Award-Winning Jazz Pianist and Composer Justin Kauflin On Tour!

JUSTIN KAUFLIN ANNOUNCES FALL AND WINTER TOUR DATES!

NOV 04, 2018 -- Keep On Keepin' On and Q & A, Reading, PA

NOV 04, 2018 -- Justin Kauflin Solo | WCR Center for Arts -- Reading, PA

NOV 15, 2018 -- JK Trio Workshops | Icicle Creek Arts, Leavenworth, WA

NOV 16, 2018  -- JK Trio Workshops | Icicle Creek Arts, Leavenworth, WA

NOV 17, 2018  -- Justin Kauflin Trio | Icicle Creek Arts, Leavenworth, WA

DEC 08, 2018 -- Justin Kauflin Solo | Contrapuntal Hall, Los Angeles, CA

DEC 09, 2018  -- Justin Kauflin Trio | Alvas Showroom, San Pedro, CA

FEB 01, 2019 -- Justin Kauflin | Scullers Jazz Club, Boston, MA

FEB 02, 2019 -  Justin Kauflin Trio | Side Door, Old Lyme, CT

FEB 04, 2019 -- Justin Kauflin Duo | Mezzrow, New York, NY

MAR 5, 2019 -  Justin Kauflin Trio | Pizza Express, London, UK

MAR 6, 2019 - Justin Kauflin Trio | Pizza Express, London, UK

MAR 9, 2019 - Justin Kauflin Trio | Dzintari Concert Hall, Latvia

MAR 13, 2019 - Justin Kauflin Trio | Unterfahrt Jazz, Munich, Germany

MAR 15, 2019 - Justin Kauflin Trio | Sina Brufani, Perugia, Italy

MAR 16, 2019 - Justin Kauflin Trio | Jazz Club Ferrara, Perugia, Italy

MAR 18, 2019 - Justin Kauflin Trio | Catania, Italy

MAR 19, 2019 - Justin Kauflin Trio | Palermo, Italy

MAR 20, 2019 - Justin Kauflin Trio | Teatro Ristora, Verona, Italy

MAR 22, 2019 -- Oscar with Love, San Francisco, CA

MAR 23, 2019 -- Oscar with Love - Walt Disney Hall, Los Angeles, CA

New Album: Justin Kauflin - Coming Home (2018)

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Justin Kauflin - Coming Home (September 14, 2018)

For Immediate Release

Justin Kauflin Sonically Paints a Picture of His Global Home On New Album Coming Home

Justin Kauflin’s forthcoming album Coming Home Produced By Quincy Jones and Derrick Hodge

Home is where you hang your hat, or so the old adage goes. For Justin Kauflin, critically acclaimed and accomplished jazz pianist and composer, the last few years home has been many places. Originally from Virginia, Kauflin’s touring schedule, has taken him across the nation and abroad expanding and growing the idea of home. Kauflin lost his sight when he was 11 years old, but his travels are still a visual experience. Through the sounds and feelings of a city or space, he can see vibrant and captivating scenes of moving psychedelic colors. On the forthcoming album, Kauflin invites others to experience the world from his perspective as he sonically paints the homes he has found throughout his global travels.

Coming Home will be Kauflin’s third release, and second with the tastemaker imprint Qwest Records. With this release he ventures into new sonic territory bringing in more modern influences of synths, electric guitar and bass. Kauflin said, “I’ve always loved music that had a good groove to it, whether it was swing or funk. With Corey Fonville’s help, we got into all sorts of great feeling grooves that I can’t wait to share.”

From the start, recording Coming Home was electric. Quincy Jones and Derrick Hodge produced the album at Quincy Jones’ infamous Westlake Studios (Michael Jackson, Madonna, Frank Ocean). Kauflin was joined by Chris Smith on acoustic and electric bass, Corey Fonville on drums and percussions, and Alan Parker on acoustic and electric guitar. The musicians had a blast bringing the album to life. Kauflin recalls, “Derrick was in there with us bringing such positivity and encouragement. I feel as if I was able to be more authentically me because Derrick was there to give me that confidence. He was an incredible catalyst for much of how the songs took shape. And if that wasn’t enough, to have Quincy overseeing the proceedings and giving his guidance and experience brought everything together in such a beautiful way.”

