Jazz musicians have always adapted the songs of the day to a jazz style and feel. With Octave Records’ latest, Tangent, pianist Charles Blenzig and his trio have taken songs by artists like D’Angelo, Radiohead, Ed Sheeran, Beyoncé, Taylor Swift and others and given them an entirely new flavor, with jazz, hip-hop, Latin, R&B and less-categorizable musical influences. As always, Octave’s Pure DSD high-resolution recording process captures the virtuosity of the musicians with stunning clarity and musical realism.
Charles Blenzig is a veteran pianist who slips effortlessly between musical styles while keeping his signature sound. On Tangent he plays piano, synthesizers, keyboards, melodica and percussion and is joined by Hunter Roberts on acoustic and electric bass, and JJ Mazza (Duble) – who was 19 at the time of the recording – on acoustic and electronic drums.
Blenzig has worked with The Gil Evans Orchestra, Michael Brecker, Gato Barbieri, Bill Evans (sax player with Miles Davis), Mike Stern, Will Lee, Marcus Miller, Larry Coryell, Eddie Gomez, Roy Ayers, John Patitucci, Harvey Mason, Lee Ritenour, Denis Chambers, Dave Weckl, Patti Austin, singer/songwriter Michael Franks, and many others. Before moving to Colorado he was part of the New New York City Jazz scene for over 35 years and was a Professor at The Purchase Jazz Conservatory for nearly 20 years. In Colorado he performs with Simple Math and also leads ensembles for the Colorado Conservatory of Jazz Arts (CCJA).
For Tangent, Blenzig wanted something new and personal. “The art is to take a pop tune and arrange it to where it's a new entity, a new piece.” Blenzig noted.
Charles Blenzig. Courtesy of the artist.
Tangent was recorded at Animal Lane studios in Lyons, Colorado and mixed at eTown Hall in Boulder, CO by Jay Elliott, with Giselle Collazo as assistant recording and mixing engineer. The album was produced by Charles Blenzig and mastered by Gus Skinas. It was recorded and mixed in DSD on a Sonoma system. The sound is dynamic and present, with up-close intimacy in an inviting sound space. Tangent was recorded mostly live by the trio, with keyboard and other overdubs added to round out the sound.
The album leads off with Mary J. Blige’s “Share My World,” a relaxed-tempo adaptation of the song, with the piano carrying the melody to sympathetic accompaniment by Roberts and Mazza and lush synthesizer and organ pads. Beyoncé’s “Smash Into You” keeps the tempo and even the key of the original, and builds upon the vocal melody with lush chord changes and a soaring outro synth solo.
“The Hills” is just one example of Tangent taking a song to unexpected territory, in this case adapting the processed electronics and vocals of The Weeknd’s original into…a sweet jazz ballad with piano and organ. It works brilliantly, as does the transformation of Rhianna’s hip-hop-flavored “Umbrella” into a slow-burning piano-based instrumental, and Imagine Dragons’ “Demons” from a pounding rock anthem into a pensive, swinging jazz piece.
Blenzig and the band turn the straight-four pulse of Taylor Swift’s “This Love” on its head, into a Latin-flavored instrumental with vocal accents that would not have been out of place on a Sergio Mendes record. Perhaps the most unusual transformation of all is taking Ed Sheeran’s vocal-and-acoustic guitar ballad “The A Team” and bending it into a grooving jazz trio improvisation. The album closes with “Spanish Joint,” keeping the irresistible rhythm of D’Angelo’s original while the piano explores the melody and takes it into something musically beyond.
Here's the full track listing for Tangent:
“Share My World” (Mary J. Blige)
“Smash Into You” (Beyoncé)
“The Hills” (The Weeknd)
“Umbrella” (Rihanna)
“Demons” (Imagine Dragons)
“The A Team” (Ed Sheeran)
“Knives Out” (Radiohead)
“This Love” (Taylor Swift)
“Spanish Joint” (D’Angelo)
Tangent features Octave’s premium gold disc formulation, and the disc is playable on any SACD, CD, DVD, or Blu-ray player. It also has a high-resolution DSD layer that is accessible by using any SACD player or a PS Audio SACD transport. In addition, the master DSD and PCM files are available for purchase and download, including DSD 512, DSD 256, DSD 128, DSD 64, and DSDDirect Mastered 352.8 kHz/24-bit, 176.2 kHz/24-bit, 88.2 kHz/24-bit, and 44.1 kHz/24-bit PCM. (SRP: $29.)
I talked with Charles about music, jazz traditions new and old, and…melodicas.
Frank Doris: How did you pick the songs for Tangent?
Charles Blenzig: I wanted to do an album of the pop tunes of my day. I actually had my daughter's help and asked her, “what are the big hits of the day?” All of [the songs] are kind of recent.
The drummer [JJ Mazza (Duble)] is very special. At the time of the recording, he was 19. He got a full scholarship to Manhattan School of Music.
