East Coast Standards Time

Music
‘It's a Good Thing'
Rich Walker's jazz guitar is never off the mark
by Kevin Crowe


"It didn't pay much, but we didn't care” Rich Walker says of his early days in central Florida, when he could be found most nights playing cool, downtempo jazz numbers at any restaurant or club that would let him plug in his guitar. “Some of the cats I played with were just the best.”

He'd play anywhere, living by one simple truth: “There's always a restaurant that has music.” Often very soft, intimate, even introspective, Walker conjures George Benson and Wes Montgomery when he plays, with subliminal overtones as he runs through tight, technical progressions. At times he's sparse, allowing each note to breathe as he works up the fretboard, but the end result is always intense and passionate, without the slightest bit of chill coming between the notes.

Walker's style is alive and vibrant, a joyous offering of crisp, delightfully textured ideas. Whether he's playing a hard bop tune, or cutting into cooler arrangements, Walker is never afraid to slough off past conventions, adding his own hard edge to traditional, barroom jazz. “The thing that I like about [Walker] is that he's the real deal,” says Carlos Fernandez, a local jazzman who first played with Walker back in the '70s. “He keeps it real. That's who he is….

“I didn't realize how good this cat was until I went out and played with other groups in the begining,” Fernandez adds. “I was green to this music man. I had been playing with a lot of calypso, rock and then fusion groups. But that's ancient history.”

Fernandez's latest collaboration with Walker, an album entitled Impressions , also features some of Knoxville's most celebrated jazz instrumentalists. Mark Boling, Keith Brown, Rusty Holloway and Béla Fleck saxophonist Jeff Coffin will play alongside these great players at the KMA this Friday. “I'd much rather be playing with a group,” Walker says. “You're always improvising. It's been called the highest art form because not only are you creating something, you're creating something on the spur of the moment.”

And his work with Fernandez has led Walker into new musical territories, where Cuban rhythms meet bop, where exotica and modern jazz blend seamlessly into one another with the guitar spiked on top of it all, churning tropical ersatz into the bluest jazz imaginable.

“If you can get that idea across, the more creative you can be,” Walker continues. “You get to the point where you can say something, take that chance. It's a good thing.”

There will be two sets at Friday's show. The first will feature music from Impressions , with Richard Drexler on the piano. Drexler, in 2005, released an album called Señor Juan Brahms , an eclectic and sometimes humorous tribute to the works of Johannes Brahms.

Then, along with Vance Thompson, a trumpeter and founding member of the Knoxville Jazz Orchestra, Mike Spirko, Dave King, Tom Lundberg,Walker will play his blues set, as he riffs off of a few of Ray Charles' arrangements. As always, he's building on top of the music that's come before him. “You can't erase the canvas,” Walker says. “I'm not an entertainer. I just sort of play. I'm wallpaper. If nobody's listening, I still have a good time.”

That's what he's always done, ever since he first picked up a guitar in the early '60s. “I'm not really sure how it happened,” Walker says. “I had gone up to Ohio to visit my cousin, and he had a guitar. I had no idea I would be interested in it.” A few days later, Walker was at a pawnshop, buying a crummy little box guitar. Ever since, his relationship with his music has always been full of hardships, as well as triumphs. And so it goes.

"I thought it was a stroke,” Walker remembers. In 2001, immediately after a gig, he lost feeling in his thumb. There were more episodes when he couldn't even hold a guitar, and his speech would slur. It was finally diagnosed correctly as bacterial meningitis, which was spreading down his spinal fluid.

“We finished the last song on the set, and he looked at me like he was having a stroke,” Fernandez remembers and I took him to the hospital... that morning sitting in the waiting room I was watching those damned terrorist flying into the Twin Towers and“That's when I started looking at it, like, you never know what's going to happen.” "I decided to get really serious about the recording of and taking this music to another level"

Since then, Fernandez and Walker have cut several albums on the Knox-based Altru Records, including East Coast Standards Time , Bar Hop and Impressions . Not too bad for a couple of guys who first met in the early 70's at a place called the Chicken Coop in Orlando, Fla., a Central Florida general store and restaurant called Mac Meiners. The Chicken Coop bar was adorned with barbed wire and stuffed chickens on pedestals with live Jazz every Monday Night.

“You realize through the years how much time you could've put in - Metro Pulse/ Kevin Crow

Metro Pulse Knoxville, TN May 17, 2007 CD Review


East Coast Standards Time
Impressions

Even for the non-jazz enthusiast, the latest album from East Coast Standards
Time is not difficult to latch onto. Impressions has a laid back quality that
conjures images of cabanas and vast ocean views (as seen on the back of the CD
case). There's no need to have a working knowledge of Miles Davis' Kind of Blue
to enjoy the seamless flute work by Rex Wertz on "Speaking of Wes" or Rich
Walker's guitar as it keeps pace with Wertz's tenor sax on "Blues For JR."
Produced by percussionist Carlos Fernandez's Knoxville-based label, Altru
Music, the album isn't the typical lock-step reworking of sets by Davis and
John Coltrane, though Walker, who is no stranger to local jazz clubs, arranges
a quality Coltrane tribute on "Stumblin' (in the footsteps of giants)." It's 11 tracks,
seven of them original that will introduce you to the softer, gentler side of jazz.
- Metro Pulse Knoxville Tennessee

East Coast Standards Time "IMPRESSIONS"
Altru Music 2007


In an MTV day and age, when some public radio stations are afraid to play anything newer than from circa
1959, it is easy to understand the impression left on our younger generation that jazz was made by
generations past. Happily the proclamations of jazz's death are vastly premature. It is groups such as
"East Coast Standards Time" that speak loudly and clearly the message that jazz is very much alive,
thank you very much. They accomplish this though a much overlooked aspect of jazz these days -namely
"original composition". Seven of the eleven tracks on "Impressions" are originals, and two others are
new arrangements of standards.
Some sonic highlights on this album for me include the beautiful flute work by Rex Wertz and Ira Sullivan
(check out Ira's lead on the title track) and the addition of some nice organ sounds on three tracks by
Steve Davidowski. My favorite track has to be "Silver Apples" written by guitarist Mark Boling, which
has a fluid, contemporary feel and features some nice piano work by noted multi-instrumentalist Richard
Drexler. The group easily moves from one rhythmic feel to another, including Latin and Brazilian - thanks
to percussionist and producer Carlos Fernandez's able touch. Guitarist Rich Walker's beautiful "Stumbin
(in the footsteps of giants)" pays respectful homage to influential jazz giant John Coltrane, but I don't hear
any stumblin'!
I'm proud to say that we had the 2005 release from The Rich Walker Sextet (companion group to ECST),
"Bar Hop", in heavy rotation at KSJS, and we will give "Impressions" heavy airplay as well. I anticipate a
much lengthier life span for jazz, thanks to artists like East Coast Standards Time!

Dr. Brad Stone
Music Director
KSJS-FM, San Jose, CA - Dr Brad Stone