Chicago Trumpeter Emily Kuhn Releases 2nd Album 'Ghosts of Us'

Chicago-based trumpet player Emily Kuhn has made a name for herself as a composer and trumpeter with a distinctively lyrical voice. With her sophomore album, “Ghosts of Us,” she brings this lyricism to her quintet featuring some of Chicago’s most creative and dynamic improvisers: Erik Skov on guitar, Meghan Stagl on piano, Kitt Lyles on bass, and Gustavo Cortiñas on drums. The group relies on their strong foundation of musical trust to deftly navigate influences from jazz, rock, chamber music, and americana. 

Written during the Covid-19 pandemic and described by trumpeter Erol Tamerman as “sonorous and beautiful, unfurling in surprising ways, with full, delicious harmony,” the six songs on “Ghosts of Us” meditate on themes of stillness, connection, grief, and hope. The title track is eerie and expectant, born out of an early pandemic walk through deserted city streets. The album continues with a series of intimate, emotionally honest compositions: the cinematic ballad “When the World Is Young” is inspired by post-apocalyptic imagery and the writings of N.K. Jemisin and Octavia Butler, while “In Lieu of Certainty, Movement” reflects on the feeling of treading water and the discomfort of moving forward despite not knowing what’s coming next. These brooding tracks are balanced by the slow and thick, jazz-meets-shoegaze “Respire,” the fiery hard bop number “When It Rains,” and the album’s triumphant closer, “Home.” The compositions create space for the band to collectively shape the music and for textural elements to take center stage, creating an evocative collection that invites listeners to briefly be still and breathe.

“I wrote these songs during the COVID-19 pandemic - a minor apocalypse on a planetary scale, perhaps, but one with enormous reverberations into the lives of everyone living through it. The songs started out as personal meditations, as I walked through my eerily empty neighborhood. As they took shape I found common threads running through the music which felt larger than my own story: the breathless moments of stillness that follow a storm; the surprising grace we discover in each other in the midst of grief and anxiety; the hope that after the dust settles, we might still build a better world. 

I offer this music up with the hope that you find something in it that resonates with you, whether that be comfort, clarity, or simply space to breathe as the world spins around us.” – Emily Kuhn