David Sanford Big Band featuring Hugh Ragin - A Prayer for Lester Bowie

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2021 CD release.

Composer-arranger and bandleader David Sanford has a capacious musical mind, one attuned to multiple genres and the joy of their aural collision. Keenly attuned not only to his rich African-American inheritance but also to the widest range of culture, he has been influenced by big-band classics and avant-jazz innovators as well as the sweep of the cinema, the harmonic explorations of classical modernists, the artful aggression of rock and the irresistible rhythms of funk. Recognized for his accomplishments in concert halls, on jazz stages and as an educator, Sanford – a longtime professor at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts – was honored this year by the American Academy of Arts & Letters for “outstanding artistic achievement,” an award for “composers who have arrived at their own voice.” His newest album, A Prayer For Lester Bowie, will be released by Dave Douglas’s Greenleaf Music label on Sept. 24, 2021, digitally and on CD. Sanford convened top jazz and contemporary-music players from across the U.S. to record his work at the storied Sear Sound in Manhattan, with nine-time Grammy Award-winning engineer Tom Lazarus capturing the grit of the large ensemble live in the studio. A key contributor to the sound and spirit of the David Sanford Big Band is trumpet soloist Hugh Ragin, who also composed and conducted the album’s “A Prayer For Lester Bowie” title work in homage to the late, great trumpeter and co-founder of the Art Ensemble of Chicago. The rest of the album comprises six characteristically kaleidoscopic Sanford compositions – inspired by everything from rollercoasters to film noir – plus his modern arrangement of “Dizzy Atmosphere,” by one of his earliest jazz influences, Dizzy Gillespie.

About his approach in the studio, Sanford says: “The tracks of A Prayer For Lester Bowie were recorded live in the studio. Even before the pandemic limited us all to Zoom recordings from our apartments and bedrooms, I’ve been in love with the sound of a band with a microphone hanging in the middle of the room. Obviously, this wasn’t made quite that simply, but I really wanted the recording to sound like hearing a band in person, with that raw edge of the brass cutting through, the drums veering toward over-powering, the sense that soloists could be swallowed up at any minute. I was talking with someone about the appealing ‘grit’ of older – specifically early- to mid-1970s – movie soundtracks. That’s the aesthetic I grew up with that made me want to create my own music in the first place. You can still find it live, but rarely in the studio. I love luxuriating in the sound of brass, saxophones, electric guitar, bass, drums, etcetera all in a room.”

Ragin’s contribution to the album, as a trumpet soloist and composer-arranger of the title track, was inspirational – as Sanford explains: “I remember a critic, years ago, describing Hugh’s tone as ‘pithy, yet malleable,’ and I think the duality of Hugh’s technical virtuosity alongside his sense of sonic adventure is unique. He’s one of the rare musicians – along with Kenny Wheeler, Bruce Johnstone, maybe Chick Corea and Jon Faddis who toured and recorded with both Maynard Ferguson and Anthony Braxton. As a soloist, Hugh is endlessly fascinating. He’s introspective, yet a fount of ideas – his playing always suggests that he has infinitely more things to say than the music has space for. I feel like he’s in the lineage of Lester Bowie in the sense that you hear the tradition in what he’s saying, but also in the sense that there’s no limit – in Hugh’s case, harmonically, registrally, dramatically – to what might happen next.”

(18698000086)

SKU 18698000086
Barcode # 18698000086
Brand Greenleaf Music

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