News

,

Preorder your copy of "Present Joys" Now!

,

The Sacred Harp, Ye Olde New-England Psalm-Tunes, The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion: these ancient "tunebooks" form the basic repertoire for countless musical groups that keep the tradition of "shape-note" singing alive. Longtime friends and collaborators, trumpeter Dave Douglas and pianist Uri Caine, reunite as a duo on this recording, exploring these 18th and 19th century American songs and their influence on jazz and popular music.

,

Matt Ulery to release Third Record "In the Ivory" on Greenleaf Music

,

Chicago Bassist & Composer Matt Ulery
To Release Third Greenleaf Music Album, 
In The Ivory, September 16, 2014
Expanding Upon the Critically Acclaimed
2012 Chamber-Jazz Double Album, By A Little Light

With The Help of His Core Trio Plus Violinist Zach Brock, Vocalist Grazyna Auguscik and 3-time GRAMMY-Winning
New Music Ensemble, eighth blackbird

Expanding upon the artistic and critical success of his 2012 double album By a Little Light, Chicago bassist-composer Matt Ulery returns with In the Ivory on Dave Douglas' acclaimed independent label Greenleaf Music – eighty minutes of resplendent, lyrical, transportive, and impeccably performed chamber-jazz music. Inspired and motivated by the musical and personal relationships developed while recording and performing By a Little Light--Ulery’s most ambitious project to date--In the Ivory explores the idea of consciousness through patient, lyrical composition.

At a time when classical musicians perform in clubs almost as frequently as jazz musicians appear in concert halls, Ulery has forged a unique signature sound that combines a jazz core with luminous ensemble writing and song craft.  Built around a band of select, unique voices, In the Ivory draws upon Ulery's positive experience performing Light with this particular thirteen-piece aggregation.

Ulery's sixth album as a leader blends jazz, American minimalism, Eastern European folk music (as a longtime writing member of Chicago band Eastern Blok), and romanticism into a constantly evolving emotional kaleidoscope.

Ivory's core consists of Ulery on double bass alongside his longtime trio mates pianist Rob Clearfield and drummer Jon Deitemyer as well as violinist Zach Brock, a longtime friend and collaborator. Five of the 14 tracks contain vocals, all but one by Polish singer Grazyna Auguscik, with whom Ulery has worked for a decade. And every track except one features Chicago contemporary music and three-time Grammy-winning ensemble, eighth blackbird.

Ulery is primarily a linear composer whose self-expression is concerned with form and structure presenting narrative through patient, elegant, and sophisticated melodic development.  Intimate and compassionate trio playing is supported by carefully composed ensemble accompaniment.  Minimalism is used as texture rather than as engine, with Clearfield's piano looming large as the music's predominant voice in tracks like "Mary Shelley" and “Black Squirrel.” "In the context of the whole work, it can be digested like a piano concerto with chamber orchestra," says the composer. “It’s of the utmost importance that the evolving energy of one moment be allowed to progress effortlessly to the next.” The trio's long, deep history of this core rhythm section trio is evident in its finesse and fervency.  

Photo by Jim Newberry

Photo by Jim Newberry

Ulery writes fanciful music that is  rooted in the real.  “In this art form, we embrace the learned prowess of technique and comprehension of musical theories together with our personal emotional response to collective energy in crafting something extraordinary for the purpose of abstraction. "When things go bad – and they do, and they will – I propose fantasy as a way to confront our own reality."

Three central musical esthetics present themselves on In the Ivory: chamber ensemble writing, jazz improvisation, and song.  The ensemble writing is evident throughout and is pared down in three pieces of music for strings only – "Innocent,” "Longing," and “Viscous,” which were composed originally for Ulery’s own wedding.

While his 2013 Wake an Echo album with his quintet, Loom, was a self-described “palate cleanser,” Ulery has continued to explore songwriting with his poetic inventions and orchestrations featuring Grazyna Auguscik. These include the profound “There’s a Reason and a Thousand Ways,” “Write it on the Wall,” “When Everything is Just the Same,” and “Visceral.”  Along with "The Farm," sung hauntingly by Sarah Marie Young, these distinctive pieces combine all three elements of this unique brand of modern jazz composition.

Ivory possesses the emotional power and nuance of the Russian and Eastern European Romantics who came to Hollywood in the mid-twentieth century. But it also has the spontaneity of jazz improvisation. This is apparent in the subtle dissolves between Eighth Blackbird and the jazz trio, as on "Sweet Bitter," which features the trio of Ulery, Deitemyer, and violinist Zach Brock soloing intimately in and around one another. Zach Brock, while classically trained as one would expect, is also genuinely steeped in the authentic jazz tradition and has gained exposure as a member of bassist Stanley Clarke’s quartet.

Insofar as In the Ivory emerged from global culture--musical and otherwise--feel free to call it chamber jazz, with an emphasis on the noun rather than the adjective. Think of an update of an update presented by Dave Douglas’ string group, Parallel Worlds, proposed 20 years ago, and revel in the sound of Matt Ulery imagining the possibilities.

