Bill Stewart Space Squid

Home , Bill Carrothers, Lage Lund, Marc Copland, Seamus Blake

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BILL STEWART SPACE SQUID

Release date: February 5, 2016 Pirouet Records · PIT3089

Seamus Blake · tenor and soprano saxophone Bill Carrothers · piano Ben Street · bass Bill Stewart · drums 1. Paris Lope 2. End of Earth 3. Tincture 4. Septemberism 5. Happy Walk 6. Drop of Dusk 7. Dead Ringer 8. Blue Sway 9. If Anyone Asks You 10. Space Squid 11. Dancing in the Dark

Press release Bill Stewart:

Cover photo: NASA, ESA, M. Robberto (Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) Space Squid 1 and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team · Artist photo: Konstantin Kern Release: February 5, 2016 Pirouet Records · PIT3089 PRESS CONTACT:

Out of this world and as deep as the ocean

On Space Squid, drummer Bill Stewart reaches for the sky and plumbs the depths with a group of like-minded musical explorers, saxophonist Seamus Blake, pianist Bill Carrothers and bassist Ben Street. Ten Stewart originals and one standard run the gamut from irreverence to revelation.

s he nears the mid-century mark of his life, Bill Stewart funk legend Maceo Parker to alto sax icon Lee Konitz. A finds himself at the height of his powers as a player Bill has been a long-standing member of guitar great John and composer. His musical resume reads like a section Scofield’s group, and has had much to do over the years from the “who’s who” of the last 25 years of jazz, from jazz- with saxophonist Joe Lovano and bassist Dave Holland.

Press release Bill Stewart: Space Squid

2 Photo: Konstantin Kern Release: February 5, 2016 Pirouet Records · PIT3089 PRESS CONTACT:

Photo: North Country Radio

ously worked and recorded with Stewart, and Bill is on five of Carrother’s and three of Blake’s albums. Described as a “mixture of dreamer, desperado, and Monty Python humor- ist,” Carrothers has the distinction of being the only inter- nationally renowned jazz musician living in the environs of the village of Mass City in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. His playing credits include Lee Konitz, Bennie Wallace, Dave Douglas, Drew Gress, and Gary Peacock, as well as a cou- ple of handfuls of CDs under his own name. Stewart com- mented that, “Bill has his own sound and style; he has a spontaneous way with his harmonies and voicings, and is able to get his own sounds and textures out of the piano. It’s original, and immediately identifiable. I like it that he brings all this to the music.” Besides leading his own ac- claimed group, saxophonist Seamus Blake has won the prestigious Thelonious Monk competition, and recorded with such heavies as John Scofield, Dave Douglas, Kenny Barron, and Christian McBride. “Seamus has great ears and can quickly get to the core of original music. There is His musical relationship with two masterful pianists, Marc also a lyrical side to his playing that I really like.” Bassist Copland and Bill Carrothers is of particular note: Stewart Ben Street has come into Stewart’s musical view more re- is on two of Copland’s ten and three of Carrothers’ eight cently, when Ben became a member of Scofield’s band; PIROUET offerings. And Carrothers is on the present album. Blake and Stewart also worked together with Lage Lund’s group. Street is no newcomer to the scene, having played Stewart had some new compositions of his that he wanted with Sam Rivers, Billy Hart, Mark Turner, and Kurt Rosen- to record, and Bill enjoys assembling groups that he envi- winkel. “I like his energy—he has such a good feeling and sions will fit the music at hand. This gathering is a case in flexibility, and always plays for the music”, Stewart enthus- point: they did one gig, then stepped into the New York es. An indication of the rightness of Stewart’s choices: End studio to record. Stewart’s playing history with Carrothers of Earth, Septemberism, Space Squid, and Dancing in the and Blake goes back some 20 years. They have both previ- Dark were all first takes.

Press release Bill Stewart: Space Squid 3 Release: February 5, 2016 Pirouet Records · PIT3089 PRESS CONTACT:

