The Winds Of Change

Billy Childs

For his third release on Mack Avenue Records, 5-time GRAMMY® Award winner Billy Childs assembles an all-star quartet. On The Winds of Change, the critically acclaimed pianist/composer offers five brand new original compositions alongside exhilarating arrangements of Chick Corea's "Crystal Silence" (originally featured on Corea's 1972 ECM recording of the same name with vibraphonist Gary Burton) and Kenny Barron's "The Black Angel" (originally featured on trumpeter Freddie Hubbard's 1970 Atlantic recording of the same name), to push the group's creative boundaries and develop a collective new sound that pays homage to jazz legends and is equally a tribute to art. As a composer, Billy Childs is a master of two genres: jazz and modern classical music. At the same time, he is one of the most dazzling jazz pianists of our time. Between writing violin concertos, chamber music, and other pieces for classical ensembles of various sizes, this in-demand composer dons the hat of jazz pianist, recording Grammy® award-winning jazz albums and performing with his extraordinary jazz groups in the world's leading clubs, concert halls, and festivals. On his latest Mack Avenue album, The Winds of Change, Childs uses all of his considerable talents as pianist, composer, arranger and bandleader. Featuring an extraordinary all-star quartet of phenomenal trumpeter and composer Ambrose Akinmusire, four-time Grammy-nominated bassist Scott Colley, and the incomparable drummer Brian Blade, the album contains some of the most impressive and haunting compositions of his career Much of the music, including the title track, was inspired by film noir, great film composers such as Jerry Goldsmith, Bernard Herrmann and John Williams, and the longing for the Los Angeles of Childs' youth. Reflecting on the album's title, Childs says, "As you get older and observe life, the only constant is change. I've lived in L.A. my whole life and remember the city in the '60s and '70s. The title song is bittersweet, wistful and nostalgic," Childs says, in keeping with film themes like Jerry Goldsmith's Chinatown and Bernard Herrmann's Taxi Driver, both of which "create a sense of melancholy about an entire city (L. A. in the former, New York in the latter)." Both films evoked "a sense of an almost mythic cityscape that is only possible in cinema," he says. Childs originally wrote the piece for trumpeter Roy Hargrove and today's Symphonic Jazz Orchestra. "Here we try to make the trio sound like the accompanying orchestra; my piano is like a condensed orchestral accompaniment for Ambrose's trumpet." Childs cites another influence on the album as Kenny Wheeler's 1976 album Gnu High, which featured Keith Jarrett, Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette. "That pointed me toward an interactive conversation with the other musicians," he says. To realize this concept, Childs needed a band of jazz superstars, and he found them in Akinmusire, Colley and Blade. "I was doing all these highfalutin projects, chamber music stuff, symphonic stuff.... i just wanted to be a jazz pianist again. Fortunately, these extraordinary musicians find my music so interesting that they want to be a part of it." Although the music is very composed and structured, it also includes the kind of conversation with the other musicians that he was looking for. "Lately, I've been a composer first and a pianist second," Childs says, "but I wanted to do something that emphasized the interaction of the band. Although the compositions are "very specific," Childs says, there's also a lot of conversation. "I thought it would be extremely interesting to have that kind of conversation with these musicians." About Billy Childs: Billy Childs is one of the most critically acclaimed pianists in contemporary jazz and one of America's most awarded and commissioned modern classical composers. He writes music for small and large jazz groups, chamber ensembles, choirs, and symphony orchestras. His albums have earned him 16 Grammy nominations and five Grammy Awards, most recently in 2018 for his album Rebirth, which won Best Jazz Instrumental Album. His 2014 Grammy winner, Map To The Treasure: Reimagining Laura Nyro is a tribute to one of his earliest and deepest inspirations. Notable artists with whom Childs has recorded and performed include Yo-Yo Ma, Renee Fleming, Freddie Hubbard, Wynton Marsalis, Sting, Leonard Slatkin, Dianne Reeves, the Ying Quartet, Joshua Bell, Jack DeJohnette, Dave Holland, Ron Carter, and Chris Botti. His commissions include works for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Kronos Quartet, Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, Los Angeles Master Chorale, American Brass Quintet, and Dorian Wind Quintet

Price: $32.98