This week’s edition of Mondays with Morgan is an interview between jazz journalist Morgan Enos and Jennifer Wharton, a leading bass trombonist who works in jazz, commercial, chamber, and Broadway music, and leads the trombone-based project Bonegasm. Her new album with said group, Grit & Grace, was released 20 October via Sunnyside Records.
Of course, Jennifer Wharton’s band with a cheekily off-colour name, Bonegasm, is predicated on the trombone. But when it comes down to it, she’d prefer it if you forgot about the instrument.
“One of the best compliments I ever received was that someone forgot it was all trombones,” Wharton tells LondonJazz. “Like, they were so immersed in the music that they forgot it was all trombones. That is huge. I mean, thank you for just listening.”
The ever self-deprecating bass trombonist goes on to cite the innate “silliness” of the instrument. “It looks dumb,” she says. “What other instrument gets bigger when you blow into it?”
But this belies not only the magnificent legacy of the instrument, but its crucial role in jazz tradition and giant capacity for a range of emotions. “You can get silly, get fun, get serious, get broody,” Wharton notes. “You get all the feels with the trombone.”
Wharton’s third album with Bonegasm, Grit & Grace, certainly contains a plethora of feels. And while she’s described the band as “trombone-forward,” here, it’s also women-forward.
Indeed, Wharton commissioned the great composers Vanessa Perica, Miho Hazama, Carolina Calvache, Natalie Cressman and Nadje Noordhuis to write tunes for the album, such as Perica’s “In Our Darkest Hour,” Hazama’s “Norhala,” and Cressman’s “Menina Sozinha.”
In addition, Wharton contributed her own compositions to their repertoire for the first time, in “Be Normal,” “Virtual Reality,” and “Mama’s Alright”, as well as an arrangement of Dick Oatts’ “Anita.”
“I didn’t have any female role models coming up, so I’m trying to encourage young women,” Wharton explained in the press release. “Then I looked at my band and realised it’s me and a bunch of dudes – just like most other bands I’m in – so I decided the answer was to commission only female composers for the third album.”
Read on to learn about the process of making Grit & Grace, as well as why she chose such a provocative band name, pushing her husband-slash-Bonegasm bandmate into uncharted territory, and exactly what “code brown” means.
UKJazz News: Tell me about this pool of composers you commissioned.
Jennifer Wharton: So, Miho I met when she was in the BMI Jazz Composers Workshop several years ago – probably right when she moved to New York. I’ve been a fan of her writing since then. Everybody else, I am either friends with, or friends on Facebook.
Nadje Noordhuis, I’ve been friends with for about 15 years, since I started playing in Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society. Her music is so beautiful, and ethereal and melodic — and it shocked me when she handed me a song about condiments. It’s a really cute song.
Carolina Calvache, I had met a while back. She was dating a trombonist at the time, so I knew she was OK. And she had written a bunch of classical pieces, but I didn’t know she was actually a jazz composition major when she was in college. So, I hit her up.
And then, in the pandemic, I met Vanessa Perica. I just sort of cold-emailed her and asked if she’d be interested in doing something, and she was.
I’ve known Natalie Cressman for a while; we’re actually from the same area.
UKJN: Can you talk about incorporating your own writing into this process, and why this was a new paradigm?
JW: In the pandemic, I got my master’s in jazz. I had tried to start my master’s like 20 years ago, and it just didn’t take. So I got it in jazz, and I hated most of that process, being an old-ass master student.
But what I really got into was writing, and Garry Dial happened to be my teacher. He was the reason why I wrote most of the tiny bits of things that I wrote, and he encouraged me to try and make some of the music for my band.
The first one that I completed was “Virtual Reality,” which is towards the end of the album. And “Be Normal” – one of my favourite tunes – was actually for voice and rhythm section. For my birthday, [my husband] John [Fedchock of Bonegasm] had arranged it for me as a surprise, and I liked it so much we put it on the album.
The other is “La Bruja”. I’ve always been really in love with Latin music. This spoke to me when I saw the movie Frida; I just really liked this tune. I was reintroduced to it when I was subbing in Arturo [O’Farrill]’s band, and he had an arrangement of it.
I just said, I’ve got to do something with that – and this was the result.
UKJN: Can you talk about what stage you’re at in your trombone evolution, as captured on Grit & Grace?
JW: I only started improvising when I started the band. So I still feel like a baby, in terms of composing and improvising. But what has helped me is the sentiment that if I have something beautiful to say, it’s valid.
So, I try to make sure that it’s always authentic. I’m my own worst critic; I think most musicians are. But there have been very few instances where I felt like I was doing a disservice. Most people learn how to improvise when they don’t know what sounds good; I know what sounds good.
I feel really drawn to music that might be outside of jazz. I like the American Songbook, but typically, jazz is taught with bebop, and that does not speak to me at all.
UKJN: Interesting.
JW: I think it’s because I’m a bass trombone player. I hear people do it, and I hear people do it well – I can appreciate how technically difficult it is – but it’s just not what I’m into. So I feel like if I tried to do it, it would be inauthentic.
I’m really trying to stay the course. There are a million people who can imitate the jazz greats, but I want to try and say whatever it is that’s inside of me. Hopefully, it’s been influenced by great people, but hopefully, it’ll still come off as something Jen.
UKJN: Can you talk about the concept of the Bonegasm band, and which moments on Grit & Grace you count among your favourites?
JW: Obviously, I’m a huge fan of my husband; he’s pretty good at what he does. This special sauce that he put on the tune that I wrote, “Be Normal,” took him out of his element as well.
It’s just a testament to the whole concept of the band: trying to get composers to think outside the box with four trombones.
It goes between, like, 7/4, 4/5, 4/3, and 4/4; he does not write music that way on his own. So, to hear him do that, and do it so well – even though that’s not his purpose in life, that’s not his jam – really meant a lot to me, and it’s one of my favourite things to hear.
Also, when the band starts speeding up on “La Bruja.” I always tell the band when we rehearse: “I want it to be like the wheels are coming off, because this is a drunken song. We’re all, like, tanked. We’re just going until the slides fall out of our hands.”
Those are two moments that stick out for me, the ones I’m constantly drawn back to.
UKJN: You’ve mentioned the innate silliness of the instrument, and obviously, the band has a tongue-in-cheek name. You called your second album Not a Novelty. Do you ever get sick of that perception?
JW: I feel like when I chose the name, I sort of dug my own grave, you know what I mean? Because as much as it could be silly, there are teachers who won’t allow their students to come hear my band at a festival because of the suggestive name.
As a trombone player, as soon as you pick up that instrument, you’re hearing boner jokes. So, no trombone player’s ever shocked by the name.
I think what can offend people is a woman being this brazen, being this un-ladylike. And I kind of love it. I love that they hate it. You know, keep hating it. That’s amazing.
I wanted to take my existence in music and how I’ve had to be and how I survived, and just shove it down people’s throats while giving them really amazing music.
