Brad Hoyt originally conceived of his ambitious new
album, Far Away from Everyday, as a logical expansion of his 2009 Together
Alone debut for the Harp Guitar Music label. He wanted to explore the harp
guitar's role in various ensemble settings and planned to build on the earlier
album's piano/harp guitar duet format by adding new instruments, inviting
players he'd admired, been inspired by, and occasionally performed with over
the years.
The
result is "most often a sort of 'chamber jazz' -- a unique blend of
meticulously written arrangements and wild improvisation," says
co-producer (and Harp Guitar Music label head) Gregg Miner. Harp Guitar Music
will release the new CD on December 3.
Three
years in the making, Far Away from Everyday boasts 14 original tunes and 30
musicians from around the world, including such notables as Nashville-based
harp guitarist Muriel Anderson, the first woman to win the National Fingerstyle
Guitar Championship; recent ASCAP Golden Note Award honoree Phil Keaggy,
guitar; bassist Michael Manring; and Czech violinist Tomás Mach. Hoyt himself
plays a variety of instruments including various incarnations of the piano and
his one-of-a-kind 30-string harp guitar.
Chicagoan
Howard Levy, who has written and performed harmonica concertos and was a
founding member of Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, was one of the first
musicians Hoyt asked to appear on the new CD. Levy agreed to listen to Hoyt's
music, liked what he heard, and a few months later contributed to five tracks. Jeff
Coffin in turn was eager to record with Levy. They play together on two songs:
"The Relative Sea," featuring Coffin on soprano saxophone and Antoine
Dufour on harp guitar, and "Alternate Timeline," with Coffin on flute
and Mike Doolin on his own "Doolin" harp guitar.
The
album, Hoyt's third following Histories, a collection of music he recorded
between 1990 and 2002, and the aforementioned Together Alone, lives up to its
title with a unique blend of gypsy jazz, atmospheric soundscapes,
Viennese-flavored reflections, and "funked-up acoustic music" (as
Gregg Miner describes it). All of the music is carried by strong melodies that
in many cases once had lyrics attached to them. They take on new life here.
Brad Hoyt, 42, was born and raised in
Muncie, Indiana. As a Ball State University undergrad, he took lessons in both
classical guitar and jazz piano and performed there in big bands and small
groups, with his own blues band, and as a solo. When he began experimenting
with plucked piano strings, he was so taken with the sound that he started
envisioning a fingerstyle string instrument on which he could imitate that
sound. A 12-string guitar or mandolin came close, but he preferred an
instrument meant to be played with the fingers instead of a pick. After
college, Hoyt moved to New York and freelanced. He had some of his music placed
in TV and film, including NBC's Today Show. He also performed at such venues as
the legendary CBGB's with the rock fusion group NightPeople. Three
years later, he got married and relocated to Colorado, where he continued to
write and record his compositions. In 1999, he and his wife Andrea moved to her
hometown of Prague, where they had their first child. While in Europe, he
recorded and performed with the group Art House, which he founded with bassist
Alexander Jurman.
In 2002,
massive flooding in the Czech capital led to Hoyt moving back to Indiana with
his family. (They currently reside in the Denver area.) He took with him a
renewed fascination in stringed instruments, and finding the "portable
plucked piano" he had in his head. Having
become taken with the harp guitar, a guitar-like instrument with a second tier
of open, non-fretted strings, he attended the 2004 International Harp Guitar
Gathering in Williamsburg, Va., hoping to find a luthier who could make the
model he envisioned. That man proved to be British harp guitar specialist
Stephen Sedgwick, who, through a gradual and painstaking process, worked with
Hoyt in introducing bold new features to the 10-string Brazilian folk guitar
that served as their starting point.
Dubbed
by Sedgwick the arpa viola caipira -- Portuguese for harp country guitar --
Hoyt's dream instrument featured 15 bass, fretted, and super-treble
double-courses totaling 30 strings. The more
Hoyt has defined himself as an artist, having immersed himself in the harp
guitar world, combined his fingerstyle and jazz influences, and designed his
own custom instrument, the more surprised he is at how little known the string
virtuosi he associates with are known by jazz's top players -- and vice versa.
With Far Away from Everyday, he continues his personal mission to break down
those walls.
Brad
Hoyt will be performing solo CD release shows in Denver at the Meadowlark Bar,
11/30, 9:00 pm; and at the Mercury Café, 12/13, 7:30 pm.
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