GHOST TRAIN ORCHESTRA - BOOK OF RHAPSODIES

Book of Rhapsodies is Ghost Train Orchestra's second album, following their highly acclaimed debut Hothouse Stomp (2011). In this adventurous installment, Ghost Train Orchestra plus a six-member choir perform bandleader Brian Carpenter's modernistic reimaginings of four unusual ensembles from the late 1930s: The Alec Wilder Octet, The John Kirby Sextet, The Raymond Scott Quintette, and Reginald Foresythe and His New Music. Produced by Grammy award winner Danny Blume and featuring Carpenter's surreal arrangements for 12-member orchestra plus choir, Book of Rhapsodies delivers the rich experience of transporting the listener to the past and using that past to transform the future.

Decades before composer/conductor Gunther Schuller coined the term Third Stream to describe a genre straddling the line between jazz and classical music, New York became the epicenter of a new movement of composers whose work seemed to exist outside the margins. In the late 1930s, a small cadre of forward-thinking composers began creating small ensembles with unorthodox instrumentation to realize some of the strangest and most evocative music of the period. With Book of Rhapsodies, Ghost Train Orchestra travels ten years ahead from Hothouse Stomp to tackle Brian Carpenter's new rearrangements of late 1930s chamber jazz by four seminal bandleader/composers: Alec Wilder, John Kirby, Raymond Scott, and Reginald Foresythe.

The Ghost Train Orchestra's debut album Hothouse Stomp  listed on several 2011 top ten lists: NPR, New York Jazz Record, Boston Globe, JazzTimes, The Sound Room, and Stereophile Magazine. Brian Carpenter was featured on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross and the album reached the top 10 of the Billboard Jazz charts. Downbeat Magazine raved "Carpenter and his little big band don't just recreate musical museum pieces; they breathe fire and life into this amazing musicŠthe only thing better than hearing this recording would be seeing the band live."

The Ghost Train Orchestra was formed in 2006 after Carpenter was selected as the musical director for an event marking the 90th anniversary of the historic Regent Theater in Arlington, MA. Since then the band has performed regularly in New York City, home of all its members except the leader, a Boston resident. Book of Rhapsodies was recorded at Brooklyn Recording Studio after a string of monthly shows at Brooklyn's colorful Jalopy Theater. Carpenter rearranged the music for orchestra, adding strings, low brass, guitar, and a six-member choir featuring members of the Philip Glass/Robert Wilson opera Einstein on the Beach. Acclaimed artist Noah Woods created the cover and booklet artwork inspired by the strange and descriptive song titles of the original composers.

In 2001, Carpenter moved to Boston to direct a film documentary on the life and legacy of Albert Ayler. He subsequently founded the sprawling Boston-based band Beat Circus and composed an acclaimed "Weird American Gothic" trilogy of dark Americana albums. He also leads Brian Carpenter & the Confessions, whose music is primarily song-oriented, with Carpenter as lead singer and lyricist. He was recently commissioned by the Berkeley Repertory Theater in California as composer and lyricist for "true crime" musical The Barbary Coast, based on the book by Herbert Asbury. In addition, he produces radio programs on WZBC-FM at Boston College, including recent documentaries on Sam Rivers, Raymond Scott, and film sound design. His Ghost Train Orchestra features an outstanding roster of talent: alto saxophonist Andy Laster (Satoko Fujii), clarinetist Dennis Lichtman (Mona's Hot Four, Nation Beat), tenor saxophonist Petr Cancura (Joe Morris), trombonist Curtis Hasselbring (Ballin' the Jack), tubist Ron Caswell (Slavic Soul Party), violinist Mazz Swift (Burnt Sugar), guitarist Avi Bortnick (John Scofield), bassist Michael Bates, and drummer Rob Garcia (Joseph Jarman, Vince Giordano).

Book of Rhapsodies will be released on October 8, 2013.