Rich Willey plays trumpet, bass trumpet, valve trombone, tuba and Electronic Valve Instrument (EVI). He is also a composer, arranger, and bandleader, performing regularly in the southeast. Rich taught at University of North Carolina Asheville for twelve years and Clemson University for seven years and continues to teach privately.

A U.S Army bandsman, he studied at the U.S. Navy School of Music and later attended North Texas State University where he studied jazz improvisation with Rich Matteson, Jack Petersen and Dan Haerle.

Rich spent his formative years as a jazz player in Philadelphia and New York City jazz clubs and participated in the BMI Jazz Composers Workshop studying with Bob Brookmeyer and Manny Albam. He studied trumpet and bass trumpet with the legendary Dr. Donald S. Reinhardt in Philadelphia from 1978-1986.

Rich is a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music, where he earned a master’s in jazz performance/trumpet. While there he studied arranging with Mike Abene, trumpet with Byron Stripling, improvisation with Garry Dial and film scoring with Ed Green.

Rich has toured with Maynard Ferguson’s Big Bop Nouveau and the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, and has played numerous times for the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra, the Cab Calloway Orchestra, the Sammy Kaye Orchestra and the Nelson Riddle Orchestra.

Rich has played with or for many great musicians, including Lionel Hampton, Hank Mobley, Don Patterson, Buddy Morrow, Bob Haggart, Dick Hyman, Claudio Roditi, Chris Potter, Conrad Herwig, John Swana, Bob Mintzer, Kenny Drew Jr., Brad Mehldau, Mel Torme, Bobby Sanabria, Skitch Henderson, Tommy Flanagan, and countless others.

Rich owns and operates Boptism Music, a publishing company he formed in 2001 for the purpose of offering and distributing his jazz and brass method books, over 40 to date.

In 2019 Rich recorded and released two CDs on the Wise Cat record label: Rich Willey’s Boptism Big Band – Down & Dirty, and Rich Willey’s Boptism Funk Band – Conspiracy.

Rich Willey – Puttin’ On The Ritz is mostly comprised of beautiful and fun jazz standards that Rich arranged for four horns. He played and recorded all the horn parts with a talented group of all-star Chicago rhythm players. The CD is produced by the phenomenal trumpeter and gifted arranger Carey Deadman who also masterfully arranged string parts on eight tunes. Of the eleven selections (three of which are originals), two are vocal numbers: one featuring Zeke Listenbee and the other, Rich. Two of the original compositions reflect Rich’s deep spiritual beliefs. Rich wrote in his liner notes: “These small group arrangements represent how I hear jazz. I prefer taste over virtuosity. I like hearing melodies, I like hearing interesting ensembles, and I like hearing a certain amount of structure between improvised passages. My concept of jazz and jazz improvisation has to do with communicating with the audience. I hope to always be ‘telling a story’ via my writing and my playing.”

 

LINER NOTES

I consider myself a “tune smith” who writes melodies that usually have a fairly conventional form and structure and hopefully are based on interesting chord progressions for improvisers.

I write what I like, and if you like it, too, that’s a plus. I don’t try to be hip, I don’t try to be anything or anyone other than me. I love a good melody, and I love interesting chord progressions.

I like to record my tunes as arranged by skilled arrangers, since I seem to be better at arranging tunes that I didn’t write. My brilliant friend Wally Minko really “gets it” with my tunes and I love what he’s done with this collection.

I like getting great players to play my tunes. My old NTSU roommate Carey Deadman assembled several of Chicago’s top musicians for this recording. The only one I hand picked is John Swana, in my opinion destined to be (if not already) one of the most accomplished jazz musicians ever. I happen to love the EVI (electronic valve instrument) and have even begun learning how to play it with John as my teacher. Part of my diabolical plan is to help popularize the EVI by giving John lots of space to improvise here, and he does not disappoint ( understatement of the century).

Carey contracted Jim Gailloreto on alto sax, soprano sax and flute, Geoff Bradfield on tenor sax, Steve Duncan on trombone, Paul Mutzabaugh on keys, Felton Offard on guitar, Chuck Webb on bass, Charles Heath on drums, and percussionists Rich Trelease, Rohan Marr and Jean-Christoph Leroy. All of these gentlemen are conscientious professionals and they came to play and to get it right. Our time together at Palisade Studio in Chicago was a lot of hard work and a lot of fun.

On the second day I started coming down with the flu my fellow trumpeter Hardin Butcher gracious! helped out by playing my parts until I was a little better and able to resume playing them myself the following day. Hardin is very brave and came at a moment’s notice and I’m grateful for that.

Carey produced and directed the recording with engineer Jim Massoth. Palisade also supplied us with Olivia Brash to assist and Bryan Clavey also assisted Jim. This is a winning team, professional in every way, and the finished tracks demonstrate that quite well.

I persuaded Carey to add some high trumpet parts to generate some excitement on Danza Maritima (Laid Back Vol. l) and also on Laid Back (Night Life) and Hip Slick & Cool (Laid Back Vol.2).

After all the dust settled, Carey did the editing and he and Jim did all the mixing. I did put in my two cents here and there. When it was all finished we got Brian Schwaab to do the mastering and his work is impeccable. Artist Chris Kemp cooked up the cover art and created masterful works, as usual.

I hope that you hear something you like here, and if not, oh well, too bad.

Special thanks to my Heavenly Father from whom all blessings flow, to Bill and Dr. Bob, to Carey and ‘ally, to all the musicians, to all the engineering staff, and to Kate Smith and Jim Eigo who put this int irculation. Relax, take it easy, life is good. I’m back to trudging the road of happy destiny. – Rich Willey