Kenny Burrell and Nick DePinna

“No two people are not on fire.”
-a quote from our beloved animated internet star, Strongbad.

In a twisted way, Strongbad is wise to switch the phrase from “No two people are the same,” “No two people are not on fire.” More plainly, everything is different; everything is the same. Everything is running out of time, but all for different reasons and under different circumstances.

As I was driving across the country with our dearly missed euph/trombone player Carl Berdahl, I watched the constantly shifting, yet vaguely familiar (dreamilke, perhaps) landscapes, and realized that it was the same as the people we encountered on our adventure – all wildly diverse. Some of these people have never seen the ocean, so why would we expect three-quarters of the country to have any desire to save it? I know that I had never seen the Great Plains before, but after I did, I slowed down the Accord and understood why everyone drives at 50 mph. Unlike Los Angeles, clear traffic in the plains does not mean “book it until your luck runs out!” Everything and everyone was so incredibly different, but I felt as if it was already a part of me I hadn’t acknowledged.

This is why I couldn’t rectify the differences between my beloved pop, jazz, and classical/concert music. While they are ultimately the same things, they are also completely different, functioning on a different set of values and structures. Yes, you can listen to them the same way and hold them up to the same standards…but why? One will always disappoint. I’m going to go ahead and shelve that discussion for now, however lucrative it may seem.

This past summer, I had the honor and privilege of being part of Kenny Burrell’s small group, “The Jazz Heritage All-stars,” performing four nights each at Catalina’s Bar and Grill in Hollywood and Yoshi’s Jazz Club in Oakland. This octet consisted of Kenny Burrell on guitar, Jeff Clayton on alto saxophone, Dr. Bobby Rodriguez on trumpet, Tivon Pennicott on tenor saxophone, Tom Ranier on piano, Roberto Miranda on bass, Clayton Cameron on drums, and myself on trombone. The music consisted of standards and originals that Burrell himself arranged, as well as Charley Harrison’s reductions and reorchestrations of Gerald Wilson Jazz Orchestra charts from Kenny’s most recent album recorded a year earlier at Yoshi’s.

To be frank, getting this gig was a very big step in my career. Kenny is simlply legendary – as highly supported as he is regarded, and being up on stage with his band was incredibly high profile. This exposure was, however, miniscule in comparison to some of the education I gained from the experience (another topic that I’m shelving for the time-being).

As a composer and musician, I have the annoying habit of been born after 1940. You can imagine my surprise, then, when I stepped on stage and received an overwhelming amount of love, gratitude, and energy from the audience. What a change! What audience is this? Who are these people and where have they been all my life? Most importantly, what makes these people different from LA Phil concert-goers?

My answer is simple. “I don’t know!”

What makes them similar is a bit more complicated. These people – wait, better yet – all people (including myself), to some degree, view many parts of life as if it were the diverse/similar landscape/population of the United States. Everyone looks for something new, and everyone looks for something familiar. I find myself this way with my favorite musical artists. I literally counted the days for the new Rufus Wainwright album, but when I went to a concert of his in San Diego, I was most excited to hear the songs that I already knew and loved.

I’m not in any way saying that Kenny Burrell is “familiar” and I am “original.” Actually, quite the opposite. At the moment, I’m too immature to write anything “new.”  The music I write sounds, at best, like a poor imitation of something relatively recent. I’m not down on myself for this – I understand that this is the method by which I take in music and ideas – by regurgitating them with a little bit of myself mixed in.  My UCLA Professors have helped me realize that that only later can I really distinguish what special parts are really “Nick.”

Kenny, on the other hand (a man who has truly found himself in music), has mastered the technique of allowing his music to please people on both levels – the familiar, and the new. This is why he’s gained such a loyal audience – because he delivers. He pushes his own boundaries in subtle ways, always interesting to his band, and appreciated by his audience.

But hey, this isn’t just a Kenny plug…I am using him as an example because it was only recently that I began to understand him.  I could just as easily plug the film music philosophies of our own Paul Chihara, who recently critiqued a short film that I scored over this past summer. He told me that “cliches in Hollywood are great, but not last year’s cliches.” What a tough audience!

So, if no two people are alike, and no two people are not on fire, we, as unique and individual people, are simply running out if time to master the art of making ourselves and making others happy. Thanks to Kenny, Paul, and countless other influences in my life, I am still utterly baffled and confused at the world in a beautiful and childlike way. A part of me hopes that it will remain a fresh paradoxical mystery, no matter how familiar the world gets.

[Article by Nick DePinna in response to the question "What did you do last summer?"]

Nick and Carl Berdahl on their excellent adventure driving across America.