holland’s critically acclaimed groups and eight years in the all-star SF Jazz Collective, Eubanks’ jazz cred is impeccable, but he’s into all kinds of sounds.

“Music should express your life experience, the times you live in,” he said. “I’m living my life now, not in 1960s.”

Eubanks, 55, laughed. “Well, I guess I was around back then too. But I’m around now also.”

His most recent album, “Klassik Rock: Vol. 1,” plays inventively with electronics, and he’ll bring a few of his gadgets to this week’s workshops and gigs. “Blues for Jimi Hendrix” is one of the tunes Eubanks will work on with MSU student musicians.

“Sometimes it makes the horn sound like an electric guitar, with delays and echoes,” he said. “It opens up a lot of possibilities and makes it a lot of fun for me.”

The electronics also grab students’ attention.

“Their eyes get all wide and they want to use them right away,” he said. “I tell them they have to learn the trombone first.”

MSU Jazz Orchestra I

Robin Eubanks, trombone, guest artist in residence 8 p.m. Friday, Dec. 5 Fairchild Theatre, MSU campus $8-10/FREE for students (517) 355-1855, music. msu.edu

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