Darren Johnston - Life In Time (February 2022 Origin Records)

During the seemingly endless shutdown of 2020, I began to think a lot about Colonel Aureliano Buendia, the character from Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s brilliant novel One Hundred Years Of Solitude, who had at one time supported his family by making and selling little tiny fish out of gold. As an old man, after many years of being away fighting wars, he returned to his shop to resume making his little gold fish. At first they sold simply because they had been made by the now famous colonel, but eventually no one left was interested. Nonetheless, every day the colonel continued his work of making his little gold fish. Because he had only a little gold left, he would melt down the fish from the day before in order to continue his work.

The shutdown really drove home for me the fact that those of us with the impulse to create, or dedication to a practice, will do what we do even if we were to never again have a chance to share our work. It is our practice, our way of processing the world, and for me at least, the way I keep it moderately together during challenging times. I dearly love connecting with other musicians and playing for my fellow humans, but I now know that as long as I have some kind of practice, I’ll be ok.

Thankfully, at the time of this writing performances are happening again, and recordings are being made. I’m grateful to be able to share some of my little gold fish with you now.

It’s a project that had been put on hold by the pandemic, but as things began to open up in May of 2021 I was finally able to record with this amazing group of some of Chicago’s most creative, swinging, and in demand musicians. We recorded four of Geof’s tunes, and six of mine, and I hope you enjoy listening as much as we did preparing and playing.

1. Asherah 07:42

2. Little Gold Fish 05:13

3. Intention And Commitment 06:57

4. Life In Time 05:48

5. Lost And Found 08:11

6. Shade 07:07

7. Guimaraes 04:24

8. Locomotive Sunflower 05:52

9. The Color Of The Wall Of The Room That Reminded Me 07:25

10. Song For Kamala 06:51

Darren Johnston - trumpet

Geof Bradfield - tenor/soprano sax, bass clarinet

Clark Sommers - bass

Dana Hall - drums

tracks 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 9 composed by Darren Johnston

tracks 3, 5, 7, 10 composed by Geof Bradfield

recorded May 3, 2021

engineered and mixed by Ken Christianson at Pro Musica, Chicago

Photograph by Reuben Radding

Design by John Bishop

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Darren Johnston & Tim Daisy - Crossing Belmont (RELAY RECORDINGS 2017)

Since settling in San Francisco in 1997, Canada-born trumpeter/improviser/composer/songwriter Darren Johnston has collaborated and recorded with an extremely diverse cross-section of artists. His interests rotate around composing instrumental music, writing songs, and performing all styles of jazz, experimental and purely improvised music, as well as traditional music of the Balkans, Greece, and Macedonia. These interests have coalesced into his primary ensemble of late, Broken Shadows, which unites musicians from all the aforementioned communities. 

He has performed and/or recorded with luminaries such as ROVA Sax Quartet, Fred Frith, Myra Melford, Ben Goldberg, Matt Wilson, Mark Dresser, Marshall Allen, and many others, with a special fondness for relationships he’s forged over the years with representatives from Chicago’s incredible improvising community. Current projects in this regard include Dave Rempis (in a horn trio with Larry Ochs), and a new-born duo with percussionist/sound artist Tim Daisy. 

As a composer, he has written for jazz and/or non-idiomatic improvising groups, big bands, string quartet, and even a multi-generational choir, with songs based on a collection of immigrant letters. He has written for dance companies such as Amy Seiwert’s Imagery, Deborah Slater, Axis Dance, Robert Moses’ Kin, Liss Fain, and others, as well as for dance films. www.darrenjohnstonmusic.com

Chicago – based drummer, marimbist, and composer Tim Daisy has worked in the fields of improvised and composed music since 1997. He has performed, recorded, and toured with many acclaimed musicians and ensembles from both the North American and European improvised music scenes including: Mars Williams, Ken Vandermark, Fred Lonberg -Holm, Elisabeth Harnik, Dave Rempis, James Falzone, Russ Johnson, Havard Wiik, Mikolaj Trzaska, Clayton Thomas, Per Ake Holmlander, Steve Swell, Aram Shelton, Michael Zerang, Kyle Bruckmann, and Katherine Young. 

