Jeff ‘Tain’ Watts ‘infiltrates’ New Orleans

2nd November 2015   ·   0 Comments

By Geraldine Wyckoff
Contributing Writer

Jeff “Tain” Watts has both played and recorded with all of the musical Marsalis brothers – trumpeter Wynton, saxophonist Branford, trombonist Delfeayo and drummer/vibraphonist Jason – as well as family patriarch pianist Ellis Marsalis. Not bad for a drummer from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania who now resides in his home state as well as in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood.

Though Watts, a master drummer, is tight with the New Orleans musical community, he hasn’t performed or gotten to hang out in the city that often. This week, changes all of that when he heads down to record an album with trombonist Delfeayo Marsalis’ Uptown Jazz Orchestra. While he’s here, Watts will perform with the Orchestra at its regular Wednesday night gig at Snug Harbor on November 4 and then again at the same spot on Saturday, November 7. The Grammy-winning drummer, whose resume boasts leading his own band and working with a who’s who of today’s modern jazz giants, also hits North Broad Street’s Prime Example on Thursday, November 5. The sidemen on that show have yet to be determined though they will include members of the Uptown Orchestra.

“I think it will be challenging and interesting on a number of levels,” says Delfeayo of having Watts play and record with the ensemble. “We have a sound – we have something that we do – and I think ‘Tain’ is the guy that will bring us to that next level. I want to give him latitude to use his creativity and see where it brings us.”

The whole Watts/Marsalis/New Orleans connection began at Boston’s Berklee College of Music where Watts first encountered Branford Marsalis when the two were students there.

“When I was at school the first people I met (from New Orleans) were Branford and also (saxophonist) Donald Harrison, who was my roommate, and later Wynton,” Watts offered.

In 1981, Watts became a member of the newly formed Wynton Marsalis Quintet that included Branford, pianist Kenny Kirkland and bassist Bob Hurst. During the tenure of Watts, who acquired his nickname from Kirkland while driving past a Chieftain gas station, the Quintet won three Grammy Awards. Later, he would earn two more with the Branford Marsalis Quartet.

“When I was preparing to play with Wynton, it made it important for me to study New Orleans music,” Watts remembers of the experience’s initial influence on his drumming and outlook. “I was listening to Sid Catlett and Paul Barbarin and various drummers from New Orleans to make that a part of my style.”

While Watts acknowledges the effects of being around so many artists from New Orleans, he says that the creative outflow of Wynton’s quintet primarily came simply from young people coming together from different parts of the country and just trying to find extensions to the jazz tradition.

Watts made his first trip to New Orleans in 1982 to play with Wynton’s quintet on the Riverboat President. “We opened for Fats Domino, so I got to see his drummer,” he recalls, speaking of course of the late, great Smokey Johnson. “I still use that beat I heard that night,” he enthusiastically adds. Over that same summer, while on tour with Wynton, Watts says that the group often ran into the Dirty Dozen Brass Band and thus got an “little” understanding of this city’s second line parade beat.

It was during his first visit to the city that he met Delfeayo and Jason Marsalis. He remembers a very young Jason sitting in the back seat of the “big old station wagon” when Ellis picked up the members of the band at the airport. Ten years, later, Watts played on Delfeayo’s excellent release, Pontius Pilate’s Decision, and both he and Jason share the drum position on a cut, “Simon’s Journey.” Just a year before that, in 1991, Watts was heard on the Blue Note album, the Ellis Marsalis Trio.

Though Delfeayo and Watts have performed together often , they haven’t recorded together since that time. That is until now. It is anticipated that the Uptown Jazz Orchestra’s album – its first – will be released in March 2016.

There’s no denying New Orleans’ influence on Watts when during the cut “Farley Strange” off his outstanding 2015 release, Blue, Vol. 1, someone – maybe him – yells out “Did you say gumbo?” “When I first net my friends from New Orleans of course they loved their home and they would always talk about how the music was great, how the food was great,” says Watts of that shout out.

This tune as well as the opener, Thelonious Monk’s “Brilliant Corners” also brings out some funky fun. Other selections have Watts’ rich, multiple-toned drum offerings on some lovely ballads and behind vocalists including Frank Lacy.

Watts will need to make sure he can find time to get that gumbo as beyond the recording session with the Delfeayo’s Uptown Jazz Orchestra and his three club appearances, he will also be leading workshops/master classes at the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts (NOCCA), and McDonogh 35, Cohen, L.B. Landry-Walker and Warren Easton high schools.

“I really wanted him to have as much community involvement as possible,” says Delfeayo adding that the Orchestra, minus Watts, will also be going to four elementary schools during the week.

“It’s an exciting time,” Delfeayo declares of the upcoming recording and educational workshops. “That’s why I started the Uptown Jazz Orchestra in the first place so we could go into the schools. If you want to see change, then you have to make the change. I’m glad this opportunity presented itself – Tain is infiltrating the community.”

This article originally published in the November 2, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.