Flying Without Wings

During the summer of 2012, John Alcorn had a weekly gig with Reg Schwager (guitar) and Steve Wallace (bass) at a small club in Toronto called “The Flying Beaver Pubaret”. Each week, John featured a different songwriter. How wonderful it was to be immersed in Cole Porter or Irving Berlin for two full sets, complete with interesting stories about the songs and the writers’ lives. We couldn’t resist the opportunity to try to capture the musicality that John, Reg and Steve were creating. We set up three evenings for the recording sessions and added two of our friends: Mark Eisenman on piano, and New York cornetist Warren Vaché. John has a way of pulling you into every word and note. He encourages you to appreciate what the songwriters crafted. He never gets in the way. Reg and Mark weave around one other, intuitively sharing rhythmic and comping roles. The music is never too busy. It has just the right amount of swing, drive, or tenderness. Steve never lets you down. He is the foundation for anything that he does. When in doubt, shut up and listen to Steve. Warren magically complements everything that John, Reg, Mark, Steve and the songwriters present to him. He knows exactly when to add a line or a short phrase, and his solos and fills reveal his intellect, wit, charm and taste. So … why call the CD "Flying Without Wings”? It’s a line from “It’s Like Reaching For the Moon”. It touches on the very spirit of jazz. The recording sessions were all very loose, unplanned, very in the moment. In Steve Wallace’s words, “There was some levitation going on, which I’ve always thought was the general idea in jazz, but not an easy thing to do. The music we recorded really got off the ground.” Flying Without Wings, indeed.