FD: I hesitate to call this a “jazz” album or a “pop” album. What would you call it?
CB: I would call it a jazz record. And I would say this, though – we both know jazz isn't just swing rhythm. A lot of it is also based on hip-hop rhythms, R&B rhythms. I don't think that the music has to “swing” to be called jazz.
I think the oldest [song] is maybe a little more than 10 years old. Ed Sheeran had a big hit called “The A Team” when my daughter was young. I did DeAngelo (“Spanish Joint”) and Rihanna (“Umbrella”) and there's a Taylor Swift tune on there (“This Love”). I mean, you can't tell it's Taylor Swift. Nobody can. The only thing that's really been respected, so to speak, is the melody.
I worked with the Gil Evans Orchestra and got to play some of the great arrangements he did, and I learned a lot from that. I wanted to do something of the day.
FD: We look at jazz musicians playing what are now looked at as these etched-in-stone standards, but they were just playing the music of their day.
CB: Exactly. John Coltrane's [version of] “My Favorite Things”; I mean, if you listen to the original from the The Sound of Music, you have no idea [that Coltrane is playing his version of the song]. So it's like the real “tradition” is to not do tunes of 50 years ago. Now you should learn on those, and everybody does. And I did, and we all came up with the music of the Great American Songbook. [But] when Miles did “Surrey With the Fringe on Top,” that song was on Broadway at the time.
FD: When Miles Davis did (Michael Jackson’s) “Human Nature” and (Cyndi Lauper’s) “Time after Time,” he got some sh*t for it. And his attitude was, “hey, they’re good songs. Why shouldn’t I play them?” When I first heard The Shape of Jazz to Come by Ornette Coleman, I thought it was a bunch of crazy noise. Now it doesn’t seem that way.
CB: And now we look back and what seemed revolutionary is like, what's the big deal? Since I taught [at the university level] for so many years, I do have a lot of knowledge. A really interesting piece of information about both The Shape of Jazz to Come and some other really special records, like Giant Steps [recorded in 1959 and released in January 1960] and Kind of Blue: it seems that 1959 was a banner year. Art Blakey, Moanin’, Dave Brubeck, Time Out (with “Take Five,”) all were released in 1959.
FD: You grew up and spent a lot of your life in New York, but you’re in Colorado now. What made you decide to move? You had quite a career in New York.
CB: Well, I was born in the Bronx, and I came up at [what was] probably the last height of jazz in New York City. I joined Gil in around 1987 or something like that. We had a gig every Monday at Sweet Basil. Could you believe that? Once a week, playing with those masters. I did that till the club closed. But after COVID, things started going downhill everywhere, and about four or five major jazz clubs shut down.
I had a friend out here [in Colorado] and there were some opportunities to teach and to produce and arrange. And man, there just was not much happening [in New York] and people were leaving the city. So I took a chance and it worked out.
FD: How'd you find the guys in the band? They're really good and they're really sympathetic.
CB: So Frank, in any place, the jazz scene is really not huge. [Except] New York is really just unique. It's just the biggest scene in the world. But everywhere else in the country that I've been, it's relatively small. So just went out [in Colorado] and started hearing music. And it's funny because as it turned out, these cats, Hunter and JJ, I heard them within the first few months, and I said to myself, man, if everybody sounds like this out here, it’s going to be amazing. But they were the exception. And I was like, I’ve got to have these guys. I just have to have them in my band. They're very special.
FD: I love jazz piano, and could listen to nothing else for the rest of my life, and you sound like yourself. You don't sound like, "oh my god, this guy spent his whole life listening to Oscar Peterson," or something.
CB: That is the biggest, biggest compliment I could get, and that's what I've gone for my whole life as a musician. For you to say that just means everything.
FD: I could point out some specific examples, but there were certain things on the album that stood out for me. The descending line at the end of “The Hills.” The rhythms on “Spanish Joint.”
CB: I get that from being a New Yorker. Do you know a place in the Bronx called Co-Op City?
FD: I’ve driven up to upstate New York and passed it many times.
CB: Co-op City is a middle class housing project, all high rises, mostly concrete. I lived there for a few years as a teenager. On Sunday afternoons, the Puerto Rican guys would wash and clean their cars on the street and blast their music out of their open doors. I had never heard this style but I loved it, especially because off all the percussion it had. Of course, it was salsa. That’s where I heard Afro-Cuban music for the first time, on the streets of the Bronx.
Listen, it's a journey, a musician's life. Breaks come. I know I definitely was good enough to get my gigs, but a big thing was being in New York City.
FD: You were Gato Barbieri’s musical director for a while. And Michael Franks. Those times must have been incredible.
CB: Well, I got the gig with Gato because at one point in time I was running the after-hours jam session at the Blue Note. I did that for about eight years. After his gigs, he just stayed to hang out and he heard me play, and that's how I got the gig [with him].
