Multi-Grammy Award-winning producer Ryan Truesdell has spent the last three years scrupulously curating a new project that is finally ready to be shared with the world. SYNTHESIS: THE STRING QUARTET SESSIONS is an epic, 3-CD collection pairing 15 of today’s leading large ensemble jazz composers with the timeless in June 21, 2024. The album, to be released via ArtistShare® on
Composer/arranger Mike Holober releases his ambitious new album, This Rock We’re On: Imaginary Letters this Friday, June 14, 2024 via Palmetto Records
In his ★★★★ 1/2 star DownBeat review, Ed Enright writes “Mike Holober’s Gotham Jazz Orchestra brings big-city virtuosity and rarefied sensibility to a double-disc, multi-movement program of original compositions inspired by the great outdoors… an utterly moving, long-form suite that finds pianist Holober… at the height of his deep-rooted composing/arranging expertise. A grand-scale masterwork…”
“The tunes featuring the vocalist provide a compelling contrast with the Gotham Jazz Orchestra’s instrumental selections (the bulk of the two-disc recording)—against pieces such as ‘Domes,’ an exultant big band statement, and ‘Tower Pulse,’ a masterful work of sleek modernism. In this juxtaposition, Holober’s talents as a composer for both a large ensemble and an intimate voice cannot be underestimated: these are magnificent expositions both musically and literarily.” – Suzanne Lorge, NYC Jazz Record
“Holober has brought a profound artistic vision to bear on today’s jazz scene and confirmed his standing as one of the finest modern composer/arrangers of our time, in the tradition of Gil Evans, Bob Brookmeyer and Jim McNeely.” – Ed Enright, DownBeat
“This Rock We’re On – Imaginary Letters’ feels like vespers sung for the Anthropocene before night falls.” – environmental justice activist and author Terry Tempest Williams
release date: 07.01.2022 via Paletto Records
“[Fred Hersch is] a pianist, composer and conceptualist of rare imaginative power.” – Nate Chinen, The New York Times
“Hersch’s work has developed an intensity of intelligence and emotional directness unparalleled among his peers.” – Steve Futterman, The New Yorker
Iconic pianist/composer Fred Hersch was an early adopter of new technologies and new ways forward when the pandemic hit in early 2020. But he’s also been among the most eager to return to live performance and collaboration now that life has begun to resume some semblance of normality. In August he returned to the studio to record one of his most ambitious projects to date: Breath By Breath, his first album ever pairing jazz rhythm section with string quartet.
Fred Hersch: Refuge, due out January 7, 2022 via Palmetto Records, features Hersch with Drew Gress, Jochen Rueckert & The Hudson String Quartet
“Fred Hersch belongs to the jazz piano aristocracy, that small elite called to leave a lasting mark.” – Louis-Julien Nicolaou, Télérama, June 2021
“Fred Hersch is always on target. Right in the heart. By playing ‘Songs from Home.’ Fred Hersch makes Bal Blomet his home. The audience’s silence is worthy of that of the forest that surrounds the house where this album was recorded…. Fred Hersch makes the piano sing…. The public does not want to leave. Fred Hersch either.” – Guillaume Lagrée, Le jars jase jazz, June 2021
Available May 15, 2020 via BlueLand Records
“Tonal nuance, melodic sense and instrumental command that set him apart from his peers.” – Ed Enright, DownBeat
For Now has a lot to say about romance, and it says it with quiet conviction and passionate declaration. Ace multi-reedist and composer Brian Landrus whose groundbreaking 2017 large-ensemble album Generations “takes the jazz big band tradition into the mesosphere” (Giovanni Russonello, New York Times), turns here to inner pathways, bringing together a remarkable quartet: pianist Fred Hersch bassist Drew Gress and drummer Billy Hart. Rounding out the musical equation are the brilliant young players Michael Rodriguez (trumpet) and Sara Caswell (violin), plus inventive and elegant string quartet arrangements by Landrus and the distinguished opera composer Robert Aldridge featuring Caswell and Joyce Hamman (violin), Lois Martin (viola) and Jody Redhage-Ferber (cello). The album is produced by Aldridge and composer/writer Herschel Garfein, both Grammy winners.
