Music Scene
Jazz saxophone with Watson

By Derek Paiva
Advertiser Staff Writer

Alto saxophonist Bobby Watson, once a member and music director of Art Blakely's Jazz Messengers, will play at an Kapono's at Aloha Tower Marketplace on Saturday evening. Advertiser library photo Bobby Watson 6:30 p.m., Saturday Kapono's at Aloha Tower Marketplace $45 reserved; $35, $40 at the door 637-3139 Also appearing will be Ginai & Kale Imua and Henry Kapono

"But these days, I am influenced by every musician who ever picked up the horn," Watson told JAM: Jazz Ambassador Magazine last year, explaining the roots of his career's passion. "Playing jazz is more than a notion. Many musicians have dedicated their lives to, and have died for, this music. I respect that very much."

Regarded as one of the leading altoists in jazz today and a master of small-group jazz, 48-year-old Kansas City native Watson embodies almost everything a jazz fan could ask for in a practitioner of the all-American art form. He can be alternately studied or improvisational depending on whatever mood needs conveying, and is a master of a variety of jazz styles including free jazz, hard bop, acoustic and even swing.

An in-demand presence at some of the world's most prestigious jazz festivals, Watson performs Saturday night at Kapono's, Aloha Tower Marketplace.

Born and raised in Lawrence, Kan., Watson took up the alto saxophone at 13 after less-than-prodigious but adept musings with the piano and clarinet. He soon found himself arranging and composing for school concert bands, playing in rhythm and blues bands, and organizing and writing music for his own high school dance band. At the suggestion of his friend, guitarist Pat Metheny, Watson attended the University of Miami, earning a degree in music theory and composition in 1975.

Moving to New York City, Watson's professional career kicked into high gear in 1977 when he joined Art Blakely's Jazz Messengers, eventually becoming the group's music director and working with the then-burgeoning talent of Wynton Marsalis. Watson has compared his four-and-a-half years with the legendary drummer Blakely as akin to earning a doctorate in jazz.

"Art was the most positive and secure band leader I have ever worked with," Watson told JAM about his late mentor. "He was always reaching out to the young musicians. He taught by example. He saved me at least 10 years of guessing. He taught me how to build a solo, how to use dynamics. And he encouraged mistakes! He would get angry with us when he thought we sounded too perfect."

Leaving the Messengers in 1981, Watson has since recorded solo and group discs on a number of labels including Columbia, Blue Note, his own New Note, and most recently Palmetto Records, which will release his next solo outing in early 2002. In all, Watson has recorded more than 25 albums, even composing the music score for Robert DeNiro's 1993 directorial debut "A Bronx Tale."

In addition to Blakely and Marsalis, Watson has worked with an enviable handful of lauded jazz musicians including drummers Max Roach, Panama Francis and Louis Hayes, and saxophonist George Coleman. Over the years, he also has found critical success with the acoustic jazz quintet Horizon, and the 29th Street Saxophone Quartet, both of which he helped co-found.

Satisfying a longtime desire to return home, Watson, now 48, recently moved from New York City to Kansas City, accepting a position as director of the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music's jazz program. In addition to designing curricula, Watson also follows mentor Blakely's lead, teaching university music students arrangement, composition and performance, and even leading concert ensembles and combos. Ever the restless musician, Watson continues to tour as often as his schedule allows.

"Talking and theorizing only go so far," Watson said upon accepting the position, explaining his teaching technique and citing his years of gigging as all the experience he'll need to steep music students in the ABCs of jazz. "I've already done what these kids would like to do."