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“Music from a [person’s] innards will systematize that gut-bucket spillage on its own terms.” - Greg Tate
Tate’s intention was to place the guitarist Pete Cosey in the creative lineage of Cecil Taylor and Miles Davis, and we can add Lester Bowie to that canon as well. The sense of adventure in Bowie the soloist, composer and bandleader was such that the listener assumes that at any moment, truly anything could happen. The same essence of limitless possibility infuses the work of Hugh Ragin, who, as a young musician, spent ten days studying with Bowie and the Art Ensemble of Chicago at the Creative Music Studio intensive in Woodstock, NY, and in recent years he has frequently performed with the Art Ensemble and other members of the AACM.
Exactly forty years ago, when some of the earliest ideas for this band were being formed, Ragin, performing with the University of Northern Colorado’s Lab I big band, played a brief but uncommonly dramatic solo at the start of Clare Fischer’s “In the Beginning” (which also featured a very young Mike Christianson introducing his
formidable Grey- and Nanton-inspired plunger technique to a wider audience). Ragin had been featured on Anthony Braxton’s Composition 98 and Roscoe Mitchell’s Snurdy McGurdy and her Dancin’ Shoes at that time, and became a primary influence on the direction and ideology of the band, which would begin performing some twenty-two
years later under its now former name, the Pittsburgh Collective. In 2010 Hugh began playing regularly with the group, which already included nineteen brilliant and imaginative musicians, and has effected a far greater and more direct impact on its evolution.
Ragin’s musical homage to Bowie, a conduction that he directs himself, is the centerpiece in this collection of eight works composed and arranged over the last eighteen years. While they differ in genre and approach, they interconnect and elide as “spillage”, or, per Gustav Mahler, as components of a world and embracing everything. Or, maybe by extension, as Lester Bowie himself said of the AACM, “…it’s life itself that this is about”.
- David Sanford
credits
released September 24, 2021
Personnel:
SAXOPHONES
Ted Levine and Kelley Hart-Jenkins - alto saxophones
Anna Webber (tracks 1, 2, 7, 8),
Marc Phaneuf (tracks 3-6) and
Geoff Vidal - tenor saxophones
Brad Hubbard - baritone saxophone
BRASS
Brad Goode (tracks 1-7), Tony Kadleck (track 8),
Tim Leopold, Wayne J. du Maine,
Thomas Bergeron and Hugh Ragin - trumpets
Mike Christianson, Jim Messbauer,
Ben Herrington (tracks 1, 2, 4, 6-8)
and Mike Seltzer (tracks 3, 5) - tenor trombones
Steven Gehring - bass trombone
Raymond Stewart - tuba
RHYTHM SECTION
Dave Fabris - electric guitar
Geoff Burleson - piano
Dave Phillips - electric and acoustic bass
Mark Raynes - drums
Theo Moore - percussion
CONDUCTORS
David Sanford (tracks 1-4 and 6-8)
Hugh Ragin (track 5)
Production Credits:
Executive Producer: Dave Douglas
Produced by Tom Lazarus and David Sanford
Recorded June 6-7, 2016 at Sear Sound, New York, NY
Recorded and mixed by Tom Lazarus
Assisted by Owen Mulholland and Jeff Citron
Mastered by Joe Lambert at Joe Lambert Mastering
Cover painting by Chris Pouler
Graphic design by Lukas Frei
All music composed and arranged by David Sanford (David Sanford Music / BMI)
except:
“A Prayer For Lester Bowie” composed and arranged by Hugh Ragin (HURA Music / ASCAP)
“Dizzy Atmosphere” composed by John “Dizzy” Gillespie (Universal Music Corp. / ASCAP)
Soloists:
1. Full Immersion (12:48)
Soloists: Theo Moore (congas), Jim Messbauer (trombone), Anna Webber (tenor sax), Geoff Vidal (tenor sax)
2. Subtraf (9:30)
Soloists: Mike Christianson (trombone), Dave Fabris (guitar)
3. Woman in Shadows (8:01)
Soloists: Ted Levine (alto sax)
4. popit (2:50)
Soloists: Hugh Ragin (trumpet)
5. A Prayer For Lester Bowie (13:38)
Soloists: Hugh Ragin (trumpet), Ted Levine (alto sax), Geoff Vidal, (tenor sax), Marc Phaneuf (tenor sax), Mike Christianson, Mike Seltzer, Steve Gehring and Jim Messbauer (trombones)
6. Dizzy Atmosphere (6:29)
Soloists: Wayne J. du Maine (trumpet), Brad Goode (trumpet), Marc Phaneuf (tenor sax), Dave Phillips (bass)
7. Soldier and the CEO (7:19)
Soloists: Kelley Hart-Jenkins (alto sax), Dave Fabris (guitar), Brad Hubbard (baritone sax)
8. V-Reel (8:45)
Soloists: Geoff Burleson (piano), Ted Levine (alto sax), Ben Herrington, (trombone)
Press:
“The album is a glorious hodgepodge of large-ensemble synchronicity and wah-wah-drenched blazes, with plenty of time devoted to featuring Hugh Ragin, a Chicago trumpeter like Bowie, whose rough and gleaming sound bespeaks a mix of pride and lament.”
