Sam Wilkes - Wilkes (LEAVING RECORDS October 5, 2018)

Listening to Wilkes numerous times, considering 

what I might write about it for a Press Release, (which I 

agreed to do because I'm a fan of his Music and his 

collaborations with Sam Gendel and Louis Cole / Knower,) 

I was growing in enthusiasm, looking forward to my 

next radio show or DJ set including the song "Today" 

so I could hear it bump in a nice system. I was hyped 

the more I took in this 6 song offering. I thought to ask 

Sam about his new record and use his answers as aid 

to illustrate some of my feelings, but when I read his 

reply I thought you should too. It's so descriptive 

and visual, perfect to pull from and quote.

more info...

1 Welcome* (J. Coltrane)

Alto Saxophone- Sam Gendel

All other instruments-Sam Wilkes

recorded by Sam Wilkes

mixed by Sam Wilkes and Chris Sorem

2 Today 

Alto Saxophone- Sam Gendel

All other instruments-Sam Wilkes

recorded by Sam Wilkes

mixed by Sam Wilkes

3 Run 

Alto Saxophone- Sam Gendel

Drums- Christian Euman

Electric Bass- Sam Wilkes

Keys- Sam Wilkes

recorded by Chris Sorem and Sam Wilkes

mixed by Sam Wilkes and Chris Sorem

4 Tonight 

Alto Saxophone-Sam Gendel

Drums- Louis Cole

Acoustic Guitar- Brian Green

All other instruments- Sam Wilkes

recorded by Sam Wilkes

mixed by Sam Wilkes and Chris Sorem

5 Hug 

Alto Saxophone- Sam Gendel

Drums- Christian Euman

All other instruments- Sam Wilkes

Sonic Manipulations- Chris Sorem and Sam Wilkes

recorded by Chris Sorem and Sam Wilkes

mixed by Sam Wilkes and Chris Sorem

6 Descending

Guitar- Brian Green

Vocals- Louis Cole, Genevieve Artadi, Sam Wilkes, Joey Genetti, Brian Green, Rozzi Crane, 

Luc Kleiner, Avi Buffalo, Kenton Chen

Snare Drum- Kyle Crane

Alto Saxophone- Sam Gendel

All other instruments- Sam Wilkes

recorded by Sam Wilkes

mixed by Sam Wilkes and Chris Sorem

Michael Leonhart Orchestra - The Painted Lady Suite (SUNNYSIDE RECORDS June 22, 2018)

The Painted Lady Suite, the debut album by the Michael Leonhart Orchestra (MLO) is inspired by the butterfly of the same name. While Leonhart was initially attracted to its flamboyant coloration and wing ornamentation, it was the butterfly’s incredible migration, which spans over six generations and 9,000 miles — twice that of the Monarch butterfly, that inspired the trumpeter/composer/bandleader to write his “Painted Lady Suite.” 

Leonhart’s path toward the creation of MLO began in his youth. Born into a musical family, Michael was fascinated by orchestration, composition and counterpoint by the age of 10. “I remember my mother playing all these amazing albums in the house growing up: the Miles & Gil Evans’ collaborations, Ellington Suites, Sinatra & Nelson Riddle, Quincy Jones and tons of Thad Jones/Mel Lewis,” Leonhart recalls. “While my dad Jay was out playing gigs and recording, it was my mother’s DJ’ing that was the ‘gateway drug’ that led me to discover Stravinsky, Ravel, Olivier Messiaen, Morricone and David Axelrod.” Leonhart has worked for decades as an accomplished trumpet player, arranger and composer, but it was when he took on the role as arranger/conductor for the 21-piece orchestra on guitarist Nels Cline’s eclectic Lovers album (Blue Note, 2015) that his love of conducting, arranging and composing for large ensemble was reignited. Once the album was finished, Leonhart was certain that he wanted to create a solo project in this vein, and thus the Michael Leonhart Orchestra was born.