Photo: Konstantin Kern

Bill usually writes the pieces before he finds names for laid with what Stewart defines as “bizarre voice leading”, them. That’s the case here: “I search for titles that seem to leaves one wondering is this fall atmosphere somber or fit the music and also sound interesting by themselves. Ac- droll… There is a hop and a skip and maybe a hint of Latin tually, the titles are not so important; the music is what is in the straight eights of Happy Walk. On Drop of Dusk the important to me.” Paris Lope was written after a mid-day atmosphere darkens; Stewart says the piece was some- walk from hotel to the Parisian club for an afternoon of what influenced by Carrothers: “I thought it would play into practicing before the gig. There’s a deep blue to the piece his hands, so to speak, and I think it did.” With Blake on and a dark richness in the way the musicians play off each soprano, there is a deeply grounded lyricism in the play. On other. End of Earth is an open-ended ballad with an apoca- the medium-up Dead Ringer, soprano and piano take on the lyptic feel. Stewart’s rolling waves of drums and symbols bell-like quality of the theme as the drums propel the music sweeps the music towards the ending melody. A seven bar forward. There’s a taste of Trane in Blake’s soprano solo— repeated melody and sparse angular chording infuse Tinc- no copy, it just adds to his presence. A slow-swinging blue- ture with a multiplicity of colors, as single-note back- sy piece with a three-four underpinning, Blue Sway’s un- grounds punctuate a driving drum solo. Written directly usual harmonies and form indicate that blues is a feeling, before the September recording date, Septemberism’s not a dogma. As on other pieces, there’s this omni-direc- eight bar melody and stark, primitive 3-4 drumming, over- tional impressionism of the piano—and the propulsive

Press release Bill Stewart: Space Squid 4 Release: February 5, 2016 Pirouet Records · PIT3089 PRESS CONTACT:

Photo: Rudy Lu

rhythmic shifts and surges of the drums. Stewart dazzles with his sensitive brush work on the beginning and end of If Anyone Asks You. He says “it is as close as I have ever been to writing something that sounds like a standard. It has that very typical AABA form and has a long, legato melody that is easy to sing. I don't usually write this way, but it’s actu- ally not easy to write a good standard. Bill plays the song beautifully as a rubato ballad at the start, and then we go into the song in a fox trot tempo. Seamus finds some nice melodies of his own on this.” Space Squid has sax, drums, and bass in trio with a slanted avante-rock beat, a slightly skewed melody, and a stratospheric tenor solo. A spacy cephalopod indeed. As for Dancing in the Dark, Stewart comments that, “I had been playing the song at home on the piano, and liked playing the lovely interlude at half speed as part of the song form, so I wanted to try it at the session. It was done in only one take and came out great to my ears, so I wanted to include it. I also like the vibe of it to close the recording on a peaceful note.”

Bill Stewart is in the vanguard of the music’s contemporary ries, out in the open for all to hear. The musicians caress player-composers. His playing and writing has absorbed and attack the music from every angle. Each new listening the lessons of past masters and built on their foundations detects and fosters new perspectives, new insights. Bill to create his own musical language. For Stewart and his Stewart says that he named the CD Space Squid because fellow musicians, the playfulness, the musical pranks and “I like the sound of the title and I am slightly fascinated with sheer joy of playing is serious business. They have made it squid and octopus. They can also be delicious.” One can their life to put their thoughts and feelings, their conception imagine the twinkle in his eye when he said this. Fascinat- of beauty with all of its intimate idiosyncrasies and vaga- ingly delicious, this music is serious fun.

Press release Bill Stewart: Space Squid 5 Release: February 5, 2016 Pirouet Records · PIT3089 PRESS CONTACT:

Discography Bill Stewart on Pirouet Records

larry goldings · peter bernstein · bill s tewart

billincandescence stewart ramshackle serenade

BILL STEWART SPACE SQUID

Photo: Konstantin Kern

Vol.1 NEW york trio rEcordiNgS PHOTO: NASA/ESA bill carrothers home row

(modinha) Vol.3 bill carrothers new york trio recordings

marcwith copland tim hagans beautiful lily drew gress & bill stewart

(night whispers)

As Leader 2016 Bill Stewart: Space Squid (Bill Stewart, dr · Seamus Blake, ts, ss · Bill Carrothers, p · Ben Street, b) · PIT3089 2008 Bill Stewart: Incandescence (Bill Stewart, dr · Larry Goldings, org, acc · Kevin Hays, p) · PIT3028

As Sideman 2014 Larry Goldings: Ramshackle Serenade (Larry Goldings, org · Peter Bernstein, git · Bill Stewart, dr) · PIT3077 2010 Bill Carrothers: Joy Spring (Bill Carrothers, p · Drew Gress, b · Bill Stewart, dr) · PIT3046 2008 Marc Copland: Night Whispers, New York Trio Rec. Vol. 3 (Marc Copland, p · Drew Gress, b · Bill Stewart, dr) · PIT3037 2008 Bill Carrothers: Home Row (Bill Carrothers, p · Gary Peacock, b · Bill Stewart, dr) · PIT3035 2006 Marc Copland: Modinha, New York Trio Rec. Vol. 1 (Marc Copland, p · Gary Peacock, b · Bill Stewart, dr) · PIT3018 2005 Tim Hagans: Beautiful Lily (Tim Hagans, tp · Marc Copland, p · Drew Gress, b · Bill Stewart, dr) · PIT3016

Press release Bill Stewart: Space Squid 6 Release: February 5, 2016 Pirouet Records · PIT3089