Matt Ulery In the Ivory Tour 

September 19-20 - The Green Mill, Chicago, IL

(Official Release Weekend) with full 11-piece ensemble 

October 10th - Constellation, Chicago, IL
with full 11-piece ensemble, featuring eigth blackbird

October 14th at Littlefield, Brooklyn
with full 11-piece ensemble, featuring eigth blackbird

October 15th at An Die Musik, Baltimore

October 17th and 8th at Chris Jazz Cafe, Philadelphia

October 21st at Kerrytown Concert House, Ann Arbor, MI

October 22nd at Merrimen's Playhouse, South Bend, IN

October 24th and 25th at Cliff Bells, Detroit, MI

,

Greenleaf Music to release "Into the Zone" by Ryan Keberle & Catharsis

,

Trombonist Ryan Keberle & Catharsis
Release Second Record, Into the Zone, 

Exploring Meditative Concept of Mindfulness As Applied to Improvised Music,

On Dave Douglas' Greenleaf Music,
 Out Sept. 30, 2014

Album Features Original Catharsis Lineup:

KEBERLE (trombone/melodica), MIKE RODRIGUEZ (trumpet),
JORGE ROEDER (bass), ERIC DOOB (drums),

Plus Newest Addition to Catharsis, CAMILA MEZA (vocals);

And An Encore Guest Spot from SCOTT ROBINSON (sax)

Read More in Keberle's Liner Notes

Most jazz musicians avoid repetition dogmatically. But when Ryan Keberlerealized he’d been playing the same eight-note phrase in all his recent warm-ups, the trombonist embraced his inclination. “As I started playing it more and more, I realized I wasn’t thinking of anything else,” he says. “You can reach a real state of mindfulness through repetition.” Keberle built the phrase into “Without a Thought,” the complex but gracefully flowing centerpiece of his new album, Into the Zone. It’s his first for Dave Douglas’ Greenleaf Music—and arguably the most personal document yet from a trombonist and bandleader better known for his soloist role in famed large ensembles.

Keberle is featured trombonist in Maria Schneider’s Grammy-winning orchestra, Darcy James Argue’s experimental Secret Society band andPedro Giraudo’s Latin jazz ensemble. Keberle has toured with Sufjan Stevens, and recorded with pop stars like Alicia Keys, David Byrne andSt. Vincent. Even at home in New York City his plate stays full: He teaches atHunter College, leads two groups and occasionally subs with the Saturday Night Live band.

On Into the Zone (which features the smoky vocals of Chilean singer, Camila Meza) Keberle uses mindfulness and Zen philosophy as techniques to tune out the noise of that busy career, while accessing something elemental. “The active process of thinking and editing and critiquing is what most often gets in the way of truly great, spontaneous music,” Keberle says. “It’s those moments of spontaneity that are typically most telling of an artist’s true self.”

Keberle wrote the album’s starkly glamorous music with his stripped-down, pianoless quartet, Catharsis, in mind. Internally, Keberle tends to hear his compositions for orchestra, but he loves the clean power of channeling them through just a few instruments. “A large ensemble allows you more control in telling your musical story,” Keberle admits. “But trying to do more with less has actually opened up manifold possibilities. And as a composer-bandleader, it means trying to let go and let the musicians in your band tell the story.” And in a pared-down setting, a side of his playing emerges that’s often easy to miss: his sensitivity, his discipline, the straight-to-the-point evocativeness of his solos.            

Much credit is also due to the strong, flexible chemistry of Catharsis, which features Mike Rodriguez on trumpet, Jorge Roeder on bass and Eric Doob on drums. Saxophone great Scott Robinson joins as a guest on two tracks, slotting snugly into Keberle’s arrangements and taking a gripping solo on “Gallop.” Most notable, though, is the fertile divide between Meza’s wordless vocals and the band’s double-brass frontline: It feels blurry, sometimes even invisible—partly because Keberle’s trombone sound has such a fluid, vocal-like quality.

“I equate the human voice with honesty,” he explains, saying he strives to achieve an equally primal effect with the trombone. “It isn’t always going to sing the right note at the right time to the right chords, but that’s part of the excitement, and the value. Regardless of the style or the complexity, when audiences hear a voice they immediately pay more attention to the music”

On the disc-ending, two-movement “Zone,” Keberle starts in dappled harmony with Rodriguez, underneath Meza’s wind-tracing melody. A quarter of the way through, he picks up the melodica. All of a sudden Keberle is playing minor chords with upward angles, building tension and creating a sharp sort of darkness. By the end, he and Meza are laying down an oscillating foundation of harmony while Rodriguez takes a sky-scraping solo that makes the high register feel both irresistible and forbidding.

As a music professor in New York City, Keberle often finds that dedication to refinement can inhibit an artist’s ability to really self-investigate. “In the academic world there’s a lot of music these days that lacks that cathartic element. As the level of proficiency continues to rise, we’re losing some of the human aspect,” he says. “In terms of practicing and learning jazz and acquiring the knowledge you need to be a functional jazz musician, you also have to practice shutting down, and letting your mind go.” With Into the Zone, he has achieved something that’s thoroughly modern, but at the same time raw and ancient.

RELEASE DATE: SEPTEMBER 30, 2014