FD: Did you play on any of Michael Franks’s albums?
CB: Yeah. I co-wrote “Barefoot on the Beach.” I composed the music. He composed the lyrics, of course. And the other is “Rendezvous in Rio.”
FD: About a year ago, I binge listened to him. Now, streaming is – I mean, I hate the fact that they don't pay musicians, but I like the fact that I can just sit there and go, all right, I'm going to listen to Michael Franks for six hours.
CB: No, they pay, it's that they pay really sh*tty. But that's a whole [other] thing, the state of the music business.
FD: Musicians don’t get paid as much as non-musicians think they do.
CB: No. Tell you the truth, bro. It's kind of been frozen for the last 20 years at least.
FD: When I was playing in college in the 1970s, I made enough money to pay my rent and eat. And I mean, yeah, my rent was $75 a month in 1976, but still, in the late 1970s and 1980s, bands were getting paid well, and even if you were a top local Long Island band you could make thousands of dollars a week. But most bands are getting paid the same now as we were getting paid in 1979. Or worse.
CB: True.
FD: It's ridiculous.
CB: It really is. A hundred dollars is still being paid for gigs. That's a whole ‘nother discussion. You said it. It's insane. [Think about] how long it takes to be able to do what we do, but then we're caught in the middle because we love to play.
FD: I have said it many times: I wish people could feel what we feel when we're playing because it’s incredible. And most people will never experience that. They'll “get” it by hearing the music, which is great. And I love the fact that I'm in the high-end audio industry, because on a really good high-end audio system…well…I'm sure you heard in Octave Studios…
CB: Yes. Crazy. Better than live.
FD: You could make the argument that it is better than live.
CB: It's unbelievable.
FD: Let’s get back to the Tangent album. Obviously there are some overdubs on the album, but did you mostly play live in the studio?
CB: The basic tracks were all laid down live, but I hadn't made up my mind about the synth parts and the organ parts, and I hadn't made up my mind at that point in time about what I wanted to do. So, I've done this my whole career with my personal recordings: you take it home and you live with it for a few weeks, and then it starts to tell you, oh, I'll put a pad here, I'll put bell chimes here, I'll put a lead synth there.
I've been on over a hundred as a sideman, but this was my first one as a leader in over 20 years. [Recordings last] forever, so why rush it? So, I just lived with the tracks for a month or so, and I started experimenting at home with seeing what would work, and then I went back into the studio and added stuff.
FD: What made you decide to play a melodica?
CB: Well, I always have my melodica on me in my backpack. I always have it when I sit in with different bands. And it's fun. I started getting serious [about playing it] and I was like, you know what? This instrument really does have a unique sound. And then I went back to listen to Steely Dan. He played a bit of melodica, the lead cat [Donald Fagen] and I was like, this is a cool voice.
So then I started adding it to my show just see how the audience would react, and they really liked it. I started working on different techniques of how to bend notes and do different types of sounds on it. And I [thought], this would be great on [the album]. The producer said the same thing: “yeah, let's try it.” It has a distinctive timbre. It's in the family of reed instruments. There's a similarity with accordion and a similarity with harmonica.
FD: When I play it at a gig, people love it. It’s an attention-getter.
CB: Part of being an entertainer is that I'm always there for my audience. I'll always say hi to everybody. Michael [Franks] is like that too.
FD: The synth sound on the album: I'm guessing it was a Minimoog?
CB: It wasn't a Minimoog, but it was like the modern version of the Minimoog.
FD: Who were some of your influences?
CB: Well, all of the above that we've been talking about, and Jan Hammer, George Duke, John McLaughlin, Jeff Beck…as far as my overall piano-playing kind of people of my generation, we all talk about the same cats. The first would be Herbie [Hancock], and then McCoy [Tyner], and then Bill Evans and then Chick [Corea]. I saw a Stan Getz band with [drummer] Tony Williams and Chick. They were rocking a montuno.
One time at an after-hours jam session at the Blue Note, McCoy Tyner was there. He said to me, “nice touch, man.” And I was like, holy sh*t. I’ll never forget those three words. And of course, Keith Jarrett. Too bad he can’t play anymore.
FD: Well, I guess it ultimately happens, but that's part of the beauty of recordings, that they capture the moment forever even after the players are gone. And think about the fact that some of these guys just went in there, played, maybe did a couple of takes, left…and now the stuff is immortal.
Finally, why is the name of the band Simple Math?
CB: I wasn't going for anything mathematical or anything. I was looking at some names. I kept striking out. I'd go online, come up with a name, and [someone else had it]. I don't know how I got to “simple” or “Simple Math,” but there was no other band called that. And then the name “tangent” came in because lot of people say it. It's one of the few mathematical terms that people use…”oh, he went off on a tangent.” Well, that's what these tunes [on the album] did.
