Brooklyn Courier-Life

Young Man with a Horn: Andy Parsons

INFORMATION
Andy Parsons
Parsons/Lewin

Rising Park Slope Musician Hits Career High Note
 By Christy Goodman

As a young classical clarinetist, Andy Parsons was not exactly thrilled to be forced onto the tenor saxophone by his middle school band teacher. Although the fingerings were similar, his parents were not too excited about his practicing on a whole new instrument when he was doing very well as a clarinetist.

But then came the day of his first school concert in West Hartford, Connecticut, as a member of the stage band where songs played were on par with the theme from "Cagney and Lacey."

"I was one of two people who got to stand up on stage and do a little solo which is basically reading stuff written on the page," explained Parsons, a Boerum Hill resident. "People applauded like mad--little kid, big saxophone-so that won me over."

By sophomore year of high school, Parsons had begun studying the tenor sax privately with George Ventrelli, a tremendous musician and mentor to Parsons who had an extensive experience playing on the now nearly defunct Hartford scene.

He continued to play while attending the five-year, dual degree program at Tufts University in Boston.  He was studying electrical engineering and working with great musicians at the New England Conservatory. His nights were filled with jam sessions and concerts at the Berklee College of Music.

"While I was in Boston, I studied with Jerry Bergonzi,” said Parsons who listened to Bergonzi growing up and considers him one of his all-time favorite musicians. "That was the first time I realized how much I didn't know."

Bergonzi convinced Parsons to study music full-time. Parsons won a teaching scholarship at the Eastman School of Music to teach undergraduate improvisation and theory.

He trained with Bill Dobbins and Ray Ricker. He performed with names such as Steve Gadd, Bob Belden, Claudio Roditi and Clare Fischer.

With his knowledge to play nearly any woodwind instrument, Parsons got gigs being a sideman, a person who gets called in when that type of instrument is needed.

"In Rochester, I did half sideman and half bandleader work," said Parsons, "but there was very little opportunity to play in Rochester and that is why I moved to New York."

Studying with Bob Mintzer, Bobby Watson and Maria Schneider, Parsons earned his master's at the Manhattan School of Music, where he won awards and played with numerous bands from David Berger's Duke Ellington Tribute Projects to the Glenn Miller Orchestra and guitarist Rez Abassi. It was through Abassi that Parsons met his current partner, Lewin. Together they formed Fundementia, and more recently the Andy, Parsons/Gene Lewin Quartet. It was around that same time that Parsons, a composer's pianist, began to write music for quartets and quintets.

"Melodies come from practicing the saxophone and having a chord progression that is appealing," said Parsons, who still works in engineering as a software development lead at start-ups. "The more you play the more you find little things that evolve into tunes."

While he freelances during the day, helping funded internet companies that are trying to build services by managing projects and providing technological leadership, Parsons may suddenly jot down a rhythm pattern into his notebook or hum a fresh melody into his Palm Pilot.

Now most composers do not work well under discipline, but Parsons' tunes thrive when he sits down for a few hours and tries to put ideas together to co me up with a little something.

"Usually something will come out of that," said Parsons. "When I write for bigger bands the only way I can do it is to lock myself in a room and concentrate on that."

       With both Fundementia and the Andy Parsons/Gene Lewin Quartet, the idea behind it is to have an actual band with core members who would be there at all gigs and sessions. These bands will work together on the composed music well before they hit the recording studio. They play their songs to an audience and get a good feel for the work and change what does not really gel.

"Often what happens, especially in New York, is people are so busy that you write towards a recording, get people to do the recording and the music hasn't really grown organically at all. You just wrote it for the record," explained Parsons, "It is a constant going from ground zero to a certain point."

Parsons continued, "Whereas, if you have a real band-an ensemble-the people get to know each other, they get to know the music and change the music over time so it can really grow in an organic way."

Fundementia is a five-piece band with both guitar and piano. Parsons' challenge is to make the two-chording instruments blend instead of getting in each other's way-which would result in a harsh sound that no audience could enjoy.

"There is a bigger sound and more musicians so there are a certain amount of restrictions in that the flow of music has to be much more pre-planned and there is much more to do as a bandleader, like directing the guys to make sure they are all in place," said Parsons, who recently had a guest spot on WCKR 89.7 FM at Columbia.  There is a common, groove-thread between his two bands, displaying the musical devices and chord structures Parsons has a strong affinity for, but with the quartet there is a much more room for the improvisational jam. instead of the straight jazz standard sectionalism found in Fundementia. 

"As Sonny Rollins used to say, 'Leave landmarks along the way of ensemble work and allow the soloist to stretch out a lot more and create,” Parsons paraphrased.  “Fundementia has a lot more written down, much more conscientious of where you are, but the quartet is about what is happening now and what [the players] can make happen.”

Similar to the composing style of Duke Ellington, who would write a part for Johnny Hodges and not for just any saxophonist, Parsons went through the many performers he knew and worked with in the past to find the right people to use on the upcoming album for the quartet, "Flip."

If you hook up with the right musicians, you can react with what is going on," he said. "It is like a recipe. And if you get the right musicians together it is like a conversation."

In the hopes of emulating Wayne Shorter, John Coltrane, and Mintzer, and leading his band with the style and grace of Ellington and Miles Davis, Parsons aspires "to know what people play so well to be able to write exactly for what they do, knowing their strengths and weaknesses."

Within Brooklyn, he has many choices from the fine musicians that live here.

"Brooklyn should have a much larger music scene. There are so many great musicians who live out here," said Parsons. "Up Over Jazz Cafe at 351 Flatbush and what is going on at BAM Cafe are examples of what I would like to see more of... the sheer number of musicians is not really serviced by the numbers of venues to play."

Of course, Brooklyn is still Parsons favorite place to live, to compose and to play.

"I live in a neighborhood where people love to hear me practice and compose," he said. "Every month I play four to six sessions within walking distance from where I live and meet people I never played with or before who also walked to the session- can't think of another place where that happens."

Parsons would like to see more venues committed to jazz who would foster the as well as build a great audience, simúilar to Augie's, now Smoke, on the Upper West Side near Columbia University.

"If I had the means I would do it myself," assured Parsons, who will be working on bassist and vocalist Jay Leonhart’s next album.

On the new, and third, album, "Flip," the title track is based on a bicycle accident.  There is also a song dedicated to his wife, Monica, who is six months pregnant, entitled "Miss Conception."

“Someone once told me that jazz music is very arrogant," chuckled Parsons. "The same person told me it bad a very flippant quality with a disregard for the audience."

A semi-finalist picked from several hundred saxophonists, in the recent Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition, Parsons' sarcastic nature fits well with his talent for finding the double meanings in his titles.

Parsons will also be featured in a BET documentary, to be shown in June, of the nearly 15-year-old competition held in partnerúship with the Smithsonian and presented at the Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. 

His first and second albums, “Fundementia” and “A Whole Nother Story,” on the Sons of Sound label, can be purchased at all major record stores or online at sonsofsound.com.

“Flip” will hit the shelves in early fall 2002.

On June 12 and August 16, the Andy Parsons/Gene Lewin Quartet will be performing at the Cornelia Street Café on Cornelia Street in Manhattan at 9 p.m.

For more information on Parsons’ music publishing company or his bands, log onto fundementia.com.

(ARTICLE ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN APRIL, 2002. LIFESTYLES ARTS & LEISURE SECTIONS, BROOKLYN COURIER-LIFE PUBLICATIONS)

©2002 Brooklyn Courier-Life. Used by permission.

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