“When creating MLO, my idea was to get an all-star mix of soloists, ensemble players and pocket-players who would be as comfortable playing Mingus and Ellington as they would be playing Wu Tang and Fela Kuti,” Leonhart says. “It was also important to me to steer clear of the traditional ‘big band’ instrumentation and have bassoon, accordion, bass harmonica and strings.” The Orchestra is comprised of a roster of some of the most sought after musicians in New York, including members of the Village Vanguard Orchestra, Maria Schneider’s Orchestra, the Dap-Kings, Menahan Street Band and Antibalas. Working with these stellar musicians has given Leonhart the invaluable opportunity to workshop new arrangements of existing material, covering such artists as The Beastie Boys, Zappa and Bernard Herrmann, and new original compositions, building the repertoire in front of a rapidly growing audience. 

The Painted Lady Suite is broken into two parts with seven movements, which sonically parallel two separate migrations, one over North America into Canada and the other from the Arctic Circle over Europe into Northern Africa. Leonhart assigns different instruments and specific soloists to represent the changing climate and mood of the migration. The sonic migration begins with a mutating 21-bar phrase played by brass and woodwinds blending with violins and bass melodica as the chrysalises are shed and the butterflies take flight. Leonhart says, "While composing the suite, I knew that Donny McCaslin would be one of the featured soloists I would be writing for. Donny is the sonic equivalent of a 1965 Shelby Cobra 427 race car. He has the rare ability to seamlessly build a solo from '0 to 60' in seconds while commanding the listener's focus as 20 plus musicians play full volume behind him." McCaslin's tenor is featured as a wordless narrator as the swarm heads north from Mexico; Sam Sadigursky’s tenor takes over as the lead voice as the swarm continues north, supported by Nels Cline’s undulating guitar volume swells. The hypnotic beat of the huge swarm flying over Texas is orchestrated for the Dap-Kings rhythm section, utilizing drums, bass and analog electric drum machine. Leonhart’s fearless choice of uncommon instrument combinations harkens back to Morricone, Quincy Jones, David Axelrod and Nino Rota. In the second half of the suite, the cold expanse of the Arctic Circle is represented by wordless voice, harmonica and Mancini-esque bass flutes, along with the “buzz wow” muted trombone of Ray Mason and clarion trumpet of Dave Guy.

The journey of the Painted Lady butterfly parallels the story and development of the Michael Leonhart Orchestra and The Painted Lady Suite — a large group takes a journey utilizing the past generations’ wealth of knowledge and arrives triumphantly in a kaleidoscopic array. 

In addition to the Suite, the album features three of the earliest compositions Leonhart wrote specifically for MLO. “In the Kingdom of MQ” is a swaggering march featuring an electrifying solo by Donny McCaslin and is a tribute to Leonhart’s young son. Alternating between a 12/8 burlesque groove and a ¾ church feel, the jaunty “Music Your Grandparents Would Like” is the kind of jazz and rock hybrid Zappa would have loved, including a hard left turn as Nels Cline delivers a brain-melting solo. Lastly, “The Girl From Udaipur” establishes a trance-line ostinato with wordless choir as solos by Ian Hendrickson-Smith and Jay Leonhart bring the recording to a close.

1. The Painted Lady Suite - I. Transformation In The Deserts Of Mexico

2. The Painted Lady Suite - II. The Silent Swarm Over El Paso

3. The Painted Lady Suite - III. The Experimental Forest, North Dakota

4. The Painted Lady Suite - IV. Countdown To Saskatchewan

5. The Painted Lady Suite - V. The Arctic Circle

6. The Painted Lady Suite - VI. 1500 Feet Above The Sahara (Night)

7. The Painted Lady Suite - VII. 1500 Feet Above The Sahara (Day)

8. In The Kingdom of M.Q.

9. Music Your Grandparents Would Like

10. The Girl from Udaipur

Michael Leonhart - composer, arranger, conductor, organ, Mellotron, accordion, bass harmonica, bass melodica, pump organ, trumpet, French horn, mellophonium, bass trumpet & electric bass (2)

Daniel Freedman - drums (1, 8, 9, 10) & percussion

Nick Movshon - drums (2)

Homer Steinweiss - drums (5, 7)

Jay Leonhart - acoustic bass (1, 8, 10)

