Artist Wessell Anderson emphasizes the lost element in jazz

Jazz is an art, but jazz saxophone great Wessell Anderson says an essential part of the art is often lost — entertainment.

“This music is fun,” says Anderson, talking on his cell phone from East Lansing, Mich. “People used to dance to this music — especially in the big band era. Songs by Basie and Ellington, they even talked about certain dances.”

Anderson says because the music is so much fun to play musicians get carried away.

“You know us, we’ll play all night,” he says with a laugh. “Musicians, we’re in our own world.”

He says too many solos and pieces that are played too long can be fatal to an audience — especially in the days of shorter attention spans.

“Your best solo could be your worst solo,” says Anderson. “When you’re playing, you might have to stop and not play another chorus.”

Anderson is known as “Warmdaddy” in reference to his tone and style, but also his personality and attitude.

At the moment he feels a little more granddaddy.

“My wife is laughing because I’m limping while I’m talking about jazz,” says Anderson, who is on his way to get an X-ray of his leg. “I was in Seattle last week in the airport and sprained it while I was looking at ...”

“A woman,” says his wife in the background.

“I was not looking at a woman!” he insists with a chuckle.

Born in Brooklyn, Anderson began taking piano lessons at 12 and moved on to clarinet and alto saxophone.

As a teenager, he had the chance to sit in with jazz legend Sonny Stitt.

“I was about 15 or 16,” says Anderson. “I got my head sliced off completely and I didn’t even feel it!” Anderson laughs. “But he was from the old school, so he said, ‘Now that you’ve been sliced up, you sit and wait till the end of the set and then we’ll go in the kitchen and talk about why you made these mistakes.’

“I learned so much from it. He’d played with everybody, the majority of the great people, and the more you play around greater people, people doing something different, even somebody with a year or two more experience, the more you will get.”

Anderson later studied under Louisiana jazz great Alvin Batiste at Southern University in Baton Rouge and accompanied singer Betty Carter. In the late 1980s he was invited by Wynton Marsalis to join the Wynton Marsalis Septet and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, which was led by Marsalis. Anderson released his first album as a band leader, “The Ways of Warmdaddy,” in 1994.

Anderson says he got the chance to meet and play with the late Dizzy Gillespie.

“I asked him, ‘What’s the best way to play this tune?’ And immediately he went to the piano. He said, ‘You why I’m going to the piano? It’s like the dictionary of music. Anything you want to find out you can go there and you can see it!’

“Gillespie said the piano was a learning tool for all musicians, ‘because you can actually see the melody and harmony.’”

Anderson has become a teacher himself. Currently he’s teaching at Michigan State University where he has jazz combos performing at a local pizza restaurant.

“They can all play, but they haven’t figured out how to entertain people,” he says.

Still, the young musicians are learning. The crowds are beginning to come in for both the pizza and the music. And, Anderson has advice for the musicians for keeping the patrons.

“I tell them, ‘You have to play something people want to hear!’”

© 2009, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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