Clean
Feed Records presents a Mastered for iTunes release of Epicenter, the new album
from bassist Chris Lightcap's Bigmouth.The Mastered for iTunes version is encoded from
24-bit / 96 khz high resolution masters and now re-mastered with iTunes in
mind, delivering the music to listeners exactly the way the artist and
recording engineer intended.
When
Chris Lightcap - a celebrated composer and bassist who has lent his huge sound,
propulsive groove and creative vision to a wide-ranging array of artists
including Marc Ribot, Regina Carter, Tomasz Stanko, Joe Morris and Matt Wilson
- first assembled his own group over ten years ago, he had no idea it would
develop into a viable entity. "I just put us all together to amuse myself
and see what would happen," he recollects. Four acclaimed albums and
countless sold-out shows later, Bigmouth has evolved into one of today's most
accomplished creative music ensembles.
Epicenter,
the band's much anticipated follow-up to 2010's Deluxe, a critically lauded
recording that was on twenty of the year's "best of" lists (including
the New York Times, NPR, and JazzTimes), was released on March 4, 2015 on Clean
Feed Records.
Bigmouth
features two profoundly original tenor saxophonists, Tony Malaby and Chris
Cheek, the multifaceted genius of keyboardist Craig Taborn, and the creative
powerhouse drumming of Gerald Cleaver. The band is, in effect, a
"supergroup" within the contemporary world of creative music. Despite
each member's outsize musical personality, together they create a cohesive
whole, resulting in grand collective statements of driving, ethereal beauty.
The
album has already garnered rave reviews.
Four
stars. "...A taste of Ornette-flavored drive... A characteristic of
Bigmouth's decades-old sound (their first album outing together since 2010's
Deluxe), the bassist's legwork helps shape and rework the contours of this
band. It's heads-up ball with enough flexibility to allow for some fun
free-roaming in and outside the unconventional heads." - John Ephland,
DownBeat
"By
and large his best [album], which is saying something... You could listen to
this album and fixate on the contrasting tenor styles: drier and more linear
for Mr. Cheek, harder and blurrier for Mr. Malaby. But these musicians all have
endless history together, and their total cohesion, with its earthy elasticity,
feels like the larger point." - Nate Chinen, New York Times
"Bassist
Chris Lightcap has arrived at something distinctive as a composer, leading a
band with two tenor saxophones to summon big legato melodies full of tension
and yearning... Lightcap's deft, imaginative use of the musical canvas hints at
still more intriguing things to come." - David R. Adler, New York City
Jazz Record
Lightcap
was recently awarded a prestigious Chamber Music America New Jazz Works grant,
which commissioned the original compositions featured on Epicenter. He wrote
pieces inspired by various touchstones and cultural landmarks of his adopted
home, New York City. Drawing on his love of West African music, classic pop
hooks and great composers across the entire spectrum of jazz, Lightcap creates
memorable melodies and harmonic landscapes for the group to delve into.
Beginning with the driving declaratory statements of "Nine South,"
Lightcap sets a musical landscape that reflects the city's most sublime,
strange, and sometimes frightening elements. From the hard-swinging freedom of
the title track to the ambient interwoven layers of "White Horse" to
the off-kilter groove and slow build of "Stillwell," Lightcap's music
displays the breadth of his unique compositional vision.
Although
the members of Bigmouth are very busy working with dozens of other artists,
each manages to carve out time to perform with the band on a regular basis.
Lightcap adds, "I'm so happy that everyone has remained enthusiastic about
the group. Every time we get together, they show up ready to engage, support
each other, throw down, and deliver the goods. We never know how it's going to
turn out but it's always a great journey."
Capping
off the album is a raucous take on Lou Reed's "All Tomorrow's
Parties," originally heard on the groundbreaking, 1967 New York rock
classic Velvet Underground & Nico. Bigmouth's rendition of this song was
one of the most talked about highlights of the 2014 New York Winter Jazz Fest.
As Evan Haga wrote in his JazzTimes review, the song "hit the spot for
this festival. It was jazz, it was bohemian pop and it was New York City to the
bone."
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