The album is 13 tracks that resonate emotions and transport the listener across space and time. The lead single “Coming Home,” due out August 17, opens the album and evokes Kauflin’s southern sensibilities. He comments “This song serves as an invitation to join me as I share how I experience the world around me through colors and vibrant ever-shifting textures and shapes. Alan Parker’s acoustic guitar inserts that down home feeling from my home in Virginia.” Another standout is “Lost,” Kauflin mentions, “As exciting as traveling the world has been, there have certainly been times where I’ve felt disconnected and out of my element. This is not just a feeling that is connected to where I am physically. This also delves into how I feel emotionally at times. Life itself can leave one feeling quite lost.”

The album also includes an ode to his time spent living in Brooklyn with the cover of “John My Beloved.” An impromptu on the spot session with Derrick Hodge created “ Something Somethin.” A tribute to Kauflin’s favorite food, fried chicken, most famously found in his home state on the track, “Country Fried.” “Pendulum” is about New York, and the feeling that at times it is the greatest place on earth and at others it is overwhelming. And “Strawberry Fields” as solo and band-accompanied tracks, Kauflin comments “I’ve always found the idea of an imaginary place where one can find refuge to be incredibly attractive. It is such a perfect marriage of harmony and melody and it conjures up this barely out of reach sensation, as if the place for which I’m looking is just right around the next corner.” He continues, “When I know what I’m really looking for is actually inside.”

Justin Kauflin is a pianist extraordinaire and an undeniably rare talent. He is an alumnus of the William Paterson University jazz program, mentee, protégé, and bandmate of legendary Clark Terry (winner of the 2010 Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement in Jazz), signed to Quincy Jones’ management artist roster and label, and featured in the critically acclaimed film “Keep On Keepin’ On” which chronicled Kauflin’s friendship, and mentorship with Clark Terry. He has appeared on The Queen Latifah Show and the TODAY show and he was invited to perform at the Library of Congress. Kauflin has toured with Quincy Jones on a few world tours and is currently playing at international jazz clubs, and festivals.

Justin Kauflin is planning a tour to support the new album. He is excited to get back on the road and create new experiences with his music. He comments, “We had a great time in the studio, but I’m confident that each of the tracks will take a whole new life once we get a chance to take them out and play them in front of audiences. What will happen on tour will be a combination of what we created for the album and the energy we feel from the crowd.”

Check out and follow his tour dates here.

Coming Home

Looking Forward

Pendulum

Transition

Lost

Country Fried

John My Beloved

Present Day

Strawberry Fields

Somethin' Somethin'

Somethin' Somethin' Revisited

The Carousel

Strawberry Fields Solo

with

Alan Parker

Chris Smith

Corey Fonville

Tour Dates:

Thu, SEP 20 @ Story 2018 - Nashville, TN

Wed, OCT 31 @ The Tin Pan - Richmond, VA

Sun, NOV 04 @ Keep On Keepin' On - Reading, PA

Thu, NOV 15 @ Icicle Creek Arts - Leavenworth, WA

Fri, NOV 16 @ Icicle Creek Arts - Leavenworth, WA

Sat, NOV 17 @ Icicle Creek Arts - Leavenworth, WA

Sat, DEC 08 @ Contrapuntal Hall - Los Angeles, CA

Sun, DEC 09 @ Alvas Showroom - San Pedro, CA

Feb 01, 2019 @ Scullers Jazz - Boston, MA

Thomas Fonnesbæk & Justin Kauflin - Synesthesia (STORYVILLE RECORDS 2017)

New project from jazz bassist and household name on the Danish jazz stage, Thomas Fonnesbæk, with American composer and pianist prodigy, Justin Kauflin. 

