Song for Someone
The Musical Life of Kenny Wheeler
by Brian Shaw and Nick Smart
Trumpeter and composer Kenny Wheeler (1930-2014) was one of the most enigmatic and influential musicians in recent memory. His instantly recognisable sound was a driving force within every major innovation in modern European jazz during the last half of the 20th century. More importantly, his life provides us with a profound example of the way music can manifest itself in the most unlikely of vessels. As a lonely and shy teenager in Canada, he sought refuge from his difficult home life in the friendships he forged through a mutual love of bebop. After an unexpectedly bold move to London at the age of 22, he struggled with his confidence for years before making his first big break with the John Dankworth Orchestra. Kenny would soon find his voice in a triumvirate of musical communities: straight-ahead jazz, the burgeoning free scene, and in the busy recording studios. Throughout his life, he constantly pursued personal growth while investing in his friends from every corner of the music business who would bring the inimitable beauty, precision, and chaos in his compositions to life. And in an artform where individuality represents the highest level of expression, Kenny was peerless. Indeed, few jazz artists of any era developed such a fingerprint in one area, let alone becoming immediately identifiable as virtuoso instrumentalists, improvisors, and composers. Kenny Wheeler’s life is a compelling – and fundamentally human – story. This book brings together over 130 original interviews and new archival and biographical research on Wheeler’s life and music, chronicling his journey from small town Canada to international acclaim. It is as much a perspective on the history and development of jazz in Britain and Europe as it is the extraordinary tale of this improbable pioneer.
- By (author) Brian Shaw
- By (author) Nick Smart
"Song for Someone catalogs every Wheeler recording no matter how obscure. The authors analyze what they hear as his exemplary playing in virtually every case and publish encomiums from other musicians. The book is no panegyric though. Shaw and Smart report on the trumpeter’s frequent indecision, sometime innocence and, in his last decades, increasing crankiness. This led him to play music he wasn’t comfortable with and share publishing on his classic “Everyone’s Song But My Own” by not carefully reading a contract, amidst growing general bitterness. yet, while his hearing, eyesight and mobility deteriorated as he aged, Wheeler continued recording and gigging until shortly before his death.
What Shaw and Smart have done through scholarship and research is create a jazz biography in a manner that should be followed by others. Very likely it will remain the definitive work on Wheeler."
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Other Titles in this Series
Two Bold Singermen and the English Folk Revival
The Lives, Song Traditions and Legacies of Sam Larner and Harry Cox
The Ultimate Guide to Great Reggae
The Complete Story of Reggae Told through its Greatest Songs, Famous and Forgotten
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