Ingrid Jensen & Steve Treseler - Invisible Sounds: for Kenny Wheeler

Released 2018.

For trumpeter Ingrid Jensen and saxophonist/clarinettist Steve Treseler, paying tribute to the late Kenny Wheeler was a calling. The Canadian-born, British-based composer/trumpeter has almost incalculably influenced generations of musicians, working alongside a who’s who of artists including Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette, Bill Frisell, John Taylor and Norma Winstone – and a famously unassuming persona belied his unequivocal prominence from the mid-1970s onwards as a free-spirited jazz pioneer.

Invisible Sounds: For Kenny Wheeler reinterprets works from his prolific catalog honed from “a list of around thirty tunes we wanted to do,” recalls Treseler. “The news of Kenny’s death had a big effect on me and I reached out to Ingrid about putting together a tribute concert, and that conversation evolved into making a record. Ingrid and I are both devoted Kenny fans and we both had the opportunity to work with him in person. Ingrid’s band – Geoffrey Keezer (piano), Martin Wind (bass) and Jon Wikan (drums) – was playing at the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival in Idaho, so we booked two nights at Seattle’s Royal Room, as well as the studio session. Between the shows, which were featured on NPR’s Jazz Night in America, we tracked the album (with guest saxophonist Christine Jensen and vocalist Katie Jacobson).” The energy of those performances is brought together here.