– Giovanni Russonello, New York Times
“Jazz audiences don’t know Sanford quite as well — but that may change on the basis of his impressive new album … which tweaks the conventions of modern big band orchestration while setting a stage for soloists like trumpeter Hugh Ragin and tenor saxophonist Anna Webber.”
– Nate Chinen, WBGO
"Few composers have broader stylistic reach. But on a new album, 'A Prayer for Lester Bowie,' he makes it all cohere."
- Seth Colter Walls, New York Times
“The live-in-the-studio recording captures his music’s dynamic range, which encompasses subtle tenderness and enthusiastic overload.”
- Downbeat ★★★1/2
"This is his first album for trumpeter Dave Douglas’ Greenleaf Music, and like much of the work on that label, it emphasizes exciting, boundary-stretching compositions performed in a vibrant style."
- Phil Freeman, Stereogum, Best of September 2021
"Bombastic, sometimes outrageous, A Prayer for Lester Bowie has a huge presence ... Sanford’s ensemble moves with a subtle grace and unerring bounce in its step."
- Bandcamp Daily
"A sense of freedom erupts from every arrangement, and the diligent musicians are put at the service of a group ideal that relies on motion, texture and free improv to succeed."
- Jazztrail
"Ragin’s piece celebrating Lester Bowie folds in everything from avant-garde near-anarchy to speed swing to noir soundtrack music. It’s a fitting tribute not only to Bowie, but also Sanford himself, whose musical open-mindedness includes the wisdom to turn his art over to a colleague if it encapsulates the vibe. With his big band as his garden, Sanford grows a compelling musical cornucopia."
- Big Takeover
“A Prayer for Lester Bowie is a showcase for Sanford's boldly textural and harmonically daring composition and arranging skills."
- All Music ★★★★1/2
"A Prayer For Lester Bowie is a crucial piece of modern big band. David Sanford’s chops are unquestionable, but even for talent as mammoth as him, this album is on a higher level. Once its energy is unleashed, it flows without abandon, breathing complex new life into all the corners and crevices of this genre ... essential listening."
- Foxy Digitalis
"A Prayer for Lester Bowie is a baffling, mind-blowing phenomenon. Baffling because it comes out of nowhere. Mind-blowing because it is one of the most ambitious, tumultuous, raw, sophisticated, wildly creative big band records to appear in the new millennium."
- New York City Jazz Record
"The musical chemistry between the musicians is seamlessly intuitive. Woodwinds, brass and rhythm sections sparkle in ensemble with eloquence and vigour while judiciously placed solo movements are always poetically declaimed."
- The Whole Note
"This is the most adventurous big band album I’ve heard in some time ... the variety, depth, harmonic layers, and rhythmic complexity are extraordinary."
- Stereophile ★★★★1/2
"Sanford’s expansive arrangements help make for one of the more engaging large-group albums of the year, and the music alternates between raucous and pensive ... “Prayer” provides a vital boost to 21st-century big-band jazz."
- Denver Post
"... the most adventurous big band album I’ve heard in long time, a combination of jazz, avant-garde classical, blues, and R&B, shedding influences from Charles Mingus to Arnold Schoenberg to Sly & the Family Stone. Sanford is a Guggenheim Prize-winning composer of works for chamber and symphony orchestras, but this is something else. The first track, “Full Immersion,” fuses heady modernism with dance-floor funk in a seamless, original way."
- Slate, Best Jazz Albums of 2021, #1
"Aside from writing chamber and orchestral music, David Sanford also runs a big band. That group’s latest release reveals some of Sanford’s current enthusiasms. On ["Subtraf"] a strangled-gasp sound reminiscent of Helmut Lachenmann’s music provides some initial kindling. Later, the bonfire climax is indebted to the experimentalism of Miles Davis circa 'Agharta.'"
- New York Times, Best Classical Music Tracks of 2021
Renowned composer and arranger David Sanford leads the New York-based David Sanford Big Band, which was formed in 2003 and
comprises twenty musicians specializing in jazz, avant-garde, classical, funk, and Latin genres. Along with presenting original works written expressly for the ensemble, the group performs music that draws heavily on classical idioms, popular music, and jazz standards....more
supported by 522 fans who also own “A Prayer For Lester Bowie”
A back and forth between meaningful narratives and casual conversations. Whatever it is it is expressed by well sounding and souvereign voices. freejazzy
supported by 516 fans who also own “A Prayer For Lester Bowie”
This is a wonderful album! Dave Douglas is one of my heroes. He's more than a great musician. He has a vision for the music and a feeling for putting together a group which is unique. So, beside Joey Baron (another heavyweight and one of my absolute favourite drummers) he invited some young cats to this session. They play just great and make sure that this music sounds totally fresh, whilst at the same time being deeply rooted in the jazz tradition. Florian Arbenz
supported by 512 fans who also own “A Prayer For Lester Bowie”
So much fun and joy and swing, and the instrumentation allows for some super-fresh sounds as well as some old-timey goodness. And simply great tunes too! Giles