The Andrew Schiller Quintet Releases "Sonoran"

Sonoran, available on Red Piano Records on October 25, is the second album from bassist/composer/bandleader Andrew Schiller featuring an adventurous quintet of like-minded musicians. The artist explores the limits of his unique writing style in this evocative nine-part suite, written as a contemplation of the Sonoran Desert landscape, a setting that he called home for most of his childhood. A diversely beautiful region located across the American Southwest and Northwestern Mexico, the area has historically and recently become subject to contentious debates on political borders. The desert, though, does not abide by man-made boundaries and drawing a line through the region, physically or figuratively, cannot break the connectedness of people and cultures sharing the same harsh and astonishing environment.

Sonoran is a cinematic suite embodying some of the unique elements of the desert-the blistering heat of an inescapable sun, the surreal mountain ranges with jagged rock formations, needled flora and venomous fauna, and hauntingly vast stretches of barren earth. The composition is built on contrasting and interlocking themes, bridged together by the exploratory improvised dialogue from members of the quintet. By experimenting with techniques in counterpoint, harmonic layering, and motivic development, Schiller blends jazz stylings with folk melodies, contemporary classical, third stream, and avant-garde.

The album's title track Sonoran simmers with an intertwining ostinato of alto saxophone and bass clarinet, introducing a swelling unison melody shared by tenor saxophone and arco bass. Tension increases gradually during the harmonic progression of the piece, and dissipates at the arrival of four sustained chords followed by a pause. An accelerated bass line introduces a flurry of full-group improvisation, which evolves into the piece's climax, a howling chant played together by three horns.

HARQUAHALA is a brief duet interlude, bridging together parts I and III of the suite. Andrew Schiller's tremolo double-stops in the upper register of the bass are layered with the sustained repetition of Hery Paz's bass clarinet, creating a ghostly ambience.

GAMBELII is named for the Gambel's quail, a ground-dwelling bird that scurries alongside its flock using extremely agile and well-choreographed movements. These frantic motions are set to music with a topsy-turvy three-horn melody, lined up with a polyrhythmic drum and bass groove. Solos by Ethan Helm (alto sax) and Tony Malaby (tenor sax) dart about with ease, dancing with the interactive drumming of Matt Honor. The party-feel of this piece eventually breaks down into a haphazard warble before fading away.

WESTERN THEME #1 (We Thought We Were Cowboys) is the first of three vignettes within the suite, each best conceptualized as Schiller's version of "cowboy folk songs." The first theme begins with a flowing three-horn arrangement of a lullaby-esque melody, unhindered by a metronomic pulse. As the trio of woodwinds fades away, Schiller begins a crawling, deliberate bass solo that intimately expands upon the themes of the piece before he is joined by the full ensemble for a restatement of the melody.

WET HAIR, DRY AIR is chamber music composition with shades of Maurice Ravel's "Bolero," featuring a rolling, but stately melody with dissonant, staccato woodwind interjections. The ebb and flow of the densely layered themes makes way for a virtuosic and expressive bass clarinet feature for Paz. Augmentations of some of the suite's earlier motifs serve as a backdrop throughout the development of the solo.

WESTERN THEME #2 develops slowly and highlights a richly layered ensemble. The reedy textures build upon an ascending theme, taking several pleasantly unexpected harmonic surprises, while Matt Honor's percussive contributions create a mystical atmosphere.

The frenzied pace of SHADE FOR SHELTER is intensified by the driving contrapuntal melodies between alto/tenor saxophones and bass clarinet/bass. Soloists Schiller (bass) and Ethan Helm (alto sax) are given space to express themselves, navigating a treacherous form emphasized by background ensemble interjections. The track closes with a drawn-out folk-inspired melody, derived from earlier material within the piece, played in unison between bass clarinet and arco bass.

WESTERN THEME #3 opens with a colorful array of cymbal work from Honor. The final vignette is a melancholy four-voice chorale with a simple folk melody, though the ensemble timbre and harmonic density give the piece an eerie quality. The main motif of this track is a foreshadowing of the final chapter of the suite.

The Sonoran Desert was the birthplace of Charles Mingus and THORNY FLORA is a nod to the great composer/bassist. This intervallic march gathers momentum throughout the opening statement of the contrapuntal melody, and Paz delivers an angular but narrative solo on bass clarinet. A fiercely animated tenor saxophone solo from Malaby elevates the energy of the ensemble, inspiring some raucous interplay from the rhythm section. In the track's denouement, the quintet reminisces on a modified adaptation of a theme from Part I until fading away.

A native of Phoenix, AZ, Andrew Schiller is currently residing in Brooklyn, NY. Schiller's attraction to music stems from junior high school where his friends urged him to pick up the bass guitar and join their punk rock band. While his musical tastes have evolved a lot since then, he still aspires to replicate the same gusto and fearlessness he had as a boy playing music in a friend's garage. Andrew has performed his music all over the world at venues like Cornelia Street Cafe and 55 Bar (NYC), the Jazz Showcase (Chicago), the Blue Whale (Los Angeles), the Panama Jazz Festival, and as a guest artist with the National Symphony of Paraguay in Asunción. Andrew was recognized in Downbeat Magazine in 2012 for his work as a soloist, was awarded the ASCAP Young Composers Award in 2014 and recognized again in 2019, and graduated with a Masters of Music degree from New England Conservatory in 2014.

Schiller's debut album, Tied Together, Not To The Ground, was released in May 2017 on Red Piano Records. It received critical acclaim, and like Sonoran, features an ambitious compositional style, blending jazz with contemporary classical, rock, and avant-garde influences. Schiller can also be seen/heard fronting two other NYC-based projects: JoggerKnot (a three-tenor saxophone quintet influenced by a love of 1960's tropicalia, angsty rock, and surf music) and the Filament Trio (an improvising sax/bass/drum trio that skirts the lines between cerebral and emotional).