Jeff Beal

Now, with the release of his Unitone Recordings debut album Alternate Route, Jeff Beal demonstrates his own mastery of mood and irony. Featuring accompaniment by the Berkeley Symphony and the Metropole Orchestra, this record is one of the most haunting and majestic pieces of Americana ever created. Impressionistic, bittersweet and breathlessly romantic, his eight-piece movement strikes a compelling balance between Modal Jazz, Post-Modern Classicism and Western Folk.

Collaborating with such artists as Chick Corea, Walter Becker and Vinnie Colaiuta, the trumpeter's seven previous solo albums have been acclaimed by such respected music journals as Billboard and Jazziz. The trumpeter's Concerto for Jazz Bass and Orchestra, which has been recorded by John Patitucci, has drawn favorable comparisons to the Miles Davis/Gil Evans classic, "Sketches of Spain." Recently, Downbeat wrote that Beal "may develop into the kind of iconoclast who can blast the trumpet into the 21st Century with some futuristic new style."

As Alternate Route attests, Beal isn't resting on his laurels. The Bay Area trumpeter composed the album upon returning to California from Rochester, New York, where he studied at the Eastman School of Music. "When I moved to Los Angeles, I instantly became a part of the L.A. car culture," Beal explains. "I was really astounded by the sheer mass of movement - the freeways, the cars. Automobiles weren't just for transportation. They were a place where people lived their lives, made phone calls, applied their makeup. That was the conceptual catalyst for the album."


Comprised of two four-part movements, Alternate Route virtually crackles with the explorational spirit. The record opens with "North," a lushly orchestrated piece that suggests the start of a journey. The stillness is shattered by the staccato strings and traffic-like brass of "South." Unsettling and melancholic, "East" simulates the feeling of traveling in strange lands. Part One concludes with "West," a Coplandesque tune that evokes the folkloric aesthetic of the American west. "You could say 'West' is the central piece of the record," says Beal. "It represents expanse, my love of nature and the emotions I experience living in this part of the country."

Though Part Two finds Beal and his accompanists echoing the musical themes of Part One, tracks like "Circle Suite," "Reverse Evolution" and "Miles to Go" hew closer to the Jazz side of things. The album closes with "The Way Home," a bravura tune where soaring Native American scales collide with broad-shouldered horns. "My goal was to complement Part One without mimicking it," Beal says. "To me, the songs featured on Part Two are like little stories. They were really fun because they allowed me to play more in a traditional Jazz context."


Alternate Route is just the latest step in Beal's creative evolution. Shunning the exhibitionist approach favored by many Jazz musicians, the trumpeter strives to combine Bebop complexity with Classic Pop simplicity. "When I first took up the trumpet, I was in the process of assimilating my favorite players - people like Woody Shaw, Miles Davis, Clifford Brown and Kenny Wheeler," Beal says. "Like a lot of people, I was fascinated with speed and technique. But over time, I came to view the trumpet as a vocal instrument. I learned that the best trumpeters don't just execute notes. They try to create a sound and a mood."


Beal recently composed the score to actor Ed Harris's directorial debut - a biography of the pioneering artist, Jackson Pollack. Just as Pollack's splattery paintings served as a metaphor for American ambition, Alternate Route is symbolic of a progress-crazed culture struggling to reconcile its past with its frantic future. Its ambitiousness notwithstanding, this is the epic recording critics have come to expect from Jeff Beal.