Ferris Wheel – Richard Wyands
Overlapping rhythmic patterns contrast in this Richard Wyands composition.
- Recording: Richard Williams - New Horn In Town
- Recorded on: November 19, 1960
- Label: Candid (CJM 8003)
- Concert Key: C
- Style: Swing (medium)
- Trumpet - Richard Williams
- Alto Sax - Leo Wright
- Piano - Richard Wyands
- Bass - Reggie Workman
- Drums - Bobby Thomas
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This complex, intriguing composition catches the imagination of musicians and listeners alike. Richard Wyands creates the motive of a revolving Ferris wheel with the use of a melodic 6/8 theme layered over the continuing 4/4 rhythmic drive of the rhythm section. The bridge moves into a Latin groove in 6/4. Our audio clip starts after the rhythm section introduction with the horn entrance on the melody,
1960 was a busy year for trumpeter Richard Williams and composer/pianist Richard Wyands. The two first recorded together on a Gigi Gryce date ("Say Something") on March 11. On May 3, they recorded again for Gigi's "The Hap'nins." A few weeks later, on May 27th, they met again to record Oliver Nelson's "Screamin' The Blues," on which Richard Williams was a featured musician. Gigi recorded again on June 7 ("Rat Race Blues") and Wyands and Williams backed him for that session. After a summer away from the studio, they were back at it for Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis's September 20th session, "Trane Whistle." November was particularly busy, with two dates (November 7 and 9) for Gigi's "Reminiscin'" and Richard Williams's first, and unfortunately only album as a leader—the album featured here, "New Horn In Town." The two Richards can be heard together just one final time after this very active year, backing Gigi for a broadcast from Birdland in August of 1961.
If you never got to see Richard Williams solo "live," you can now, thanks to YouTube. We've started the clip at Richard's solo on one of our Slide Hampton compositions, Sister Salvation.
If you never got to see Richard Williams solo "live," you can now, thanks to YouTube. We've started the clip at Richard's solo on one of our Slide Hampton compositions, Sister Salvation.
Richard Wyands
July 2, 1928 – September 25, 2019
Richard Wyands is a remarkably gifted and precocious musician who is best known as a sideman. A native of Oakland, California, he started playing piano in local clubs in San Francisco when he was only sixteen years old, at which time he became a union member (with a sponsor, of course, due to his youth). Since the 1950s, he has played alongside some of the greatest and best-known American jazz musicians, such as Charles Mingus and Roy Haynes. Read more...