Fonnesbæk himself recalls the beginning of the new project like this:

“My first meeting with Justin Kauflin was in Copenhagen in the spring of 2015 at Jazzhouse Montmartre, together with his childhood friend and drummer, Billy Williams. When Montmartre's former music director Christian Brorsen introduced me to them, I immediately recognized how talented they were and that Justin's pianistic virtuosity and musicality would be a most treasured musical experience. 

Besides being a meeting between Justin and myself, it was a meeting of cultures with many similarities and many inspiring differences that we could express through sound in the universal language of music. We quickly discovered we also shared a neurological commonality in that we both have synesthesia, which in our case means seeing sounds as colors with our mind's eye. Synesthesia has also ended up being the title of this album.”

The young jazz superstar Justin Kauflin is a pianist, composer and producer. His international recognition proves its worth on this album: He is a precise and playful pianist, but always laid-back and elegant. His style mingles perfectly with the quieter Scandinavian Fonnesbæk and together, their understated approach makes a powerful statement in itself. It’s Kauflin’s simplicity and skill that impresses the listener, his eloquence on the piano never throwing the audience off, but always inviting them to sharpen their senses to the smallest of details. 

This is Fonnesbæk’s third duo album, recorded over the course of two days in beautiful surroundings in Sweden. Some of the original compositions were prepared in advance and some were improvised on the spot. It’s a rather untraditional jazz album in the sense that the bass takes the lead with only a piano as support. Nevertheless, the collaboration between just two instruments doesn’t lack any support, and rather Fonnesbæk & Kauflin create an ambience for thoughtfulness and sensitivity in a aerial soundscape that lets you appreciate every small detail.

Synesthesia

Lost

It's All Right With Me

For No One

Panic Attack

Waiting

Semiosis

Nigerian Marketplace

Skybound

Catwalk

Thomas Fonnesbæk: Double bass

Justin Kauflin: Piano

Brian McCarthy, Justin Kauflin and more mix Civil War history with Jazz

Brian McCarthy Nonet - The Better Angels Of Our Nature (June 13, 2017)

On The Better Angels Of Our Nature, McCarthy arranges Union and Confederate folk songs and original music for his Nonet featuring several Clark Terry alumni

“Saxophonist Brian McCarthy takes a progressive approach to straight-ahead jazz, demonstrating a strong command of the jazz saxophone lineage.” — John Barron, Jazz World Blog

“[McCarthy] touches those roads Joshua Redman travels on with a fresh footing. This band excels at building anticipation… exciting.” — Fiona Ord-Shrimpton, All About Jazz

Available June 13, 2017 via Truth Revolution Recording Collective

Looking back on the most divisive moment in American history (no matter how much the current day seems ready to claim that title), saxophonist Brian McCarthy finds the roots of jazz in Civil War-era songs and spirit. On his new album, The Better Angels Of Our Nature, McCarthy pairs insightful new arrangements of vintage wartime folk songs with vibrant new compositions for his skilled Nonet to explore the clashing inspirations and enduring influence of the war that turned brother against brother in a battle over the soul of America.

Due out June 13 via Truth Revolution Recording Collective, The Better Angels Of Our Nature takes its title from the immortal words of Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address. The speech, addressed in large part to the citizens of the Southern states, was offered in a spirit of reconciliation and hope for reunification with the seceded Confederacy. McCarthy’s music locates the better angels at the heart of music representing the North, the South, and the African-American slaves who weren’t considered full citizens but whose fate hung in the balance of the brutal conflict.

A self-professed Civil War history buff, McCarthy found the era an ideal subject for the large-scale project that grew out of a Vermont Arts Council Creation Grant. The war has long served as the starting point for the Jazz History class that McCarthy teaches at Johnson State College, as “a time before jazz existed, but a time that was crucial to its existence.” As he explains, “Jazz came from the African-American experience here in America. Out of the darkness of terrible slavery, Reconstruction and Jim Crow came this really beautiful art form. 