Joe Martin - acoustic bass (6, 9)

Nick Movshon - electric bass (5, 7)

Nels Cline - guitar

Mauro Refosco - percussion

Leon Michels - percussion

Mauro Durante - percussion & violin

Dave Guy - trumpet

Taylor Haskins - trumpet & valve trombone

Andy Bush - trumpet

Carter Yasutake - trumpet

Andy Gathercole - trumpet

Ray Mason - trombone & bass trombone

Mark Patterson - trombone & bass trombone

John Altieri - tuba

Donny McCaslin - tenor sax

Sam Sadigursky - tenor sax, piccolo flute, flute, alto flute & bass clarinet

Matt Bauder - alto & tenor sax

Jason Marshall - alto & baritone sax

Cochemea Gastelum - tenor & baritone sax, flute

Charles Pillow - bass clarinet & alto flute

Ian Hendrickson-Smith - baritone sax

Jon Natchez - clarinet

Aaron Heick - tenor sax, English horn & bass flute

Sara Schoenbeck - bassoon

Pauline Kim - violin & viola

Erik Friedlander - cello

Carolyn Leonhart, Jamie Leonhart, Michael Leonhart & Milo Leonhart - choir

Dinosaur - Wonder Trail (May 4, 2018)

Mercury shortlisted band Dinosaur continue to surprise

and impress with their remarkable new album ‘Wonder Trail’.

LAURA JURD trumpet, synth

ELLIOT GALVIN synths

CONOR CHAPLIN electric bass

CORRIE DICK drums

Available as

Limited Edition Double Cover. CD. Digital

Released 4th May 2018

Listen Before You Buy

Dinosaur’s second album is as electrifyingly different as anyone who knows Laura Jurd’s track record would expect. Never one to be labeled, the fearsomely talented and multiple award-winning Jurd has a Miles-like way of taking her work and tuning it to illuminate a vast array of musical worlds. She’s done orchestrated and meticulously composed; jazz rock grooves; electronic minimalism; mainstream jazz and now, with her new album, Wonder Trail, and band Dinosaur, keyboard maestro Elliot Galvin to the fore, she’s plundered the synth-pop of the 1980s for a new sound. But this is not gratuitous borrowing, or any kind of hipsterish, retro post-modernism. For one, these are very current sounds (Broen’s an indie band with similar reference points that comes up in conversation). And for two, Jurd and Galvin use the poptastic-ness of the keyboard sound as a sort of tin opener to get into all kinds of serious musical areas - improvisation, vocodered strangeness, strutting rockishness, bucolic folkiness. But, as with any proper stylistic amalgam, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. 

Wonder Trail, whilst being a stations of the cross tour through an array of musical influences/interests, synthesises the experience (in more ways than one). It’s the use of the synth as the core sound that brings it all together, the other instruments queued in by its stabs and swirls, energised and contextualised. Within, around and over this hovers Jurd’s clear-toned trumpet sound which manages to be hot and cool without any apparent expenditure of energy - poised is the word I suppose, but that belies the power and incisiveness of her improvising and technique. 

Laura is keen to join the tricky task of placing the music on some kind of stylistic map. “There’s two vocals on the album. Plus one track with a scattering of vocals... something to bear in mind. The pop / folk influence is definitely there. There's certainly more of that in there than the second Viennese school! Perhaps it could be described simply as 'synth-pop meets jazz band'. I quite like the clarity of that. Personally I'd love to filter that down further and say - 'Dinosaur is a trumpet-led, instrumental band'. That way it's left to the music to explain the rest - which is something unique and personal for every listener.” 

1. Renewal (part I)

2. Quiet Thunder

3. Shine Your Light

4. Forgive, Forget

5. Old Times' Sake

6. Set Free

7. Swimming

8. Renewal (part II)

9. And Still We Wonder

All music by Laura Jurd

Recorded at Giant Wafer Studios, Wales on 27th - 31st October 2017

Recorded and Mixed by Sonny Johns

Mastered by Tom Leader

Listen to the Brand New Single:

'Quiet Thunder'

Pre-order:
Limited Edition Double Cover LP
CD

More Info


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