Henry Butler is blind, but that hasn’t stopped him from
pursuing photography. He’s even had his pictures exhibited at
the Jonathan Ferrara Gallery in his hometown of New Orleans.
In this and everything else, the revered pianist, vocalist and
cultural treasure of the city is committed to seeing things from as
many angles as possible, however abstractly. Not only does Butler
pay thoughtful attention from his artistic vantage point, he
strives to see from the eyes of others, hoping to understand
everything that comes his way and the myriad ways it can be
interpreted.
Now, the five-time nominee for the W.C. Handy “Best Blues
Instrumentalist-Piano” award is bringing his understanding
““ and all the music it has taught him how to play ““ to
UCLA.
From Feb. 21 to March 3, Butler will visit UCLA’s
ethnomusicology program as a regents’ lecturer, bringing the
heavily cross-pollinated musical culture of New Orleans to students
through talks, performances and classroom participation.
As with most regents’ lecturers, his two-week stay will
also feature a public talk, “Spices in Your Gumbo: The
Uniqueness of New Orleans Music,” set to take place at the
UCLA Fowler Museum on Feb. 28.
The department has had its sights set on Butler for some time,
nominating him for this position last spring. Professor Jacqueline
Dje Dje, ethnomusicology department chairwoman, says Butler’s
talks and interaction with musical ensembles will present students
with a different form than their usual studies.
“We generally look for someone outside of academia for a
post like this because they have so much to offer,” Dje Dje
said. “Although our faculty members are masters, it’s
wonderful for students to interact with someone who does music in a
practical sense ““ full-time and for his
livelihood.”
The lectures and performance aim to capture not only the
consummate artistry of Butler, but also the multiculturalism of his
music and hometown.
From the time he started listening, Butler has been steeped in a
mix of jazz, R&B, rock, blues, Afro-Caribbean and classical
music, as well as styles indigenous to New Orleans.
Butler began synthesizing these elements a long time ago into
the form students will hear later this month. Among his early
inspirations was a classmate whose ability to move seamlessly from
one musical voice to another impressed the burgeoning pianist.
“There was a guy who graduated from our school named Bobby
Powell, and he was a very good classical and jazz player, as well
as an arranger of R&B. As I got older I started to hear more of
his classical proficiency, and I said, “˜I want to be like
that ““ a guy who can play everything,'” Butler
said.
But imagining a synthesized form, or any sense of finality in
style, is misleading when it comes to Butler’s music.
Since his days arranging for groups at his school for the blind,
his work has been characterized by its musical pluralism. He
doesn’t juxtapose elements from varied styles and hope for
success ““ he prefers to assume different forms while
retaining a core of what he calls “the sum total of (his)
experience.”
When he first left Louisiana to make records in Los Angeles, the
pianist teamed up with the likes of Charlie Haden, Billy Higgins,
Freddie Hubbard, Ron Carter and Jack DeJohnette to produce
straight-ahead jazz.
When he found himself so moved, he decided to invoke his vocal
talent, as well as piano, to create blues albums with an ensemble
of a different sort.
In another shift, his most recent album used a full electric
R&B band in the studio to produce music with an energetic and
funkier edge.
Through all the variety and discernible elements of style,
though, Butler brings the entirety of his musical experience to
each of his projects.
Complex musical thoughts from his jazz work, for instance,
reveal themselves in other contexts, such as solos on more
R&B-influenced albums, such as 2004’s
“Homeland,” which Butler says is his design.
“We are all only the sum total of all our experiences
““ so everything that I’ve done informs the music that I
play, and if I’ve given myself enough of a background,
I’m going to be OK,” he said. “All the music that
I’ve played gives me a stronger backdrop or foundation to
lean on.”
Butler has made a philosophy of playing what he understands.
This isn’t as limiting as it sounds, since he is continually
expanding his understanding through practice and exposure to other
performers and styles of music.
When he first heard Oscar Peterson at age 14, he was shocked by
the sheer amount of music coming from the older musician’s
piano. Butler knew he had work to do, and he has continued to make
such realizations throughout his career.
“Nothing knocks me out more than cross-pollination and the
ability to get into other styles, regardless of what they are
““ I remember when I first started listening to Emerson
Lincoln Palmer, in the ’70s or the ’80s. But it just
made me realize that it was very different from what I was doing at
the time, but very credible and very valid, and I knew I was going
to have to work on my proficiency to get to that point, but I
did,” he said.
“And the truth is, in what I play now, anything that I
have heard, whether it was Genesis or Lincoln Palmer or Jimmy Page,
Led Zeppelin or Jimmy Hendrix ““ all of that is within me
somewhere, so some of it may come out, and much of it does, at
different times.”
The effort to bring Butler to UCLA was led by a longtime admirer
and sometime student of his, UCLA Professor of ethnomusicology
Cheryl Keyes.
Aware of the impact the music of New Orleans has had on the
global scene and the didactic potential Butler presents, Keyes
seized the opportunity to make her longtime idol a member of her
department ““for however short a time ““ in such an
interactive setting.
“He’s going to make the experience of learning more
tangible ““ students will be able to play and interact with
him,” she said. “They can learn directly from the
master, instead of just watching the master musician
perform.”
Keyes also prizes the opportunity for students to experience the
diversity of Butler’s ““ and her own ““ musical
background. From the New Orleans piano tradition he remains a
stalwart of, to the harmonica blues he has recorded, to the
straight-ahead jazz of his early recordings, he embodies a meeting
ground of these styles’ common themes.
A listen to each may not reveal the deep connections and
similarities that his decidedly blues projects and blazing bop have
with each other, but Butler’s lectures and performances will
link these sounds in a way that any other presentation would fail
to capture.
“This is going to make things like jazz and blues come
together in ways students won’t get just by listening to
records,” Keyes said.
“Even things they haven’t been taught, when coming
directly from the source, will simply reinforce the meaning,
significance and aesthetics of New Orleans music in the most
tangible and concrete manner.”