New
World Records proudly announces the release of A Trumpet in the Morning, the
new recording from saxophonist/composer Marty Ehrlich, and the first
documentation devoted to the stalwart NYC artist's large ensemble compositions.
A Trumpet in the Morning (named for a poem by Arthur Brown, 1948-1982) is a
tour-de-force, showcasing the best of Ehrlich's many metieres that have marked
his success as an instrumentalist, composer and bandleader for more than three
decades. Strong melodic invention prevails alongside a keen ear for
instrumental color, a multi-genre, multi-disciplinary approach, and, "an
unblinking yet ultimately affirmative insistence on connecting his music with
realities both historic and contemporary", said noted writer Bob Blumenthal
(from the album's liner notes).
Marty
Ehrlich, born in St. Paul, Minnesota on May 31, 1955, raised in Louisville,
Kentucky and St. Louis, Missouri, and residing in New York City since 1978, is
in the midst of celebrating thirty-five years of distinguished work at the
epicenter of creative and improvised music. In many ways, these years of
cultivating his creativity and individuality has led Mr. Ehrlich to the
creation of A Trumpet in the Morning. Bob Blumenthal explains, "His family
moved to University City, Missouri, a suburb in the process of becoming St.
Louis' first multi-racial community, rich with artists and progressive
political thought. The environment was ideal for nurturing Ehrlich's creative
talents, and as a teenager he began writing poetry and continued clarinet
studies with members of the St. Louis Symphony. A weekend arts program brought
him into contact with the musicians, painters and poets who formed the Black
Artists Group (BAG), an interdisciplinary collective similar in intent to
Chicago's Association for the Advancement of Creative Music (AACM). The
influence of BAG members Julius Hemphill, Oliver Lake and J.D. Parran led
Ehrlich to begin focusing on studying the saxophone and to immerse himself in
both the traditions and the innovations of improvised music."
"One
of the great things about meeting the BAG guys was being urged to learn the
history of the music," Ehrlich emphasizes. "It made me much more of a
polyglot." The encounter also instilled a philosophy that has informed all
of his work. "I call myself a pan-stylist who doesn't believe in musical
styles," he explains. "My inspirations are often conceptual rather
than `styles' I'm trying to write in. I reject the notion, especially in jazz,
that there is only one language to use, and my music is not a comment on style.
I like the resonance of contrasting sections, and will use musical style for
contrast, but from the inside."
Ehrlich
graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music and hit the NYC scene
running in the late seventies, with many bandleaders seaking him out for the
uncommon range and consistency of his work on various clarinets, saxophones and
flutes. He quickly became a valued member of ensembles led by AACM luminaries
Muhal Richard Abrams, Anthony Braxton, Leroy Jenkins, Roscoe Mitchell and
Wadada Leo Smith as well as his former teachers from The NEC, Jaki Byard and
George Russell. Ehrlich found himself shoulder to shoulder with some of the
period's most innovative figures, gaining valuable experience that provided
insights into leading a large ensemble, which later influenced his approach to
the music on A Trumpet in the Morning. Ehrlich has also composed extensively
for his many small ensembles, such as Traveler's Tales, the Dark Woods
Ensemble, Relativity (with Michael Formanek & Peter Erskine), C/D/E (with
Mark Dresser & drummer Andrew Cyrille), Rites Quartet and The Marty Erhlich
Sextet.
"A
real difference between this recording and my previous albums is that I'm
conducting and producing rather than playing," Ehrlich said. "This
was partly practical, since there was a lot to get through in the studio, but
it also seemed right for this music. On my first European tour, with Anthony
Braxton in 1978, he just conducted, because he said the music needed someone
outside of it to give it shape. George Russell and Muhal Richard Abrams are
other great composers who also took this approach. Another thing that impressed
me about Anthony on that first tour was how hard he listened to everybody else.
I saw a similar role here: to listen and bring out certain things, to maximize
the creativity in the room."
"Ehrlich
has written pieces for larger ensembles including the New York Composers
Orchestra, his most ambitious documented opus prior to the present collection
was The Long View, created in 2000 in collaboration with painter Oliver
Jackson. The various movements of that work were scored for between two and 14
musicians. Here, in contrast, the canvas remains large, though again it is
mutable. Most of the twenty-four musicians involved have extensive histories
with Ehrlich, who emphasizes that such personnel choices as the use of two
rhythm sections were made, 'to enlist their individual approaches in giving the
recording an even wider palette.' He also says that the recording realizes 'an
inner compulsion to reveal the relationships among the pieces, the majority of
which were written in the past decade and are long-form and multi-sectional.
They share an intention, and are really my own music.' (from the album's liner
notes by Bob Blumenthal)
About
the music on A Trumpet in the Morning:
"Agbekor
Translations" (2012) was written for collaboration between the Hampshire
College Jazz Improvisers Orchestra, which Ehrlich directs, and the Mt. Holyoke
College West African Drumming Ensemble. Ehrlich based the piece upon six
interlocking rhythms from the agbekor dance performed by the Ewe people of
Ghana. Each rhythm provided a basis for a melody, which Ehrlich then spread
throughout the orchestra.
"A
Trumpet in the Morning", commissioned by the Sound Vision Orchestra in
2004, is a setting of a poem by Arthur Brown (1947-1982) whose work was a
seminal voice in the creative renaissance centered around the Black Artist
Group of St. Louis, MO, where Ehrlich began his musical journey. "This musical work is written as a
concerto for my long-time colleague J.D. Parran, who takes on the role of
narrator and primary improviser (featured on soprano and bass saxophones). The
music aims to refract the celebratory imagery of the poem, and to create a
range of sound worlds for the poem to be read in," said Ehrlich.
"Writing poetry made me want to be an artist even before I decided to
pursue music," the artist emphasizes, "and I've been aware of this
poem since I was quite young. I didn't know Arthur Brown-he wasn't a joiner,
and never became part of the BAG-but I heard him read the poem once, and he was
a good friend of J.D.'s. Some of my earliest musical experiences were playing
to accompany poetry, roots I share with J.D. "
"Blues
for Peace" is a Jazz Orchestra work that asks just that. It moves from a riff
driven funk-rock, to an extended blues form in 9/8 rhythm, before returning to
its opening feel, and a reflective conclusion. "Like several of my pieces,
this is in the long tradition of taking the basic blues sensibility and
stretching out the form in one way or another," Ehrlich says. "It
didn't really work as part of the original `Rundowns,' but orchestrating it
made all of the difference. The nine beats are counted 'Taki-Taki-Taki-Gamela'
to use the helpful phrases Karl Berger teaches. "
"Rundowns
and Turnbacks" takes a phrase used to describe Robert Johnson's guitar
artistry, as a metaphor to look at possibilities in American life through a
multi-stylistic musical prism. Each movement has a different orchestration, and
each evokes themes both political and personal for Ehrlich.
"M
Variations (Melody for Madeleine)" was originally composed for The New
York Composer's Orchestra, and is the only piece on the recording not written
in the last decade. It is in many ways a piano concerto, with composed sections
for piano in the beginning, middle, and end of the piece. It reimagines a theme
I wrote for my Traveler's Tales group, for my then young daughter. In this
version, the melody is passed between the voices of the orchestra. Before the
solo piano conclusion, the piece collages the melodic material over a circular
bass line. Uri Caine is the dynamic
interpreter and piano soloist here", said Ehrlich.
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