Live & Local Art Lande at Denver Jazz Fest
On Live & Local this week, Carlos Lando caught up with Art Lande ahead of his performance at The Muse April 4 starting at 7:00 p.m. MT as part of the Inaugural Denver Jazz Fest taking place Thursday, April 3 through Sunday April 6. Art Lande is an internationally established pianist, composer, and educator residing in Colorado. Joining him on stage are guitarist Tim Wendel and Electric Violinist Aaron Lande.
Art Lande, Tim Wendel, and Aaron Lande have created a vast repertoire over the last few years that spans the history of Western Music (Jazz and Classical), expands into the worlds of Middle Eastern Music, and explores the timeless place of free improvisation. Their debut recording, entitled “Escaping”, released in November 2024, as well as their handful of concert performances, make clear a high level of technical expertise together with creativity grounded in group listening, shared language, and heartfelt lyricism.
This portion of the interview above has been edited for length and clarity:
Carlos Lando: The music that we can expect to hear from you as part of Denver Jazz Fest, with your trio on Friday, April 4th at the Muse, featuring yourself on piano and Tim Wendell on guitar, and your son Aaron Lande on electric violin. You describe it as future history, tell me a little bit about that collaboration.
Art Lande: Well, first of all, if anyone knows me, you know can't expect anything. So, if you expect the unexpected, then you're in the right place!
CL: Well, yes, of course!
AL: So, future history, we just came up with that title a few months ago. My wife helped me find it because the music spans hundreds of years of the history of not only jazz, but all music, including world music and classical music because my son was the assistant concert master of Greeley Philharmonic for 18 years. And so, he's got a lot of history there for the classical sound. But we also play music, which hopefully, will tell about the next century. So, we have the present, the past, and the future and you'll hear references to all that.
CL: Well, it sounds like it's very open, very free, and as you said, in the moment. The music can really expand into all these different areas, and labels really aren't important, but for the benefit of our listeners, if you're talking about the history of Western music, in this case, jazz and classical, and then of course delving into Eastern music and some of those traditions. The whole purpose, I guess is to explore this whole aspect of free improvisation, is that a correct approach?
AL: It's an aspect of it. The concert will probably begin that way just so that we just open the room and open our ears and come to the present moment, which is what our goal is: to bring all of this into what we're hearing right now. But there's a lot of composition in this. Most of the music my son writes, the kind of Middle Eastern pieces, and I do a lot of writing. In fact, there's probably four new pieces that we'll premiere at this concert next week. And both these guys are fantastic readers and interpreters of written things. So, it's got very exact things, some completely through composed pieces, and then some very open (with) all kinds of improvisation on chords and on riffs. And it's really a lot of different ways of looking at improvisation and composition.
CL: So, this concept, musical concept, that we can expect to hear has some roots though. You guys have worked together over the past few years on and off, not that many concerts as I understand it, but certainly your collaboration with Tim Wendell, just like your son, goes back a number of years. Can you tell me a little bit about Tim?
AL: Well, Tim is incredible. I would say he's a glue. He's got such a great ear, and he has no ego. And so, he hears what's needed at each moment to help bring everything together into focus. He's got a beautiful sound, and he's got also, like all modern guitarists, some cool pedals. And Aaron is also playing electric violin. So, we get some interesting sound worlds with electronic things that balance against the acoustic piano. A lot of different kinds of effects, which helps us visit different worlds of sound. But yeah history, of course, Aaron goes back to being born. Both my kids, Otis also, are fantastic improvisers. And I remember (a) teacher asked, 'well, how come you're so comfortable improvising?' And they said, 'well, we've been doing it our whole lives.' They were always invited in the studio to play with us. So, even though Aaron's background is more classical, he was an improviser as well. Tim is a great jazz player, composer himself, and we've done recordings together and played many concerts. But Aaron is actually a full-time chef, so he plays music with me, and mostly that, and comes to the studio here, and we work on this pretty difficult music.
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Photo Courtesy of Art Lande and Denver Jazz Fest
