American original

Henry Butler conjures up piano thunder at MSU Wednesday

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The cyclonic keyboard force of New Orleans piano legendHenry Butler could crack the Pasant Theater stage all by itself.

But the structural concrete underneath may also buckle whenButler jams with Michigan State University’s Professors of Jazz Wednesday.

If the piano is the queen of instruments, Butler, 61,carries the crown proudly. His specialty is a grand, inclusive synthesis ofjazz, boogie, gospel, R&B, pop and even the art song tradition of FranzSchubert and Hugo Wolf, which he studied in the early 1970s at MSU.

Like the poet Walt Whitman, Butler is an American originalwho celebrates it all, high and low, native and foreign, building a mightymansion with technical virtuosity and generosity of soul.

“This country, more than most, has that discovery attitudeand aptitude — the desire for new discoveries,” Butler said.

“Everything is here via a creative force. We might as wellutilize it if we have the information.”

Whether he plays straight-up boogie, deep blues, Latingrooves or a jazz standard, Butler brings the hammers down like John Henry,blasting deep into the bedrock for new veins of expression.

“I’ve played with alternative-rock groups, gospel groups,blues, R&B groups, and there are creative energies in all those styles,” hesaid.

In Butler’s hands, Otis Redding’s classic “(Sittin’ On) TheDock of the Bay” becomes a sanctified gospel steambath. Tumbling chords build aminor chestnut like “High Heel Sneakers” into a mountain range of blues.

Butler might whip the audience into hand-clapping frenzy orstop a tune short with a delicate minuet in high register, a la Mozart.

“Everything you do, everything you study, everything youfind yourself a part of, influences everything else you do,” Butler said. “Ihave always wanted to be an all-around musician.”

Butler’s chiseled, monumental profile, often crowned with asnappy fedora, perfectly complements his pile-driver force on keyboard.

Blind from glaucoma since birth, Butler studied severalinstruments at the Louisiana School for the Blind in Baton Rouge.

Butler said people are often surprised to learn he went toMSU. He studied classical music at MSU from 1971 to 1974, ending up with amaster’s degree in voice.

“Coming from a black school in Baton Rouge, there were a lotof things I needed to learn quickly,” he said.

Butler was recruited to MSU by a name that might be familiarto jazz fans who own a lot of jazz books: Eddie Meadows, later a professor ofethnomusicology and jazz studies at UCLA Berkeley, then a doctoral student atMSU.

“I had a lot of fun in Lansing,” Butler said. “The communitygenerally was wonderful to me. Aside from maybe one or two professors, my lifewas really good there.”

Butler is reluctant to be specific about the less pleasanttimes.

“There were teachers who were trying to figure out how todeal with students that were different than the ones they were used to dealingwith,” he said. “Some were better at it than others.”

“I know they were doing the best they could do under thecircumstances, and we just have to let it go at that.”

Butler chalks it up to a turbulent time in the nation’ssocial life. “We were all trying to figure out a way to deal with each otherand be tolerant of each other,” he said. “Fortunately, we all got through thosechapters in our lives.”

After his MSU stint, Butler returned to his native NewOrleans but moved to Colorado, then to New York, after Hurricane Katrina.

He has considered moving back to New Orleans, but said the“time isn’t right” yet.

“I’m having fun in New York,” he said.

If people are surprised to learn that Butler studied at MSU,they are even more surprised to learn what he studied: classical voice,especially the golden age of 19th- and 20th-century art song, whencomposers like Franz Schubert, Hugo Wolff and Robert Schumann were writingsongbooks of unparalleled poetic insight and lyrical beauty.

To this day, Butler’s wildest boogie improvisations arelikely to fold into a tender, expressive melody worthy of “Winterreise.”

It’s not a matter of sneaking in a quote here and there.“Many times it’s a matter of intimating and conceptualizing, alluding to aconcept that Schubert, Rachmaninoff or Beethoven used or might use,” he said.

This time around, Butler’s business at MSU is jazz. He’slooking forward to sharing the stage with bassist Rodney Whitaker, alto saxmanWessell Anderson, and drummer Randy Gelispie, all of whom he’s known or playedwith for years.

“I used to catch (Whitaker) at the New York clubs,” Butlersaid. “He’s a well-tempered sort of a guy,” he said, meaning “well-tempered” inboth the Bach-ian and the literal sense.

Butler has known Anderson since they both went to SouthernUniversity in Baton Rouge and studied under elder clarinet statesman AlvinBatiste. When Butler was a student at MSU, he and Gelispie played together at along-defunct Lansing club, Cave of the Candles, on Grand River, with luminariessuch as Chicago free-jazz legend Roscoe Mitchell and Indiana vocalist BlairClark.

Over the years, Butler has tracked Whitaker and the expansionof the MSU Jazz Studies area.

In Butler’s view, Whitaker has created the best jazz studiesprogram in the Big Ten.

“The University of Michigan has been playing around with itfor a long time,” Butler said. “You could say that they have a jazz programdown there, but I don’t take that very seriously.”

On stage with the Professors Wednesday, Butler doesn’t seehimself as an 800-pound gorilla. “We’ll be fine,” Butler said. “All these guysare strong. Rodney has played with strong personalities before. He’s beensupport and he’s been a leader.”

“The better musicians listen, observe, perceive. We’ll useour intuition, hearing, our abilities to turn on a dime if we have to. It’s abeautiful thing. We will make a truly joyful noise, as a group and as individuals.”

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