Since June of 2015, he has been a co- programmer for the Option music salon at Experimental Sound Studio. The programming explores contemporary perspectives on improvisation and composition in a ‘salon’ format, enabling local, national, and international artists to publicly discuss their practice and ideas as well as perform 
www.timdaisy.com

1.Once A Bridge 25:31

2.Crossed Over At Belmont 09:43

Darren Johnston  trumpet 

Tim Daisy  drums, percussion 

Recorded live on April 23rd, 2017 at the Hungry Brain Chicago,IL 

Rempis / Johnston / Ochs - Neutral Nation (2016) AEROPHONIC RECORDS

present

Rempis / Johnston / Ochs - Neutral Nation (2016)

Recorded live May 21st, 2015 at Hallwalls in Buffalo, NY

Dave Rempis, alto, baritone saxophone 

Darren Johnston, trumpet 

Larry Ochs, sopranino, tenor saxophone 

1. Pierce Arrow 28:42

2. Seven Little Buffaloes 20:24

2016 Aerophonic Records

This live recording finds the collaborative trio of Rempis, Johnston, and Ochs hard at work in the middle of their first full-on North American tour in May of 2015. Documenting a concert from the landmark venue Hallwalls in Buffalo, NY, the trio follows up on their previous release, 2014’s Spectral, having taken their unique approach to spontaneous composition to the next level through the crucible that only touring can provide. On this new recording they tackle two pieces that are significantly more extended than the ones documented on their earlier release, while still employing the same core strategy that made that recording so compelling; an ability to look far down the road in order to anticipate the larger structures that can emerge from even the slightest gesture. The trio moves with patience, and capitalizes on space, waiting for the appropriate moments to strike, always at the service of the ensemble motion. 

As this process unfolds, they employ a seemingly endless wealth of musical approaches, in which lush harmonies dissolve into breathy overtones and tea kettle whispers, which then shift into snarls and smears of sound built up thick and chunky on the canvas. At other times, all three show the ability to swoop in like so many vultures, pile onto a phrase, and then drop off individually as if falling off their own respective cliff. Meanwhile the rough and tumble timbres of Ochs’ gruff but tender tenor sound mix with Johnston’s seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of the myriad mute techniques of the early-Ellington trumpet sections, to create a pallet of unbelievable breadth. This live document truly shows a band at a creative and developmental peak.

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Fred Frith / Darren Johnston - Everybody’s Somebody’s Nobody (2016)

Source: cleanfeed-records

This is the first duo effort to be released by Canada-born, but long time contributor to the San Francisco Bay Area scene trumpeter Darren Johnston, and the legendary guitar iconoclast Fred Frith.  They can also be heard together on the fine release “Reasons For Moving,” (Not Two, 2007), alongside Larry Ochs, Devin Hoff and Ches Smith, but in this more intimate musical gathering, the results are truly astonishing.   The genesis for this session was originally to provide sounds for a short dance film for filmmakers John Haptas and Kristine Samuelson and choreographer Amy Seiwert in a commission for the SF Dance Film Festival, but as can happen when improvisors are effectively inspired by one another, this led to a full release’s worth of exciting new music.

With the distinct and unusual combination of a guitar and trumpet duo, from the very first moments of “Everybody’s Somebody’s Nobody” we feel that they’re inventing a new timbral map and a new format. These are musicians from different generations, but they have more in common than what you might suppose. Johnston has started a path with his instrument similar to the one taken by Frith 40 years ago. After the termination of the prog band Henry Cow, the British six-string player started  intense exploratory work around techniques, vocabularies and forms – frequently creating unprecedented and beautiful new sounds – and his accomplishments have since widely expanded the possibilities of the guitar. Now, Johnston is doing the same with the trumpet, taking it to its limits and sometimes beyond. Don’t miss this important step of today’s music evolution.

Fred Frith, guitar

Darren Johnston, trumpet

01. Barn Dance

02. Scribble

03. Luminescence

04. Everybody's Somebody's Nobody

05. Bounce

06. Morning and the Shadow

07. Down Time

08. Rising Time

09. Scratch

10. Ants

11. Standard Candles

All music by Fred Frith and Darren Johnston

Recorded September 5th, 2013 and December 17th, 2014 at Guerrilla Sound | Engineered and mixed by Myles Boisen | Mastered at Headless Buddha Labs by Myles Boisen | Creative engineer Myles Boisen

Produced by Fred Frith and Darren Johnston | Executive production by Pedro Costa for Trem Azul | Design by Travassos | Cover art by Heike Liss

Many thanks to Amy Seiwert’s Imagery, John Haptas, Kristine Samuelson, SF Dance Film Festival, Liss Fain Dance

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