TakeTwo and Friends – Rochester Express (2010)

by Nick DeRiso

A group of cross-country friends with day jobs got together to produce Rochester Express, this chummy, Woody Herman-style amalgam of galloping jazz joys.

By day, the members of Rochester, Minnesota-based TakeTwo work as a cardiovascular surgeon, a respiratory therapist, and an IBM engineer. In this two day recording session, however, they emerged from their shiny office edifices to form a bold and swinging octet. Together, they take on enough familiar themes from the canon (including songs associated with Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Miles Davis, among others) to entice the uninitiated while adding a handful of their own new compositions to keep things interesting.

By the time it makes its last stop, Rochester Express has definitively illustrated how passion can turn pastime into meaningful accomplishment.

How they got there is part of what makes this record special.

Bryan Wattier, though a regular pianist in several local jazz bands, earns a living at the Mayo Clinic. Co-founding saxophonist Joseph Dearani is a coworker of Wattier’s. Bassist Jeff Boris and pianist/songwriter Gil Wernovsky, two Philadelphians who make important contributions to Rochester Express, were originally medical colleagues. They shared patients and then, after discovering a mutual interest in jazz, they shared bandstands. Percussionist Randy Nelson, who joined the main group after it got its TakeTwo moniker, is the engineer.

They brought in guest saxophonist Arnie Krakowsky, who ends up playing a key role on Rochester Express, as well. He’s the author of its rowdy opener, “Lester Jumps” (an update of the Count Basie favorite “Lester Leaps In”), as well as the album’s title track, which was inspired by the Ellington confidant Billy Strayhorn’s “Take the A-Train.”

The group is completed by saxophonists Barney Fox, a retired school teacher, and Dave Townsend. Townsend, principal clarinetist with the Rochester Symphony Orchestra since 1983, is as adept at jazz as he is classical musings, and is dependably elegant on Rochester Express.

“Green Dolphin Street,” definitively performed in 1955 by Miles with John Coltrane, gets reworked into an approachable, up-tempo shuffle. TakeTwo’s more faithful take on the Davis favorite “Freddie Freeloader” is less challenging, but no less pleasing.

The group’s muscular woodwind format, perhaps expectedly, finds its fullest flowering in “Stolen Moments,” Oliver Nelson’s 1961 soulful jazz classic. The surprise is that Wattier shines brightest, elbowing his way in for a gritty turn at the keys as the tune glides into a minor-key 12-bar blues.

For all of its loud triumphs, Rochester Express has this enchanting ability to downshift.

[This independent release, ‘Rochester Express’ by TakeTwo and Friends, is on sale through CD Baby.]

“Harlem Nocturne,” a big-band oldie associated with Glenn Miller, Ellington and many others, is reborn as a thoughtful duet between Wattier and Fox, on tenor. Wernovsky also composed a moving ballad in “I’ll Be Coming Home.” “Variations,” another Wernovsky composition offered in both a long version and radio edit, is based on the chord structure of Fritz Kreisler’s “Praeludium and Allegro (in the style of Pugnani),” but the tune at times strongly recalls the Pat Metheny Group as well.

“The Summer Knows,” a contemplative Michel Legrand number that showcases Boris’ deft touch at the bass, works in nice counterpoint to “Comin’ Home Baby,” an impish reworking of the Mel Torme hit.

This kind of refined mixing of musical idiom pushes Rochester Express along, shaping a largely cliché-free effort that seems to look neither forward nor backward, only living in the now.

This clearly was a moment of merry camaraderie and of mischievous delight, producing an album put forth like youngsters getting away with something. And, maybe they were.

It’s easy to picture the members of TakeTwo putting down their instruments, reaffixing the Clark Kent-style eyeglasses, and walking right back into work, with no one the wiser about just how much fun they’d been having.

Nick DeRiso

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