Pianist Is Eager to Mix It Up : Roger Kellaway Likes Blend of ‘Funky and Sophisticated and Intellectual’

The list of musicians that pianist-composer Roger Kellaway has worked with stretches from Sonny Rollins and Gerry Mulligan to Joni Mitchell and Maria Muldaur. One of his closest associates was the distinguished bassist Red Mitchell, who died earlier this week after a stroke at his home in Oregon.

The two men, who teamed in the late ‘80s for the Stash recording “Fifty-Fifty,” last played Los Angeles together in May at the Jazz Bakery before recording a final concert at the Maybeck Recital Hall in Berkeley. When Kellaway recalls their relationship, as he did earlier this week from his home in Inglewood, he frames his own career as well, all the while speaking of his friend in the present tense, as if Mitchell might jump into the conversation at any moment.

“Bass was my second instrument,” explains the 53-year-old Kellaway, who concludes a two-day engagement at Maxwell’s tonight. “I played it for 10 years through junior high and college. And when I played bass, Red was my hero.”

Their relationship goes back to the Los Angeles studio scene of the early ‘60s, he says. Even though Mitchell moved to Stockholm in the late ‘60s, the two maintained their ties. Kellaway says he was never tempted to live the expatriate’s life in Europe as Mitchell did.

“Red was very interested in how U.S. politics related to the rest of the world. I became interested in all that, probably through Red, when Kennedy was elected. But after he was killed, I eventually lost interest, until the current election, that is. After years of working with (Mitchell) at festivals in Scandinavia and other places, I began to get his viewpoint, the European view of America, not a biased, U.S. newspaper view of our country. Whether you wanted it or not, hanging out with Red always had something to do with politics.”

The fact that Kellaway’s interest in politics waned in the ‘60s might also have something to do with his commitment to his principal passion: music. After two years of classical and composition studies at the New England Conservatory, he left in 1959 to play bass for cornetist Jimmy McPartland’s band. From there he went on to serve as pianist for Al Cohn-Zoot Sims, Clark Terry and Bob Brookmeyer. He recorded with Ben Webster, Wes Montgomery and Rollins before moving to Los Angeles in 1966 to work in the Don Ellis Band, where he played with saxophonist Tom Scott and drummer John Guerin. (Guerin will appear with Kellaway at Maxwell’s.)

His composition studies paid off in California--he contributed to a number of television and movie scores, including “Paper Lion,” the 1976 version of “A Star Is Born” and the 1983 “Breathless.” Kellaway is outspoken on the current state of soundtracks. “The quality of the composing for films is atrocious,” he asserts. “It’s only upheld by two or three people. There’s a lot of people out of the pop side of the business (writing for movies) that don’t know anything about composition. Also a lot of producers and directors don’t know anything about music. They look at it as filler.”

Despite that, Kellaway says he sees the balance of acoustic to canned music in films improving. “Orchestral sound hasn’t really left, because of people like (Steven) Spielberg and (George) Lucas. If they hadn’t done these huge films with symphonic scores that turned out to be blockbusters, the industry, because of its fickleness, would have done away with that kind of music.”

In addition to his film score work, Kellaway also gained a reputation as a writer of classically influenced music--music that often melded a tradition reaching back to the Middle Ages with instrumentation and tonal explorations of 20th-Century composers, sometimes built on a structure of jazz rhythms. These include “Esque” for trombone and string bass, various pieces for cello quartet and “Portraits of Time,” the 1983 work commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

“Through my classical studies I developed a mixture of listening habits. I might listen to some Stravinsky and then something by Woody Herman, or maybe one of the Bradenburg Concerti followed by Duke Ellington. My interests are very eclectic. I’ve enjoyed vast panoramas of music and have incorporated many ways of playing in my own style, traditional factors as well as 20th-Century avant-garde thinking.”

Indeed, Kellaway’s recent solo recording, “Live at Maybeck Recital Hall” features a mind-bending version of Irving Berlin’s “How Deep Is the Ocean,” in which the pianist’s considered tempo mutations, sometimes suggesting the stride masters of the ‘30s, slowly ascend into a twinkling, upper-register passage that seems to suspend time. Kellaway says that not all listeners appreciate these sonic inspirations.

“I have fans who just adore it when I stand on my head and use that acrobatic playing that’s part of my style. But there are others who, when they hear that more introspective style, think I’ve gone off the deep end. But it interests me to mix a variety of original jazz styles and avant-garde concepts. It’s like wearing blue jeans with velvet slippers . . . an odd mixture of the funky and the sophisticated and the intellectual.”

And there promises to be more of that eclectic Kellaway mixture around soon. Angel Records recently signed the composer-pianist for two albums with his group, The Hands of Time, an extension of his cello quartets of the ‘70s. “What’s interesting,” Kellaway says about the deal, “is that they’re not signing me as a jazz pianist. (The Hands of Time has) a different kind of sound, one that bridges many of the aspects of classical, ranging from medieval to the avant-garde, with the entire history of jazz, right down to Dixieland. Then throw some John Cage into that pot and see what you’ve got. That’s where my heart is. The amalgam.”

Roger Kellaway works with drummer John Guerin and bassist Jim DeJulio tonight at 8:30 and 10:30 at Maxwell’s by the Sea, 317 Pacific Coast Highway, Huntington Beach. $5 cover, $7 food/drink minimum. (714) 536-2555.