McCarthy designed the music of The Better Angels Of Our Nature for his nine-piece ensemble, largely composed of longtime collaborators dating from his days at William Paterson University, many of them fellow alumni of legendary trumpeter Clark Terry’s band. Pianist Justin Kauflin (whose relationship with the late CT was documented in the moving documentary Keep On Keepin’ On), tenor saxophonist Stantawn Kendrick and trombonist Cameron MacManus all spent time under the jazz icon’s wing, a shared experience that McCarthy says left them all with “a deep appreciation for history. It was awe-inspiring just to play with him, but there were times when we’d just be hanging out and hearing stories about Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis and Pops. I realized that he was living jazz history.”

The band also features trumpeter Bill Mobley, one of McCarthy’s teachers and compositional mentors at WPU, along with baritone saxophonist Andrew Gutauskas, one of McCarthy’s earliest friends and collaborators at the school. Saxophonist Daniel Ian Smith is a professor at McCarthy’s wife’s alma mater, Berklee College of Music, while drummer Zach Harmon is a recent transplant to McCarthy’s native Vermont who suggested bassist Matt Aronoff as an ideal rhythm section partner.

Many of the compositions on The Better Angels Of Our Nature date from the Civil War era, in transcendent new arrangements that discover richly emotional harmonies in music from a most disharmonious time. The album begins with Harry McCarthy’s “The Bonnie Blue Flag,” a song adapted from a traditional Irish tune to tout the Southern cause. The saxophonist (no relation) undergirds the piece’s brisk, patriotic swagger with a darker undercurrent evoking the “oppressive foundation of the Confederacy.”

Julia Ward Howe’s familiar “Battle Hymn of the Old Republic,” built on the melody of the Union’s marching song, “John Brown’s Body,” couples the optimistic spirit of the Northern cause with a tinge of mournfulness, hinting at the profound loss entailed by the years-long struggle. Equally well-known to modern ears, “I Wish I Was In Dixie’s Land” was most likely originally penned as a parodic minstrel song before being co-opted as a Southern anthem. McCarthy’s raucous rendition returns the song to its African-American roots with blues and gospel accents and a ferocity inspired by the audacious rebelliousness of Frederick Douglass.

The spiritual “Oh Freedom” becomes a lush chorale for the horn section, while “Weeping, Sad and Lonely” is given an elegiac treatment better suited to Charles Sawyer’s autumnal lyrics than Henry Tucker’s upbeat original setting. Bonus track “All Quiet Along the Potomac To-night” sticks close to John Hill Hewitt’s 1863 setting of Ethel Lynn Beers’ poem recounting the First Battle of Bull Run. One crucial fact turned up by McCarthy’s research was that George Frederick Root’s “Battle Cry of Freedom” was equally important, with slightly altered lyrics, to soldiers on both sides of the conflict. While both original versions were sung to the same tune, McCarthy heightens the divide by splitting his arrangement in half, each reflecting an opposing take on the source.

McCarthy’s original compositions try to imagine the mood and atmosphere of the period when these songs were written. “Shiloh” is a gorgeously aching ballad highlighted by the composer’s yearning soprano, while the title track is a musical interpretation of Lincoln’s first inaugural address in three sections: the driving, no-nonsense opening section, “The Lawyer,” captures the President’s most rational arguments for the Union; the chaotic “The President” depicts the burdens of leading a nation divided; while the tender “The Person” is a portrait of Lincoln the humanist, whose rhetoric soared to embrace the better angels of an embattled public’s natures.

Since graduating from William Paterson University, Brian McCarthy has played a key role in the jazz community of his native Vermont, where he lives just outside of Burlington. He released his acclaimed leader debut, This Just In, in 2013, and plays regularly with his own ensembles and alongside trumpeter Ray Vega. He is a member of the faculty at the University of Vermont, teaches at Johnson State College and is director of bands at Saint Michael's College.

www.brianmccarthyjazz.com